#capemalay

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Our Bo-Kaap guide brought us to Atlas Trading Company, a local grocery store packed with herbs/spices of all colors and scrumptious smells of Middle Eastern cooking. She told us dozens of remedies, what every spice can cure, and the ingredients to make a traditional Cape Malay curry. We got to sample some snacks packed with flavor. I was inspired to come back and test these spices out in the kitchen. 

To finish off our tour of Bo-Kaap, a smaller group of us took a cooking class in a local’s home! Shaamiela is a friend of Remote Year, and we were welcomed into her home with warm smiles and delicious smells.

Shaamiela was born and raised in Bo-Kaap and her family was an initiate part of painting the houses all their different colours. She was a teacher at the local Bo-Kaap school for many years and then went on to become the Principal of the school for many more years and is now retired. Shaamiela welcomes tour groups into her house regularly for this intimate cooking experience! We will be making an array of traditional Cape Malay dishes - so come hungry. -RY

Shaamiela’s Cape Malay Chicken Curry consists of chicken, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, garlic, ginger, coriander, cumin, crushed chilies, and chili powder (I won’t give out her recipe but will try to recreate it for you if you ask! :) ). We watched her mix the ingredients into a delicious curry, and also learned to make roti bread and vegetable samosas (I folded the ones pictured, pretty good eh?!). Lunch was delicious, and ended with a traditional Cape Malay dessert, the koeksister (fried dough with glaze), which Shaamiela told us is usually eaten on Sundays with a cup of coffee. Yum! 

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The Bo-Kaap neighborhood, one of Cape Town’s most iconic areas, is just a few blocks away from my apartment. Originally known as the Malay Quarter, Bo-Kaap was home to slaves from India, Malaysia and the rest of Africa in the 1760s-- these people were known as the Cape Malays, enslaved by the Dutch for skilled labor. To this day the neighborhood remains the epicenter of Cape Town’s Muslim population, home to South Africa’s first mosque, the Auwal Masjid. The bright colors of the homes are an expression of freedom once the slaves were allowed to own the properties.