No. 1 Snack Apolitical : S. Africans Just Love the Biltong

A noted South African cancer researcher, facing a recent press conference on the risks of nitrate-cured food, was tripped up by a gnarled piece of dried meat known as biltong. Could biltong snacks, he was asked, be hazardous to your health?

Common sense dictated that he douse the pesky question with diplomatic hems and haws. But his credibility as a scientist was on the line.

“It was a sticky situation, but I had to admit biltong is one of those foods that should be eaten in moderation,” Dr. Carl Albrecht said.

For his honesty, Albrecht was deluged with calls from worried biltong lovers, pilloried in editorial cartoons and kidded mercilessly by his colleagues at Stellenbosch University.

‘A Very Serious Matter’

“Biltong, in my experience, is a holy icon that’s not to be tampered with,” said the professor, a pound-a-year biltong man in a pound-a-week country. “It’s a very serious matter, that.”

In fact, biltong is the hot dog of South Africa, a beloved national treasure that for 2 1/2 centuries has inspired fanatic loyalty among white and, increasingly, black South Africans, from revolutionaries to right-wingers, poets to truck drivers, farmers to lawyers, teething babies to toothless octogenarians.

South Africans gnaw through millions of pounds of biltong every year, and more is smuggled, usually in old candy boxes, under the noses of customs inspectors to homesick relatives and friends in England, Australia and America.

“It’s an amazing food,” said Mark Sher, 27, a white clerk in a Johannesburg photo store who eats “as much as I can afford,” or about a pound a week. “There are no words to describe it. I could live on biltong.”

‘It Keeps Me Awake’

“It’s full of protein, full of vitality,” said Johannes Mache, 42, a black taxi driver in Krugersdorp. “It also keeps me awake when I’m working late. You can’t get drowsy eating biltong.”

Biltong is apolitical, a rarity for anything in South Africa. But as a legacy of the self-reliant white settlers, it says something about the way the country ticks, although six biltong-chewing social scientists declined to risk their reputations by discussing it for this article.

Most South Africans buy biltong at their favorite butchery, where a heavy user’s weekly supply runs about $12, or $6 a pound. But when South Africans run low, they can pick it up at “biltong bars” in sports stadiums, movie theaters, supermarkets, shopping malls, ice cream stores, amusement parks and zoos.

In a pinch, they can make do with biltong-flavored chips, dips, cheese and even biltong-flavored dog food.

Some South Africans like their biltong sliced thin; others prefer it chunky. And still others buy it in long stiff planks, using special pocket knives to cut it themselves as they eat it.

Then there are a few like Sher, who claim that cutting biltong is a sin. “I like to gnaw on a big block of it,” the slight South African says, “like an animal.”

In the wild western reaches of Transvaal province, restaurants serve shavings of biltong on a bed of lettuce--a “biltong cocktail.” Elsewhere, it is served with after-dinner coffee, like a mint.

Biltong, an Afrikaans word meaning jerked beef, was introduced on the southern tip of Africa by the Dutch-descended white settlers as they made their Great Trek from the Cape of Good Hope to these fertile farmlands. As wildlife became scarce, settlers were forced to salt meat to keep food on the table.

Taste for Biltong Has Survived

South Africans’ taste for biltong survived the advent of refrigerators and, more recently, warnings about the dangers of diets with too much salt and red meat.

“I don’t like meat at all, but I love biltong,” said Dominique Wood, a shopping mall clerk in Johannesburg. Wood’s husband and two daughters, ages 5 and 12, eat about four pounds of biltong a week, although it requires some careful buying.

“My husband likes it dry, but the children and I like it moist,” Wood said. “So we get some of each.”

Biltong lovers tend to ignore health warnings. They say the only side effect of eating biltong is thirst. A desperate thirst. And tired jaws.

Good Teeth Required

“I only recommend it if you have good teeth,” said Leslie Toweel, a 44-year-old cabinetmaker in Krugersdorp.

Or no teeth at all.

“My Dad liked it dry,” remembers George Droste, a Johannesburg car dealer. “He used to hit it with a hammer, pound it to a powder and then put it on fresh bread. He loved it that way. Maybe because he had false teeth, it was easier to eat that way.”

Trevor Bernhardt, a public relations executive in Johannesburg, eats plenty of biltong while watching cricket and rugby on television. His wife doesn’t care for it. “She’s British,” Bernhardt explained. But there’s nothing like a thick chunk of biltong to quiet the cries of his 7-month-old son. “It’s an excellent pacifier,” he said.

Biltong is usually made from beef, but it also is made from culled ostrich, kudu, springbok and elephant, and it’s produced everywhere from home kitchens to factories. Some is preserved and packaged in plastic, but most is displayed on countertop trays or in store windows. Flies are shooed away by clerks.

The way butcher Mickey Essey makes it, it begins as a few hundred pounds of raw steak, soft and pink. He presses a secret blend of salt, pepper, brown sugar, coriander and vinegar into the meat, stacks it overnight and then strings it up in a stiff breeze until it looks like old leather--dry and brown on the outside, yet still juicy and blood red on the inside.

That’s when it’s ready to eat.

Essey hangs the new biltong in the store window, where customers carefully study the new batch, often pressing their thumbs into it to test for dryness.

Essey’s New Farmers Meat Supply furnishes biltong to most of Krugersdorp, a town named for Paul Kruger, the 19th-Century South African president, hunter, farmer and, of course, biltong chewer.

Biltong hasn’t managed to catch on anywhere else in Africa, or in the rest of the world for that matter. A butcher in London makes a little for South Africans living there. And in the United States, various smoked and salted beef snacks, such as beef jerky, have a small following.

U.S. Version Lacks Rich Flavor

Beef jerky in the United States is much saltier than its South African cousin and, because it is processed to U.S. Department of Agriculture standards, lacks the rich flavor of raw meat that appeals to biltong lovers.

For the record, Essey doesn’t use nitrates, figuring that salt and dry air will keep his biltong fresh for months. But his attitude toward health researchers is one shared by many biltong lovers.

“You know these professors,” said Essey, a stocky man of 48. “If you had to eat only the things they said were OK, you’d starve. The amount of biltong and fat I eat is unbelievable, and look at me. I’m still going.”