Food in South Africa

Meals here are not that different than at home when it comes to logistics and planning. Our meal times are generally at the same times as breakfast, lunch, and dinner at home in The United States. However, what I have realized is the fact that snacks are not as popular in South Africa as they are in the U.S. It seems that most people have their scheduled formal meals and don’t need or want anything else. We almost always eat in groups, however the group size changes on a meal to meal basis. Portion sizes also do not seem to greatly differ from American portions, which actually surprised me. Some of the table etiquette also surprised me. On many occasions we have all eaten from the same plate, and sometimes using just our hands. At home we do this with snack food like french fries, chips, etc. However, here we have eaten entire meals, which in American standards would need utensils, by hand and off of one plate. While it caught me off guard art first, this experience showed me how bounds are formed over food, and how it is seen as a personal and social experience here.
Each day we have breakfast provided at our residency, however we almost always go out to eat for lunch and dinner. While I normally don’t eat out so much, this has allowed me to try a lot of different kinds of food, and in effect has taught me a lot about different cultures. One of the South African traditional meals we’ve had is paap and chakalaka. Paap is a carb that is between mashed potatoes and grits and chakalaka contains beans and other vegetables, falling between baked beans and a bean salad. They are often served together and eaten by hand as a family, which has allowed our group to bound over food in ways we didn’t expect.