Interviewer: In this video, we have included a handout
that goes over how to build a plate in South Africa
along with a list of signature dishes.
Make sure to download your own handout below.
Secondly, we'll be featuring one of our student athletes
who will be sharing some of her food experiences
while studying abroad in South Africa.
-: I'm Mikayla Hinkle.
I went to South Africa in 2017 and I'm a swimming dive team.
And I'm also a senior.
Interviewer: Perfect.
So is there any cuisine or foodie advice
for individuals traveling to South Africa?
-: I mean the South Africa has
a lot of like good options for food,
but in case like you want to branch out a little bit
from your normal routine,
I would suggest finding your other foodies on your trip
and making sure you buy like a bunch of different dishes
and try as many things as you can,
because there's so many different types of cuisine that
South Africa has that we don't.
But there's also a lot of things, dishes that they do have,
but they're slightly different.
So I would highly recommend you try as many things as you
can while you're there.
Interviewer: Was there any food you packed along
with you to South Africa and if so, what did you bring?
-: I bought a lot of energy bars and they have,
I also bought energy balls when I was there
and some individual packets of peanut butter.
What else did I bring?
I think I bought some like dried fruit,
but for the most part, like they have very similar cuisine.
Like I said, the grocery store is pretty laid out,
like the same as the, as in America.
So you won't really go hungry
and you don't really need to bring a lot
while you're there either.
Interviewer: What was your favorite dish in South Africa?
-: My favorite dish in South Africa,
they had this dish where it's kind of like
unkerneled corn I think, like maize with beans it's called,
I don't know how to say it,
but it's like stomping beans they call it.
That was my favorite dish.
I'm also gluten-free but from what I've heard,
there's this thing called (speaking in foreign language)
it's basically fried dough
and it's called translates to fat cook
and it's supposed to be the greatest thing ever.
So I would highly recommend that if you have no allergies
or intolerances,
so try on (speaks in foreign language) if you can.
Interviewer: What is the typical breakfast?
And can you describe it?
-: So a typical breakfast,
at least when we were in South Africa,
everyone kind of made their own breakfast.
We would typically have like muesli, oatmeal,
eggs, toast for the most part.
And everyone kinda of pack it
while they were there in the morning
before we would head off to camp in the morning.
Interviewer: And then what about lunch?
-: For lunch We'd kind of do the same thing.
So since we would be onsite teaching a sports camp,
we would pack then our lunches the night before
or breakfast.
And we would usually do just like sandwiches or salads
or whatever leftovers we had.
So it was kinda just like,
kind of like on the go grab your lunch
and ready to go for the day.
Interviewer: And then dinner?
So dinner we were fortunate enough
that one of the ladies in the
township was actually cooking all of our meals
and they were absolutely amazing.
So we had the calendar with all of our meals planned out
and there was a lot of traditional dishes
that she made for us,
but also like a lot of American dishes.
So like we had like lasagna and pizza.
They're really into Brie,
which is basically just like barbecue.
So we had a lot of like,
like Turkey burgers and things like that.
So I don't think there was any,
there was no problems in terms of if you had the dietary
restrictions, so like dairy free, gluten free
or any other things that like you didn't like,
there was always something available.
And then if you didn't like anything at dinner,
you could always make like a sandwich.
But for the most part,
like highly recommend all the food that she made.
She was amazing cook. So try it all.
If you can.
Interviewer: What was the most adventurous
food you tried?
-: So one of the nights we went out
to a restaurant in Cape Town
and they had ox tongue and they had crickets
and they had Springbok,
which is kind of like a deer, I guess.
So I luckily was able to do that
with all of my other teammates on the trip
and we all kind of tried everyone's dishes.
So I would say those are the most adventurous thing
that I've tried.
Interviewer: And then can you share with me any food,
cultural differences in comparison to the US
-: I would say like, for the most part,
like they ate at typically like normal at times,
but one thing that we always did every night was after
everyone had dinner, we would have like,
we didn't really have dessert, but we have rusks,
which are basically,
they're kind of like the Scotty
that are kind of like little, I don't know,
square pieces that people would dip into
their coffee or tea.
I couldn't unfortunately have any of those,
but they smelled amazing, looked amazing,
so highly recommend those as well.
Try some rusks if you can.
Interviewer: Perfect, thank you.