I have been very fortunate in my time that I have had a very cosmopolitan working life, having had colleagues from all over the globe. I can state with some gravity that I have never encountered an Australian I didn’t like, and having lived in a country that’s full of them when I was in Canberra, it’s no mean feat not to have fallen over one unfavourable example. Of course, Canberra is not like the rest of Australia as it is a false environment built for government purposes, but still.
From 2000 forwards, I found myself increasingly in the presence of South Africans, lots of whom were emigrating from the homeland as the situation deteriorated both economically and socially. Many had played their trump card of British passport qualification through immigrant grandparents or other circumstances of ancestry. But also many were Afrikaners and black Africans who didn’t have that convenient way to leave but still wanted to take their experiences for better rewards abroad.
To a man and woman I have found them, despite the famous “Spitting Image” song, polite, good humoured and great fun to be with. Also to a man and woman, they remain convinced that it was South Africans that came up with the idea of cooking outside. The braaivleis (Afrikaans meaning roasted meat) is a cultural custom on a par with rugby and diamonds.
In the past, people would hike into the veld, hunt down antelope such as springbok, eland or Cape buffalo for the larger party. They’d shoot it, skin and butcher it, dig a pit and build a fire and cook the animal carcass, usually whole. They cannot do that very easily any longer as the game is rather better protected and hunting is strictly licensed, but the custom of the braai remains as a pivotal social event which no summer party of any size is complete without.
Australians are just as convinced that they thought up the idea through the barbeque. Although the hunting part is mostly missing, and made difficulty by not being as varied as in the South African tradition. Kangaroos are very tasty but extremely hard and time consuming to get the meat right (it has to hang for at least two weeks which rather loses the element of spontaneity) and most other possibilities are too small (possums), cute (koalas, wombats), inedible (dingoes, platypus) or too lethal (practically all other wildlife on the continent) to contemplate, the Aussies take enormous pride in the outdoor tradition.
Here, we don’t have wildlife hunting and eating but we can still make the best of the barbeque, and in recent years the equipment available has got better out of all proportion. For example we have manufacturers such as Weber bbq who produce Weber gas grills which help remove the randomness of building an old fashioned fire and replace it with reliability and the ability to use the equipment in all weathers should the need arise.
Some of the Weber gas grills now come with easy portability which means that you can transport them with you on a excursion out to the beach or picnic which further removes the annoyance of burnt coals being left behind on the picnic spot which is a normal hazard of the disposable barbecue or lightweight charcoal burners.
Of course the colonials can row and have their beliefs over the origins of the invention, but in the era of the Mongol empire, as Genghis Khan ran amok throughout the known world of antiquity, his armies did not have a Weber bbq so instead they used to cook on upturned shields over an open fire and cook their meat on there, and so probably have the better claim overall.
0 Comments.