South African food is a braai (wood fire grill) culture surrounded by extraordinary ingredients and complicated by the country's history in ways that make the food conversation inseparable from the social one. The braai — boerewors (beef and spice coil sausage), sosaties (lamb kebabs with apricot marinade), lamb chops, and pap (maize porridge) — is not a cooking method but a social event format that crosses most South African cultural lines. Cape Malay cuisine, the legacy of enslaved and indentured people brought to the Cape from across the Indian Ocean, produces bobotie (spiced minced meat with egg custard topping), koeksisters (syrup-soaked plaited doughnuts), and bredies (slow-cooked lamb and vegetable stews) that represent the most distinctive strand of South African cooking. Biltong (dried, spiced game or beef) and droëwors (dried sausage) are the national snacks. The Stellenbosch and Franschhoek wine routes produce Pinotage, Chenin Blanc, and Bordeaux blends of international standing. It really hits differently.