South African food

Hello!

I have been meaning to sit down and write up my impressions of Cape Town, but the ship had kept me super busy. I managed to get two travel days - a visit to the Table Mountain and Botanical Gardens during my first day here and a drive to Cape of Good Hope on the second. I covered those days already in terms of sights visited. Today I will talk a little about food.

The only touristy thing that I managed to do after the work on the ship started was visit a couple of very touristy restaurants at the Waterfront. I was mainly interested in local dishes.

This dish is called bobotie, it is from Cape Malay. There is minced beef in curry that is covered with egg-based topping and baked. Served with rice and a couple of sweet sauces to mellow the spicy beef taste. I really enjoyed it.

This is a carpaccio (raw meat) dish of exotic animals: ostrich, crocodile and springbok. I liked crocodile the best.

I am going to miss this variety of exotic food at hand, summer fruits and the craziness of people shopping for Christmas gifts at the mall...

***

We are scheduled to leave port tomorrow, our meal schedule and structure is identical to what my grandfather journaled about in 1959; I mean the timings of all meals are exactly the same:

1959

Судовые порядки строги и целесообразны. 

Подъем в 07:00 по-местному (судовому) времени. 

С 7:30 до 8:30 - завтрак (это обычно вволю свежего чудесного хлеба с маслом и чем-либо ещё вроде сыра или колбасы и сколько хочешь сладкого чая или кофе).

Обед с 11:30 до 12:30. Пища очень вкусная и сытная.  Первое - от пуза, второе – мясное или рыбное обязательно, третье – фрукты.

В 15:30 до 16 30 – чай, опять же с обилием хлеба с маслом.

А в 19:30 – 20:30 уже ужин. Это по существу второй обед из трёх блюд и опять сколько хочешь супа или щей.

2016-2017

This is the planned timing of meals for the ACE expedition:

Breakfast: 7:30 – 8:30; Lunch: 11:30 – 12:30; Tea: 15:30-16:30; Dinner 19:30 – 20:30 

Hot water, tea, instant coffee, sweets will be provided around the clock in the room outside the mess. 

Some things just never change I guess ;)

The food is plentiful, but not exotic and according to my grandfather's journal it gets too repetitive too soon. The quote above was made early on, Vitaly's later comments referred to being rather bored with food and wishing for something different...

I am going to miss that crocodile meat I tried at Cape Town Waterfront!