Lots and lots of biltong!! I love the stuff. No, it is not the same as beef jerky - go wash your mouth out with soap (which actually might be a more pleasant experience than eating American jerky).
Biltong is salted and cured, air-dried meat. The spicing is very unique. It's most often beef, but exotic meats such as kudu and ostrich are sometimes used as well. The best comparison for an American palate is actually proscuitto, but instead of cured pork it is cured beef. Biltong, as we know this delicacy today, is inherited from pioneering South African forefathers who sundried the meat during their trek across the African Subcontinent. The basic spicing is a dramatic blend of vinegar, salt, coriander and other spices. These were in abundance in the then Cape Colony, as the French Hugenots produced wine and vinegar from their grape crops and the colony was the halfway stop for seafarers plying the spice routes of the East. Various brine recipes and marinades were created and have been handed down for generations.
We ran into the Keyzers this weekend at the AGM and they told me about a butcher in Keansburg, NJ who makes a very high quality biltong. His website is www.braaitime.com and I have to say, I'm quite excited to place an order one of these days. But perhaps I should wait... build up my appetite for December, but know that I have an option to buy biltong in the US in the future.
Then again, patience is not my strong point.
Look tasty!
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