Bunny Chow

A hollowed-out loaf of white bread - quarter, half or full - filled with curry, with the excised bread (‘the virgin’) put back on top for dipping. Durban’s, and Indian South African. The bread is the bowl, and you eat the bowl. Read the notes before you repeat the origin story you’ve heard, because the one everybody tells is chronologically impossible.

Ingredients

• 1 unsliced white loaf, quartered (or 2 half-loaves)
• The curry (mutton shown; bean or chicken are equally traditional)
• 800 g mutton or lamb, on the bone, cut into pieces
• 3 tbsp oil
• 2 onions, finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp fresh ginger, minced
• 2 tbsp Durban masala (or a hot curry powder)
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 2 tomatoes, grated
• 2 potatoes, quartered
• 1 sprig curry leaves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• Salt, to taste
• Fresh coriander, to finish
• Carrot and chilli salad, to serve

Directions

Key ingredients

Cinnamon

1. Heat the oil and fry the onions until deep golden - take this further than feels comfortable; it’s the base of the whole curry.
2. Add the garlic, ginger, curry leaves and cinnamon, and fry until fragrant.
3. Add the dry spices and fry for 30-60 seconds, stirring, until they bloom. Don’t let them scorch.
4. Add the meat and turn to coat. Brown it in the masala.
5. Add the grated tomato, cover, and cook down until the oil separates.
6. Add water to just cover, plus the potatoes. Simmer covered 1 to 1.5 hours, until the meat is tender and the gravy is thick. It must be THICK - a thin curry turns the loaf to mush.
7. Hollow the bread. Cut the loaf into quarters and pull out the soft centre from each, leaving the crust walls intact. Keep the pulled-out bread - that’s the ‘virgin’.
8. Fill with curry, put the virgin on top, and serve with carrot and chilli salad. Eat with your hands, from the paper.

Notes

⚠ The origin story you’ve heard is anachronistic as told

The widely-told claim: bunny chow was invented so restaurants could sell food to Black customers who weren’t allowed inside under apartheid - the bread was the plate, so nothing had to be returned.

The chronology doesn’t work:

• Bunny chow is dated to the 1940s.
• Apartheid was formalized in 1948.
• It was already being sold in Gwelo, Rhodesia - a different country - during WWII (1939-45).

But do not overcorrect either. Durban’s Indian community was ghettoized for decades before 1948, so segregation is the real context of all the competing accounts. Segregation is not the same thing as apartheid, and the dish predates the latter. Say that precisely rather than reaching for the dramatic version.

Four competing accounts, and nobody picks a winner

Wikipedia’s own framing: “The precise origins of the food are disputed.”

1. The Banias / Kapitan’s etymology - a Durban restaurant run by Banias (an Indian merchant caste), Kapitan’s, at Victoria and Albert streets. The name follows the caste: bania is Sanskrit for merchant - “from the bania man shop came the bunny man shop, and from bunny man shop came the bunny chow.” This is the most linguistically satisfying account.
2. The golf caddies - Indian caddies couldn’t get back to Grey Street for lunch; lacking containers, a restaurant owner poured curry into a loaf.
3. The sugar plantation workers - migrant Indian labourers on the KwaZulu-Natal cane fields needed a fast portable meal.
4. The beggars / leftovers - cooks without time to make sandwiches dug out bread and filled it.

🔴 ‘Bunny’ has nothing to do with rabbits

Worth saying outright, because every reader assumes it does. Most likely from bania (merchant caste). Not a rabbit in sight.

⚠ An open source

The NPR piece on bunny chow is likely the best source on this and was never retrieved during the research - it timed out. It is listed as unread rather than quoted. If it turns up, this recipe may change.

See Vetkoek.