Potjie

Mark keeping watch over our potjie on the coals

     On Saturday we had a potjie competition (pronounced poy-key). A potjie is basically a crock pot meal cooked over a fire in a short three-legged pot. You can put anything you want in it but it generally has meat, potatoes, and vegetables in some sort of sauce-y broth. There is an annual competition in honor of someone’s birthday and this year there were seven teams competing to win based on the taste of the food and the theme and decorations of your potjie station. It was kind of like a tailgate with the cars in a type of circle and set up in the same area on the Seep, an open park-like area along the river. The CARACAL team procrastinated big time in figuring out details and finally decided on Friday evening to go with a ‘Biohazard’ theme. We wore masks, gloves, and labeled everything with biohazard signs. It turned out to be a bit weak, and we spent most of our time that night at other peoples stations, taking a nursery rhyme quiz, getting married in Las Vegas (including traditional-style weddings…with two wives), and jamming out in the Mexican cantina. They were all pretty good themes!

Our lovely CARACAL team!

     Our potjie was a curry and you make something called pap to go with it. Pap is a sort of flour thing that you just add to water and it turns into a tasteless side to go with the food. It ended up tasting like mashed potatoes and gravy to me, but was really good! It is an interesting idea because you just throw everything in the pot and let it cook for hours then add some seasoning and it’s good to go! We ended up taking away fourth place in the competition and first place on the nursery rhyme quiz (apparently we have some nursery rhyme enthusiasts on our team!). It was lots of fun for a Saturday night!