Umhlanga Rocks Holidays

Durban has the largest Indian community outside of India and the culture and tastes have had a huge influence on the local cuisine. At Victoria Street Spice Market, each guest is given a dabba – a dish for collecting their own spices. Back at the hotel, the chef will talk through each dabba and recommend a dish to enhance those particular flavours. They will explain how to store and cook the ingredients and talk them through a recipe. The aim is for participants to be able to cook it at home and be reminded of their time in Durban.

This tour is a real showcase for local heritage. Durban has the largest Indian community outside of India and the culture and tastes have had a huge influence on the local cuisine. South Africa is known as a melting pot – in this region they’ve melted more into the pot than anyone else.

When you eat an Indian dish, like masala for example, you are tasting a personal recipe. In Indian culture they have a saying, ‘no-one cooks as well as your mother,’ and that’s because it’s all down to personal preference. You mix and match from the raw ingredients – a pinch more garam masala; less of the fennel and so on. At Victoria Street Spice Market, each guest is given a dabba – a dish for collecting their own spices.

In South Africa, Indian cuisine grew from three key ingredients: chilli, tomatoes and coriander – foods that suited the climate and could be grown, in secret, between the rows of cane on Natal’s sugar plantation. Dishes including the Durban lamb curry and a delicious prawn and chicken combination, evolved here. Across South Africa you’ll also find bunny chow, a meat stew inside a ‘bowl’ of bread, mielies (sweet corn) cooked on the grill and tossed in masala butter, samosas and chilli bites, a type of dumpling made from chickpea flour, spices and finely chopped chilli ground into butter. You will get to taste some of these snacks on this tour.

Back at the hotel, the chef will talk through each dabba and recommend a dish to enhance those particular flavours. They will explain how to store and cook the ingredients and talk them through a recipe. The aim is for participants to be able to cook it at home and be reminded of their time in Durban.