Fireworks

by Jan Braai

South Africa celebrates National Braai Day on 24 September every year. A day for all the citizens of South Africa to unite around braai (barbeque) fires with family and friends. The driving force behind this initiative is a man known as Jan Braai.

If anyone knows how to braai, it is Jan. He has braaied with thousands of South Africans, almost every day for the five years since the launch of National Braai Day. And he knows what people want to know about braaing.

In Fireworks, his first book, Jan Braai shares his knowledge about braaing: about making fires with wood and about cooking great meals on the coals.

So start with Jan’s clear rules for braaing the perfect steak and, once you have mastered that, move on to lamb chops, curried sosaties and the oxtail potjie. From there you can move to rack of lamb, lamb on the spit, the perfect braaied ribs and the braai staples of roosterbrood, stywe pap, mealies on the braai and even a dessert or two.

Hunting and fishing may not be the measure of a man any longer, but you do need to be able to make the perfect braai, without fuss or fanfare. It’s just one of those things that separates the men from the boys.


‘I like T-Bone steaks, because they are in the shape of Africa’

Desmond Tutu, Patron of National Braai Day

Genres: Cooking, Nonfiction

200 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2012

About the author

Who is Jan Braai? His real name is Jan Scannell and he lives to braai (barbeque). He started the National Braai Day initiative in South Africa in 2007 and his aim is to create a national celebration of the one activity all South Africans have in common, regardless of race, language, gender or wealth, cooking over a fire. He holds the world record for the longest braai. He has a TV show about, yes, you guessed it, braaing.