Food planning is much easier on the road today than it was a few years ago. Inverters and cooking tools like air fryers and microwaves have changed life on tour completely.

Typically at least half of our campsites have electricity. On those nights you can use 220V appliances such as an air fryer or microwave, even if you do not have an inverter in your vehicle. So do not let the lack of an inverter stop you from making life easier with an air fryer or similar.

Fridges have also become better, so it is easier to keep your meals frozen, and there are more healthy frozen meals available than ever.

Eat the way you eat at home

When you pick your menu for the trip, it is important to eat much the way you do at home. A problem I often see on tour is people suddenly changing how they eat. They start to braai every night, and after a week someone is sick or not feeling great. Stick to food you know, and to the eating pattern you know.

The safest way to travel is to eat your own food. Avoid cooked food bought at roadside stalls. Southern Africa has large towns with good-quality shops and fresh food. The standard grocers are Spar, Shoprite and Choppies, and most towns have at least one. They normally sell water and cold drinks too.

Frozen meals: the way to go

Make frozen, pre-cooked meals the main focus of your menu. There are really good-quality frozen meals available, from companies like Frozen For You and from Woolworths. Their meals list the nutritional values, so you can check that you are eating a healthy diet. They also offer vegetables and all kinds of interesting dishes.

You can also cook your own favourites at home and freeze them in portions. Use foil or airtight plastic containers. Cooked food is also much less likely to be a problem at veterinary gates and borders.

Example 1: burgers on the road

When I travel alone, braaiing is too much work, so I only braai occasionally. Instead I take a lot of frozen meals. One I enjoy is burgers:

• I cook hamburger patties on the fire at home and freeze them. Because they are cooked, they are safe to take across the border into Namibia or Botswana.
• I take buns along in the freezer, or buy them in a town on the way, and warm them in the air fryer.
• With the air fryer and the pre-cooked patties I can make a proper burger and chips meal in camp.

Patties work well because they are good protein and good-quality meat, and you can pre-cook them without losing quality, unlike a steak.

Example 2: ready-made frozen meals

Frozen For You has a range of meals big enough to keep you busy for a year. Go through their menus, pick what you really enjoy, pack it in the freezer and off you go.

Heating your food

• 12V portable oven: these are small, draw very little current and can run while you drive. They have changed how we heat our evening meal. At lunchtime, put a frozen meal in the oven, close it and switch it on. When we stop in camp, dinner is ready.
• Air fryer: much quicker, and great for chips. Also quick for reheating pizza or frozen bread you want to use up.
• Microwave: an option, but more finicky. They can break, and a microwaved meal is not always as tasty. In the bush we normally have a bit of time anyway.
• Gas or fire: you can still heat food in a Dutch oven (potjie). Be careful not to put the food straight onto the base of the pot: the heat from gas or a fire is normally too much and will burn the food at the bottom.

Planning the menu

We are on holiday, and it should feel like it. Plan your menu around your fridge capacity, the chance that your freezer does not work well, and veterinary gate rules. Accept that you are in the bush and think healthy, pleasant and quick.

How I do it: the 7-day cycle

1. Work in cycles of 7 days.
2. Assume one restaurant meal a week: that leaves 6 meals to plan.
3. Assume one braai a week: that leaves 5 meals to plan.
4. Pick your 5 favourite meals, for example beef stroganoff, chicken à la king or lamb rogan josh.
5. Repeat the cycle for the length of the trip. For a 14-day tour, simply double it.

How the day shapes your meals

• Breakfast: we normally leave camp at 7:30 or 8am, so a bacon-and-egg skottel breakfast only suits early risers.
• Lunch: under a tree next to the road for 45 minutes or so. Bring a flask for hot water, although I will boil a kettle for anyone who wants coffee or tea.
• Dinner: I supply the fire every night, either wood or charcoal. In some countries wood is not available, so we switch to charcoal, which I buy next to the road or bring with me. You do not have to braai every night; eat whatever you like, just manage the time around it.
• Braaiing at your tent: I also have a small portable charcoal braai for the camp, which we set up by the fireplace when it is needed. If you want to braai at your own tent, bring your own braai and a bag of charcoal.

Tips for quick, easy meals

• Avoid meals that take too long. A potjie sounds great but can mean a very late night.
• On one or two days we arrive late (5–6pm). Have something ready to heat up, or put a meal in the 12V oven at lunchtime.
• Rice and pasta are quick to cook and very filling.
• Keep one tinned meal for emergencies.
• Breakfast cereals work for breakfast or a roadside lunch. Oats So Easy and 2-minute noodles are also good to have.
• Tinned fruit, cold boerewors, dried fruit and tuna meals make fast lunches.
• Avoid glass where you can. Take beer in cans: easier to dispose of, and they cannot break in your vehicle.
• Remember rubbish bags.

Veterinary gates and borders

Meat restrictions at veterinary gates and borders apply in Botswana and Namibia. Assume your fridge will be checked when you cross into either country.

• Foot-and-mouth disease is the big issue. It is carried by cloven-hoofed animals (cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and so on), so raw meat from these animals is the main target.
• Fruit and above-ground vegetables may be confiscated to stop the spread of fruit fly.
• Chicken and fish are generally safe to take across. Chicken only becomes a problem when there is bird flu going around; in that case it is better to take your chicken cooked.
• Tinned food is always safe. Cooked food is normally safe too, but when foot-and-mouth disease is active the rules can tighten, and Namibia is stricter than Botswana (see the Namibia box below).

Once we are through Botswana and Namibia, for example in Lusaka in Zambia, we can buy steak, biltong and everything else at the big shops.

Botswana and Namibia

These rules apply only in Botswana and Namibia, not in any other country. In those two countries these goods may not be brought in, and may not cross the veterinary red lines and boundaries inside the country while a control is in place. Even if you buy them in the town just before the gate, vacuum-packed and sealed with the shop’s stamp, they still may not cross. The classic mistake is buying a bag of oranges in South Africa just before the border and having it confiscated by Botswana officials 5 km later.

Having the food is not illegal in itself; it is only prohibited from crossing the line. Before crossing you may eat it, cook it or hand it over. Please do not throw it on the ground or do anything else foolish with it. Rules are rules.

Water

• Bottled water is available in every town. Just buy what suits you as we go: 1.5 or 2 litre bottles, a 5 litre, or a 12 or 24 pack of smaller bottles, and decant from the big ones if you like.
• All the campsites have tap water, which is fine for washing, cleaning, coffee and tea.

To make tap water drinkable: boil it for 5 minutes, use purification tablets, or use Milton (follow the dosage on the pack).