In Realize, our cooperative dedicated to innovation and launching new businesses, we have been working on a proposal in collaboration with entities from South Africa (Foundation for Save South Africa), Portugal (Positive Benefits) and Mozambique (Girls Move Foundation and JLS Agricola) in order to economically boost Mozambique together with the La Caixa Foundation. The proposal that we launched in July has been selected as finalist, so La Caixa invited us to defend our proposal directly in Maputo, capital of Mozambique. In this way, in mid-October, we were working first in Johannesburg and later in Maputo in order to try to convince La Caixa that we were an innovative proposal, different, and very linked to the people of Mozambique.
But let's go to what matters ... what kind of cuisine can we find in those lands? I had the great good fortune to count as a guide and traveling companion to Schalk Van Heerden, an authentic Afrikaner with ancestors in South Africa who go back more than 300 years! In addition to seeing all kinds of animals live and very closely (lions, elephants, rhinos ...) it was a real luxury to enjoy the grilled meat that Schalk prepared every night ... meat of good quality and really economic. We bought pieces of about 2 kilos of sirloin steak at € 8 / kg in supermarkets !!
And what about the huge steaks that we could enjoy ...
However, the most interesting thing that Schalk taught us was a traditional Afrikaner sandwich that is prepared on the grill: it is called Breei Broodgie (pronounced something like "braibrouky"). It's a simple butter sandwich, a kind of peach jam, onion, tomato, cheddar cheese ... and barbecue! I must admit that when Schalk asked me to help him prepare it the first time I thought: what a nonsense sandwich ... but on the grill it is tremendously tasty and crunchy !!
And another gastronomic element closely linked to the identity of Afrikaners ... it is a dry meat called "billtong" and we could say that it is the official Afrikaner traditional food ...
As for Mozambique, the truth is that Maputo is a quite nice capital for living ... and has some charming restaurants, where seafood is very cheap (clams, prawns, lobster ...). See my friends Schalk and Nuno in the fancy restaurant called Dhow Mozambique.
Difficult to pay more than € 15 ... can not say the same about wines, which are very expensive (despite having South African wines just a few kilometers)
See photos from Ocean Maputo restaurant...
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For today enough ... I'm writing on a plane back from Brno, you know, a lot of "pivo & coleno" (beer & pork knuckle).
What good memories. Good food and good company goes together.
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