Biltong comes in so many different meats, flavours and types that every kind of South African can identify with it, and is probably why we eat the stuff by the truckload. But is biltong the perfect food for everybody?
Deciding to test this theory, SA Promo designer Thomas and I grabbed a camera, a few packs of biltong (kindly supplied by Metro Express in South Wimbledon) and hit the streets of London on a fact-finding mission to find out just what the British think of biltong. Armed with a minute-long sales pitch and a hastily-scrawled list of British stereotypes, we left the office. Read on and discover the bona fide responses we received from stopping the British public in the street to give them biltong.
JAMES HOPKINS
Location: Wimbledon
Age: 25
Rating: 8/10
Flavour: Peri Peri
Uhm, yeah. Obviously it’s chewy, it’s good, uhm, bit too drastic to send home as a present, my folks don’t ike meaty products. It’s nice, a nice snack. Would probably be good to eat while watching sport on the telly. Where do I buy it?
DAVID HARDING
Location: River Wandle
Age: 23
Rating: 7/10
Flavour: Peri Peri
Pop the whole thing in my mouth, yeah? Good Lord what is this stuff? Do I chew this? Actually, it’s alright bruv! Yeah mate! I wonder if my fish will take it? Bit salty, innit? Bit chewy too. Tastes nice mate, tastes nice!
MONICA JACKONIGHT
Location: Tooting Broadway
Age: 16
Rating: 4/10
Flavour: Garlic Crack Pepper
(Monica makes noises of disgust, and spits the biltong out) It tastes like it’s not been cooked! What do you mean it hasn’t been cooked? I don’t like it at all. It’s too salty. What kind of meat is this? No, I don’t like this stuff. It’s raw!
MILES CLARKE
Location: Tooting Broadway
Age: 17
Rating: 7/10
Flavour: Garlic Crack Pepper
Put my hoody on, why? (He spits the biltong out after tasting it) I didn’t really give it a try, it’s not really my type of food. This must be some kind of cultural thing. Give me another piece. Wait, this tastes a little better! It’s pretty good innit?
CRAIG FREEDMAN
Location: Colliers Wood
Age: 28
Rating: 8/10
Flavour: Peri Peri
Bloody chewy, this. I like it though. Problem with this stuff is you have to hand out toothpicks with it yeah? I wonder if me Nan would approve of this… then again… probably not! But it’s still nice stuff I tell you. Bloody chewy!
SUSAN FAY
Location: Colliers Wood
Age: 33
Rating: 8/10
Flavour: Original Beef
Yummy! What flavour is this? Original beef? Let’s have a look at those other flavours then. Ostrich? Bloody hell, who would’ve thought. I like it a lot though, salty snacks are great. Can I have another piece please? Where do I get some?
DAVID CARTWRIGHT
Location: South Wimbledon
Age: 45
Rating: 9/10
Flavour: Original Beef
What’s this then? Well, it’s moister than jerky. Not spicier than jerky though. Very meaty, wouldn’t give any to my family, considering that I’m the only member of my family that still has teeth! Great taste though. Is this popular in South Africa?
UNKNOWN
We wanted to ask a local vagrant his opinion on our most precious of foodstuffs. We hoped he wouldn’t get angry with us. But he did, unfortunately resulting in him not liking the idea of tasting the biltong, and running us through his father’s exploits in World War I. He then explained that he had every right to remain on his bench, and still allowed us to snap a picture of him before taking a sip from his can of White Lightning and parking off for a little mid-morning snooze.
What we learned from this exercise is that people who sell face-to-face on London streets have a very difficult job. We received feeble excuses like ‘I’ve just eaten’ and ‘I don’t have much taste’, and incoherent mumblings from a hooded youngster who stared at us crazily with pupils the size of a giant squid’s. One positively clear fact derived from our day’s shenanigans, is that biltong has a world-class flavour, with 80% of the people we stopped to interview saying they’d try it again.
So bless the hearts of those wagon-bound Dutch trekkers who invented biltong as a means of preserving large amounts of meat for durability and long life. They inadvertently created a culturally celebrated staple that tastes good enough for even other cultures to appreciate and enjoy. Biltong you see, is like the first time you try sushi. You either love it or hate it, and as any sports lover or stoned Xbox fanatic will tell you: potential for addiction ranks right up there.
