Biltong (cured, air-dried meat)
Biltong (carne curada y secada al aire)
- Date
- c. siglos XVII-XIX · confidence low
- Place
- Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
- Credited to
- Khoikhoi and Dutch settlers (trekboers and Boers)
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Strips of meat cured with salt, vinegar and spices and air-dried without heat. Cape settlers adopted drying practices from the Khoikhoi and used it as travel food during migrations into the interior.
Meat drying in southern Africa is much older; the word 'biltong' and its recipe with vinegar and spices date from the colonial period, with imprecise dates. The year is a broad estimate.
What it led to
- a portable ration for settler migrations into the interior
- dried cured meat as a commercial product of South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe
- game variants such as kudu, ostrich and springbok
Built on
- Salt production (brine boiling) and saltingc. 6050 BCE
- Smoking and drying of food