Impressing your family and friends with traditional Tswana dishes has just become easier. Dr Nicole Claasen from the North-West University’s (NWU’s) Africa Unit for Transdisciplinary Health Research (AUTHeR), together with 129 women, has compiled a Tswana traditional food cookbook, A Taste of Vaalharts.

“While some documentation on traditional foods does exist, there is very little literature on traditional Tswana cuisine,” says Dr Claasen. “This cookbook will help preserve Tswana cooking traditions so that they can be passed down from generation to generation.”   

Boasting a total of 25 mouth-watering recipes the cookbook is divided into beverages, starch, meat and vegetable dishes. Since this is a traditional cookbook, the recipes are documented in Setswana and English to accommodate people from various cultural backgrounds.

Dr Claasen and Dr Shinga Chigeza, a research psychologist, came up with the idea for A Taste of Vaalharts while collaborating on a research paper about traditional food knowledge.

Their research project was inspired by the television programme, Come Dine with Me, and their focus group consisted of women between the ages of 14 to 74 from villages in the North West and the Northern Cape. These women were divided into groups and each group was asked to prepare a meal that consisted of one starch, one vegetable and meat dish. Afterwards all the women came together to feast on the various meals.

You can download A Taste of Vaalharts for free.