It's the wurst!

Actually, the sausages are superb – even the Viennas (essentially hot dogs), but especially brats and “Windhoek grillers” that incorporate both pork and mutton, and also boerwors coiled like snakes for sale. These are undoubtedly a german legacy. (And another enticement to get JR's dad to visit... bratwurst like it was meant to be!) However, the local delicacy is biltong – beef or game meat dried and spiced for very long shelf life. There are chains of stores that sell only biltong, plus biltong available in unlabelled bags at nearly every gas station convenience store. We’ve now tried both types and have found them… well… chewy, but certainly flavorful. Given the country’s interest in preserved meat, one might perceive a market for smoked oysters, but, as far as we can tell, no one has attempted this niche, and the niche may not actually exist – oysters, after all, are seafood. However, we can now report on some further sampling of Namibian oysters: 3 preparations at the Lighthouse restaurant in Swakopmund – raw on the half shell, baked with cheese, and battered and fried and served in shells with a sort of golden boullion (this last, our favorite, was a special dish requested by our server when he found out we were oyster biologists, but we didn’t manage to get the same thing when we came back a few weeks later); raw oysters on the boat tour of Walvis Bay; baked oysters at the Raft restaurant in Walvis Bay; and freshly opened raw gigas from the Kleins’ salt pond (one never turns down a grower’s offer – especially since he’d opened them to check for spawning condition and found very little gonad). The standard procedure is to keep oysters in holding tanks prior to sale long enough for them to clear their guts – this is very different from our Washington experience, where the phytoplankton contribute some of the distinctive taste from particular growing areas. Generally, the oysters tend to be very small, which makes for easier one-bite slurping or tasting, and also allows for rapid grow-out times of 7 months! (One wonders what the equivalent crop cycle time would be in Willapa Bay if oysters were harvested at shell lengths less than 2 inches – but hey! we can find that out with a quick comparative study!) Some of the oysters we consumed were pretty “soft” – after all, it’s the southern summer, and water temperatures have been unusually high, so no wonder oysters are building up gonad. One grower has just started pumping ozone into his refrigerated building where he holds oysters as they clear their guts; the ozone is supposed to help firm up the oysters, although how this would work mechanistically is very unclear to us.

As we’ve been camping with just a tiny one-burner stove, we’ve been venturing into new culinary territory as we try a variety of ready-to-eat meals. Many of these seem to come in the form of curries (the east Indian influence is strong in South Africa, where the grocery chains are based): we’ve tried curry-in-a-can (and strongly recommend against the textured vegetable protein), and curry-in-a-bag (these are quite good, including separate lemon rice or biryani, although Katie pronounces some of them “too spicy”). In both cases, one places the container in boiling water for a few minutes, then simply pours out of the can/bag. Undoubtedly better when consumed on the beach while watching the waves.

It’s Namibian!
Good beer, brewed to German standards with imported ingredients. There are several Namibian breweries, and the “waste” grain is a potential source of feed for intensively-raised non-ruminants such as chickens and pigs. Some of the faculty at Poly are just embarking on a research project to examine feed quality.
Hot Cross Buns: all his life, Alan has been disappointed with the bland taste and texture of what nursery rhymes assure us should be a tasty treat. But here in Namibia, he’s found HCB’s that are truly delectable, not just stripes of sugar-water on top of a white roll.
Namibian whole milk curdles rapidly, we discovered when our cooler ran out of ice 12 hours before we reached a refrigerator. But curdled milk works great in biscuits.
Beetroot – available in all sorts of preparations off the shelf (grated, sliced, whole, pickled, spiced, etc.). Seems to be served as a side dish, along with other options such as feta, olives, and gherkins. Feta is particularly confusing to us, as we think of it as middle eastern, and the connection between that region and Namibia seems thin.
Ice cream: Despite Katie’s appreciation of “pink” soft-serve, ice cream in general is disappointing. 90% of what’s available in stores is from Nestle, and 100% has vegetable shortening as an ingredient, which must contribute to the foamy texture even when it’s melted.
Five Roses: this is THE black tea brand in southern Africa. And JR could drink it all day! We’ve learned that it’s easiest to order black tea by simply saying “Five roses, please”.

Garbage: We’re generating much more than we’re used to in the U.S., primarily because we have no access to a compost pile (or chickens, which are actually illegal in Windhoek), and Namibia’s recycling program is either non-existent or still opaque to us. We’ve heard that some recycling occurs when people sort through trash looking for anything usable, but we weren’t told what counts as usable. Fortunately, thanks to the amazing cloth diapers we brought with us (Fuzzi Bunz: happy to give personal testimonials), we’re not generating diaper waste. And, because Katie is daytime potty-trained, we’re not tied to doing laundry every other day.