bread • curry (dish) • South Africa
Bunny Chow
It’s not food for rabbits. It’s not made from rabbits. Bunny Chowis the result of an only-in-South-Africa combination of Asian curry, European bread, and South African apartheid.
Bunny Chow Recipe
Asian curry and European bread.
Ingredients
1 loaf of white bread (the kind used for making sandwiches or toast, baked in a standard 8 ½ x 4 ½ inch (21 x 11 cm) loaf pan, unsliced [1 loaf for every 2 servings]
2 servings of curry of your choice (e.g., lamb curry, chicken curry, etc.)
Instructions
1
Cut the bread into two halves, by cutting halfway between the ends of the loaf. Put each half on its end, pressing down a bit to make it stand upright. From the top of each half (where you made the cut that divided the loaf into halves) scoop or cut out the soft middle of each half and set it aside. Fill each half with curry. Put onto a bowl or plate (if desired) with the soft bread that was scooped out.
2
Serve immediately. Use the scooped-out bread to sop up the curry. Then eat the remaining curry with the bread it was served in. Use a spoon if needed.
Ingredients
1 loaf of white bread (the kind used for making sandwiches or toast, baked in a standard 8 ½ x 4 ½ inch (21 x 11 cm) loaf pan, unsliced [1 loaf for every 2 servings]
2 servings of curry of your choice (e.g., lamb curry, chicken curry, etc.)
Directions
1
Cut the bread into two halves, by cutting halfway between the ends of the loaf. Put each half on its end, pressing down a bit to make it stand upright. From the top of each half (where you made the cut that divided the loaf into halves) scoop or cut out the soft middle of each half and set it aside. Fill each half with curry. Put onto a bowl or plate (if desired) with the soft bread that was scooped out.
2
Serve immediately. Use the scooped-out bread to sop up the curry. Then eat the remaining curry with the bread it was served in. Use a spoon if needed.
You can cut the bread into thirds or quarters to make smaller bunnies.
Enslaved Asians from Indonesia and Malaysia were brought to South Africa soon after the first Europeans arrived. Later, servants and workers from India arrived. And more than any other African country, South Africa was the destination of European migrants, who grew European grain and made European bread. Malay and Indian influences became a fixture of South African cuisine, and by the early 1900’s curry restaurants were found in every South African city. An inexpensive meal was a bowl of curry served with a few slices of bread. Over time, apartheid laws were tightened to enforce strict segregation of black, colored (Malay, Indian), and white people, and many restaurants were not allowed to seat black patrons. They could sell take-away (carry-out) food to anyone, but this was before disposable plates and bowls. An enterprising restaurateur in Durban hit upon the solution: put the curry inside the bread — the bread doing for the curry what the cone does for the ice cream. Somehow this “bread bowl” of curry came to be called bunny chow. Why? Putting curry into half a loaf of bread hardly makes it look any more like a rabbit than it did before it contained the curry. Or is it that half a loaf of bread looks like a bun? The best theory seems to be that bunny chow were first served in Durban restaurants owned by South African Indians known as Bunias or Banias (also spelled Banyas). Bunny chow became a tradition in South African take-away food. And though the apartheid era is over it is still a popular item, especially in Durban.