``South Africans normally eat two meals - of which dinner is the main meal especially if both the husband and wife are working.'' Breakfast for them is cornflakes and yoghurt but on Sundays, Elize says, ``Our Sunday breakfast is big - eggs, bacon. This would be a typical continental breakfast''.

Sunday appears to be the day when most South Africans really concentrate on food. This is the day of barbeques - the modern South African tradition. Says she, ``We have a warm climate, and so we enjoy atleast three barbeques a month outside. Even in winter, although it is cold in the mornings and evenings, the days are warm with sunny skies and this is ideal for barbeques''.

A South African barbeque or braai would normally consist of chops (lamb or pork), chicken, boerewors or steak cooked over an open fire. This would be served with salads, a stewlike sauce or sous made of onions, tomatoes, mushrooms and garlic and jacket potatoes. All this is served with pap made of cornflour or maize meal cooked with water to the consistency of porridge. Elize describes pap as being similar to idli. The sous is normally poured over the pap.

The traditional South African Sunday lunch which Elize remembers having with her mother is roast meat one. Says Elize, ``The meat could be roast beef, leg of lamb or chicken. This would be served with roast potatoes, cauliflower with cheese, peas or beans and something sweet like sweet pumpkin. We cook the pumpkin and then fry it with sugar and butter so it adds a little sweetness to the meal''.

The dessert, she explains, after a meal like this is a baked one - either bread, rice or sago which is served with custard or cream or ice-cream. One of the favourites is the malva pudding made like a cake and served with a caramel syrup. Another traditional meal is the potjiekos - the potfood. Literally this is when all the food is cooked in a large black pot usually for large social gatherings - such as when people gather for boating or swimming. ``The meat is first browned at the bottom of the pot in a little oil and then all the the seasonal vegetables are added in layers - the ones that cook more slowly right at the bottom and the fastest cooking ones right on top,'' says Elize.

A sauce (which Elize explains could even be the contents of a soup packet mixed with a white or red wine depending on the meat used) is then added. The pot is covered and left to simmer slowly for at least four hours over an open fire. ``The secret of getting this right,'' says Elize, ``is not to stir the contents of the pot at all.'' The whole lot is served with rice, each layer being served in turn to each of the diners.

Two other traditional foods are bobotie and biltong. Bobotie is a mince bake served with rice. The rice is cooked in a mixture of water and milk and a little sugar and then served with raisins. Biltong is what the hunters would eat when they went in search of game during the winter months. Strips of meat are seasoned in salt, pepper and other herbs and then dried in the dry air of the winter months.

From barbeques to roast meat and pot dishes, South African food has a varied fare, a little different from the usual!