A potjie (no, it is not, as I thought, pronounced pot-jee but poyt-kee) is an Afrikaans word describing a stout little three-legged cast-iron pot. It's not very large but do not be fooled by its size and seemingly innocuous appearance. It is a highly effective cooking tool and is extremely heavy (lift a potjie in each hand, 5 times a day, and you'd have Madonna envious of your defined arms).
The big deal is not the potjie itself but what South Africans put in the potjie - namely a delicious mix of meat and vegetables. Mysterious spices are thrown in and before long you have a lovely aroma floating in the air around the pot. Actually the spices themselves aren't particularly mysterious. The real mystery is the recipe. People are very proud of their potjie recipes and tend to guard them with their lives.
The reason I may appear wise to the ways of the South African potjie is because The Engineer and I were involved in a Potjie Kos Competition. Kos apparently means food in Afrikaans - so it was a Pot Food Competition (I'll stick to Afrikaans, it sounds imbecilic when you translate it to English!)
Anyway, quite a large crowd from the different departments at The Engineer's office turned up and some of them when to all sorts of trouble with the presentation. There was a team with a red carpet spread on the grass leading up to their table. The judges must've been impressed because the Red Carpet People people took home the prize for the Best Potjie even though I thought our potjie kos tasted better (talk about being a sore loser!) Some people arrived really early and already had the pot on the coals before anyone even had a chance to set up their tables.
Our team, on the other hand, turned up late and fumbled about for a long time. Here we are, finally getting our act together:
I was surprised things went as well as they did because there were people in our team who didn't know the difference between white onions and leeks! The guy proudly turned up with a bunch of leeks and announced that he'd brought the white onions. He later tried to redeem himself by saying that he'd confused white onions with spring onions. That doesn't explain anything at all because even if he thought he was buying spring onions, he still got it wrong - by no stretch, are spring onions leeks!
Overall, I thought we did really well as a team considering there were only two true-blue South Africans and everyone else was either Malaysian or Indian (with one Egyptian and one Ghananian thrown in for good measure). In fact our team was more varied than the ingredients that went into the pot!
The thing about cooking with a potjie is that it takes hours and hours and hours. After you've thrown everything into it, you've got to let it stew in its juices for ages so the meat really comes out all infused in the ingredients and very, very tender. Only problem is, there's not much to do while you wait. This is where the South African ingenuity really comes into its own...what does everyone do? Well, they drink of course! Drink themselves silly!
I must say it's fun. It's a day in the sun, spent with drunken friends. What could be more fun?
After a number of beers, some of the men (including The Engineer) began to (predictably) misbehave.
The hostess of the competition, the always gracious Lannie, had thought ahead and rented one of those bouncy castle slide thingees for the kids. Before long, the poor kids had to stand aside as the real kids took over. With all the jumping and extra weight, I expected the thing to burst but it, fortunately, didn't.
Some of the guys began to compete to see who would get to the end of the slide first (as if the potjie competition wasn't enough already). The Engineer and The Sales Guru dove in twice and The Engineer won both times.
No doubt, buoyed by his recent wins, The Engineer took on another friend, The Egyptian who gave him a good run for his money and won by a hair. The two of them then ran the risk of twisting their limbs and ending up in a sling by competing a bit too seriously. The Engineer, who went without a shirt in the slide, proudly showed me his 'war wounds', a couple of long scratches on his chest, the next day....boys*rolls eyes*
All in all it was a great day even though we didn't win but winning was never the point! That's the thing about South African events, win or loose, you are guaranteed three things: the outdoors, good food and a great happy heap of booze!
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