tom parker bowles::Get in touch with your inner neanderthal with a south african braai despite our best efforts at the merest glimpse of sun, britain will never be a true barbecue nation-tom parker bowles

tom parker bowles::Get in touch with your inner neanderthal with a south african braai despite our best efforts at the merest glimpse of sun, britain will never be a true barbecue nation.
Rather than gambolling in the garden, our kitchen culture sits around the hearth.
This is, of course, dictated by climate rather than inclination.
We see the barbecue as al fresco entertainment, like hiking or bearbaiting, rather than a cooking process in its own right.
The great barbecue nations have endless sun and space and, equally important, a worldclass beach volleyball team.
For without a national quartet of bronzed, blond, hard bodies lithely grunting in the sand, you are nothing in barbecue terms.
While australia, america and south africa battle it out on the beaches of the world, we make do with bowls.
This is not criticism, just basic fact.
In the barbecue world, though, national pride can easily change to nationalism, with each country vehemently claiming the barbecue crown as its own.
I imagined grizzled old afrikaners chewing kudu biltong while hewing down mighty boughs for their fire, gruffly tending the coals and keeping the secrets of the braai safe for the next generation.
The modern braai, though, was born from necessity.
The voortrekkers were dutch and huguenot settlers, who fought their way through the bush to find a new home, and meat cooked over an open fire was their only option.
The official line, backed up by documentary evidence, is that spit roasts were first found at country fairs in the mid17th century, before the voortrekkers then took them all around the country, where they evolved into plain grilling.
This is certainly the story of how braai became popular with these european invaders.
Whatever the truth, braai is as firmly embedded in south african culture as the sunday roast is in ours.
Matthew fort, the food writer and critic, has years of experience spent around the braai.
But they certainly know how to use it.
But there are lots of regional variations in the country, depending on where you are.
We used to go camping and only do braais with the fish we caught.
Braai is a national obsession, certainly, and the average standard is high.
But is it any better than or different to its rivals?
But before i leave, i ask groenewald if she feels that braai is the best in the world.