A feast of a read!

Award-winning commentator on travel and food, restaurant critic, freelance radio broadcaster and intrepid traveller, Gwynne Conlyn, brings together in Delicious Travel a collection of her culinary wanderings through some of the remotest and uncharted parts of South Africa. Gwynne exposes parts of South Africa that we thought we knew, in different and completely unexpected ways.


Gwynne has the eye and ear for the idiosyncratic and quirky. In her quest for great cuisine, she uncovers the eccentricities of the people who live - and cook - in the countryside. 'Great cuisine' isn't necessarily haute cuisine, but rather the ingredients, chef and place, that all conspire to make an experience memorable.

Delicious Travel is witty and insightful, and allows a peek into real South Africa and South Africans as it travels through the landscape of the mind. It rediscovers bits of history and paints vivid pictures of people and their stories as it traces culinary treasures down hidden paths. This is intelligent travel with a twist!

We learn how to make mealiepap pie in Victoria West, and conversely, the most sublime of seared tuna with a tantalising Far East-flavoured topping in a remote town in the Eastern Cape. We find out why some of the five generation-strong Cape families have such strange nicknames and possibly most importantly, how to mix the perfect Bloody Mary or Martini.

We discover how, just outside De Rust, Jans Rautenbach, the godfather of Afrikaans film, got to sport a cathedral window in his house; how the breeding of Arabian horses on a stud farm influences the cuisine in the area; in Victoria West we find former rugby hero, Mannetjies Roux, and his "shrine" full of rugby memorabilia; and what really happens at a Karoo cattle auction when everyone buys jerepigo in support of church coffers; in Gauteng we're introduced to a house without a single straight line and a treehouse in which the son of the family lives. We discover how Mpumalanga's Robbers' Pass got its name; how the creative writing process imposes on cooking; and we find out why writer/artist Braam Kruger is more famous for his perfect fish and chips than for his art.

Delicious Travel surprises, inspires, and lures the armchair - and itinerant - traveller and cook down decadent byways as it provides insiders' secrets. It contains recipes with a twist, and celebrates the surprising and interesting in food and drink.

Delicious Travel covers seven areas of South Africa. Interwoven in Gwynne's culinary wanderings and anecdotes of people and places, are intelligent reviews of accommodation and restaurants of the area, as well as easy-to-follow maps.

Award-winning commentator on travel and food, restaurant critic, freelance radio broadcaster and intrepid traveller.