Travel: Cape Malay cooking safari, Cape Town

Ever tasted Cape Malay food? When South Africans talk about traditional foods, these are some of the flavours and influences they're referring to. Masala, bobotie, Malay curry, roti – they're part of the country's distinctive 'fusion cuisine'. The Cape Malay Cooking Safari with Andulela Experience tours introduces you to this … and more.

Cardamom, coriander, cumin, cinnamon, turmeric, ginger, garlic, chillies. Take a deep sniff as you walk through Cape Town's technicolour Bo-Kaap area and these are the spices you'll smell, made into curries and delicious samoosas.

Andulela Experience tours, a responsible tourism company certified through Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa, gives you a crash course in cooking with these flavours on its Cape Malay Cooking Safari.

It's an all-senses-engaged experience. First, you'll be taken to the Bo-Kaap Museum, where you'll gain some insight into this area, which used to be called the Malay Quarter.

Many of the buildings are well over 150 years old and were home to freed slaves and artisans originally from Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Indian Ocean Islands.

You'll then amble around the little shops, cobbled streets and sherbet-bright houses to hunt down the spices and fresh ingredients.

After that, you'll enter 1 of the houses and have an informal workshop, where you'll learn the art of blending the spices into a masala for a Malay curry (spicier and not as hot as the Indian version), plus the correct way to fold a triangular samoosa, and perhaps how to make a roti fluffy and delicious.

And in between the chopping and the cooking, and the eating of the sumptuously spicy meal, you'll find out about life, food, culture and religion in the intriguingly multicultural Bo-Kaap.

The Cape Malay Cooking Safari is by no means the only tour that Andulela offers. Other culinary excursions include a visit to Gugulethu to experience African cooking, a trip to some of the greenest and most progressive wine farms, plus very special workshops on bread baking and charcuterie.

That's quite apart from its music tours (gospel, jazz and opera), cultural tours and wildlife tours.