Perhaps the most interesting feature of the Stellenbosch Hills Biltongmaker of the Year Competition was that the six finalists were scattered over the country like… buckshot. Nelspruit, Bloemfontein, Ermelo, this was rural SA on display. As I mentioned in Travel & Food on Sunday:

PG and Danie, the winner

“I see you didn’t follow the dress code” said the pretty poppie in the pencil polka dot skirt, indicating the Camel man in camouflage pants, aggressive brush cut and a pair of thighs suitable for cracking walnuts. This was the awards lunch of the Stellenbosch Hills/SA Jagter Biltongmaker of the Year Competition. Clive James’ description of Arnold Schwarznegger, Governor of California, as “a condom stuffed with walnuts” could apply to several of the six finalists. I scanned the room for Louis Theroux, for this had all the makings of a Weird Weekend and it was only Wednesday. Disbelief to be checked in at the door along with the gat, the GPS and any pretentions to cultural cringe.

September is Heritage Month and what could have more hairy heritage than biltong, Pinotage and Mrs. Balls Chutney, the contraband most often smuggled into Australia by homesick emigrants. For as Stellenbosch Hills winemaker PG Slabbert noted “biltong is as close to our own, indigenous sushi as we can ever get.”

The brief to contestants was to make biltong to match the coffee/mocha chocolate flavours of the Stellenbosch Hills Pinotage 2007 made by Slabbert which was most unlucky not to feature in the annual Absa Top Ten Pinotage Competition which has developed something of an aversion to Starbucks-style Pinotage, the most popular style in SA by a country mile.

With a CZ 550 hunting rifle worth R20K, a Bushtec Mansion tent, several Leathermen and a GPS Nuvi up for grabs, competition was stiff and 33 entries were received from around the country and Namibia. The six finalists came from Ermelo, Pretoria, Nelspruit, Rustenburg, Hermanus and Paarl breaking the usual stranglehold of the Western Cape in gastronomic competitions. The Biltongmaker Competition was launched last year and this year entries were limited to game as a stampede of beefstix swamped the judges last year.

Entries were tasted blind and judged on a 20-point system with points awarded for colour, aroma, taste and how the biltong complemented the Pinotage. The judging panel consisted of yours truly and my opposite number in the Afrikaans media, Emile Joubert, previous publisher of Landbouweekblad Danie Smith, giggling gourmet Jenny Morris, Werner van Zyl of Agrimark (one of the sponsors) plus Slabbert.

There is method in the Stellenbosch Hills madness of matching biltong to wine as the main distinction between biltong and plain old jerky is curing the meat using a mixture of salt and vinegar, for which wine with a low pH makes a suitable alternative. Biltong is a uniquely SA invention dating back to the 17th century before refrigeration and vacuum locked Jiffy bags. Biltong comes from the Dutch: “bil” is rump and “tong” a tongue or strip and was wildly popular among a populace prone to jumping on the ox wagon and trekking north whenever politics heated up.

Heritage of te not, SA missed a trick in not registering Biltong as a global trademark in the same way that Europeans attempt to restrict usage of the terms Champagne, Port and Gorgonzola. For Stellenbosch Hills are definitely onto something in matching spicy biltong to spicy Pinotage with coriander, brown sugar and chili features of many a biltong recipe passed down from father to son.

Mr. Camouflage turned out to be a charming farmer from Nelspruit, Jan Adriaan Stevens du Plessis, who farms citrus just outside the Kruger Park. His biltong was made from a zebra he shot at Groblersdal. Which must come as some relief for the Perdeberg Winery who have adopted a zebra called Merlot as mascot and have recently been running an ad campaign asking people to keep an eye open for Merlot as he had been horse-napped. What a PR disaster if he ended up vacuum packed in the tasting room of the competition, Stellenbosch Hills!

Finalist Jan Adriaan Stevens du Plessis made my favourite biltong

Out on the Paardeberg – horse mountain – it makes sense and if fact the September edition of SA Jagter includes a feature on the Mountain Zebra in which is revealed that the Nama for zebra is !horn !goreb which is curious as “zebra do not bear horns and thus do not have trophy status.” But they make a sweet and moist biltong as entry #8 was my personal favourite in the judging.

My fellow judges were not such horse fanciers and in the end, #8 didn’t come in. First place went to Danie van Rhyn who owns the Namibian Biltong Shop in Hermanus. Danie was placed first last year too and his victory comes with a hefty sprinkling of irony: of the six finalists, he was the only non-hunter “but I am mad about guns.” His winning entry was made from a Stanford springbok (not from Namibia, by the way) but for his own snacking, he far prefers beef to game. His reaction to winning? “Hey, it’s great for business!”

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