woman preparing traditional curry ingredients

Garlic, chillies and ginger, some of the vital ingredients that go into making a delicious pot of curry

These are the fieriest curries in the land. But Durban Indian food isn’t confined to just curry. Here you’ll find a unique mix of South and North Indian dishes like breyanis and pilaus, and cooking styles that have melded over time and include unique indigenous ingredients. For South Africa, Jan 2019

Durban Indian cuisine has its roots in the arrival of the South Indian indentured labourers to the port of Natal, transported on 45-day steamship journeys between 1860 and 1911. They came to the east coast of South Africa for predominantly manual labour, to work on the British-run sugar cane plantations, and in the railways, fishing and boating industries. From the agricultural classes and of lower castes generally, they were requested to work on five-year contracts in what was promised to be fair working conditions, with adequate housing, medical care and clothing. The 152 184 labourers who arrived in total, have over time, shaped the cuisine and cultural heritage of Durban and South Africa.

According to a legal notice from 1874, the labourers were to receive rations of dholl (yellow split peas), dried fish, oil and rice. Not all promises were kept, however, and the newcomers found themselves in dire conditions that many historians compare to slavery. Like they did with their new, unfamiliar surroundings, they adapted to the circumstances, and food, over time. When rice was scarce, dried maize was crushed to create mealie rice.

Cheap vegetable oil replaced ghee, coconut and mustard oils. Coconuts, unlike it is in Tamil Nadu where they are used in cookery with abundance, were reserved for prayers. Maize meal was fermented to make sour porridge, as it had been done in South India with rice at a stage. Labourers would consume this at breakfast for energy, which then went out of favour with the arrival of coffee in then-Madras. Local ingredients used by Zulu neighbours – like “running” or free-range, mature chickens, madumbis (a local yam) and amasi (fermented milk, with a gloopy, yoghurt texture) appeared in the cookery – and remains today. So too do green mangoes and bananas, sheep head and trotters and an abundance of fish. Several cooks featured in my research-based cookbook Curry: Stories & Recipes across South Africa speak fondly of mielie rice and tinned pilchard curries – cheap meals that sustained large families.

Traditional Durban Curry options and sides

Curry is best enjoyed with something fresh, like salsa or green mangoes.

While the indentured Indians would have brought spices, seeds and plant cuttings during their voyages on the ships, the merchant or passenger class of Gujaratis who arrived of their own accord, later supplied the workers with spices, vegetables and conveniences from home. The humid surrounds and fertile soil allowed for many of the beans, gourds, herbs, chillies and curry leaf plants they were accustomed to, to thrive there too.

Because the Gujarati traders travelled back home regularly, their cuisine remained fairly intact, while the food of the labourers transformed over time – what anthropologist Sheetal Bhoola calls in an email interview “continually evolving and adapting”. She adds that Durban Indian food is “a hybrid of varying cooking techniques from more than one region of India which combined with local available ingredients and localised versions of spices”.