Feast at the Table

He explains that in one day we will experience five of Cape Town's cuisines and consume more than 36 different dishes. "Pace yourself people," he warns. We prepare our senses for the amazing race - a marathon of food to be eaten in less than 10 hours.

The morning mists begin to reveal Signal Hill, our first destination, where for the past 104 years, a cannon has been fired at noon every day. The site is oddly vacant, and Davidowitz nonchalantly unwraps a picnic breakfast. Setting out some rusks, dried sausages and biltong (a seasoned dried meat) with some cups and small bowls, he quickly prepares some mieliepap (a white maize porridge). There's a choice of rooibos tea (a South African staple) or percolated coffee which, winking, Rob calls rocket fuel. "This is a typical Boer farmer's breakfast," Rob explains.

The mieliepap is surprisingly sweet and the coffee very strong. After the starch and protein, Davidowitz introduces us to the final food group - booze. Slugging back witblits, a grappa-like spirit made from peaches with a kick that says: "Let's go hammer in some posts!", I understand why it's part of a balanced Boer breakfast.

Having tasted a small part of the farmer's life, we pile into the minivan and head off to our next destination. We arrive in Bo-Kaap, an area of Cape Town inhabited mainly by Cape Malay Islamic descendants of slaves from the Indonesian islands.

We're welcomed into the home of Latiefa Kirkic, who greets us while modestly adjusting her headscarf. Warm spices and floral scents fill the air as Kirkic tells us a bit about the Malay people over a cup of ginger-spiced tea.

The food she serves seems like an unintentional cross between Greek and Pakistani food. A bowl of a tzaziki-like dip sits on my plate alongside samosas, roti bread, kingklip (fish) curry, tomato frikkadel (a spiced meatball in tomato sauce) and other fragrant, savoury dishes.

We are advised to say our goodbyes and hit the road - but I quickly nab one of Kirkic's delicious desserts. This is definitely a situation that could benefit from Tupperware.

The second warm-hearted woman to invite us into her home on our culinary tour is Belinda Jackson. It's obvious from the start that food and family mean a lot to her. Jackson often has to feed 40 to 50 people at christenings or weddings in her small, but inviting, front room. She lives in Bonteheuwel, a Cape Coloured, family-focused community, where children still walk home on their own. The phrase "coloured" is anathema in most other parts of the world, but here in South Africa it is a term people are completely comfortable with. It simply means people that are neither white or black. All in, there seems to complete lack of racial tension wherever we go, a characteristic Cape Towners are rightly very proud of.

Jackson sets out a spread of smoorsnoek (a dried fish stew) and cabbage bredie (a mutton stew), along with, believe it or not, a custard-based mince dish. The hearty food is reminiscent of Portuguese cooking, a hunch cemented by the dessert of custard-topped sweet potato in cinnamon and rooibos tea syrup.

Next we meet Lilly Ngwexana, a truly amazing woman. With nothing but a two-ring hob and an indomitable spirit, Ngwexana, a single mother, sold home-made scones and second-hand clothing to earn money to build a home for herself and her four children - literally with her own two hands. Now a participant in the tour, she also hosts cooking-based "homestays" via her own business, Once Upon A Stove.

The spread is a variety of traditional Xhosa dishes common to the Bantu-speaking people of the Eastern Cape province. There's everything from marogo (a potato and spinach dish) to umxhaxha (a cold pumpkin dish), along with steam brea and the heavily-debated chalaka - is it a salad, side dish, or chutney? We eat on floor mats in the main room. I join the chutney camp on the Chakalaka debate and make extra space in my stomach for more steamed bread.

Ngwexana's story is one of genuine human triumph and we could easily stay and talk more, but we have to leave for our final destination on the food tour - the Hillcrest Berry Orchards.

Collette De Wet, born and bred on the Cape Flats, is a young chef who has transformed the orchard's small restaurant into a unique South African twist on the English tea garden.

We have barely enough time to loosen our belts before De Wet arrives with a sampling of her artistry: smoked chicken; cranberry and avocado stack; smoked salmon, trout and gooseberry terrine; and a roasted fig and blue cheese quiche. It will take all my resolve to try it all, but I am determined to do it.

The smoked chicken stack is enjoyed while taking in the view of the distant hills. I make my way through the smoked salmon, which is complemented by the tart, fresh gooseberries, and finally the quiche tart is gobbled down.

Just as I'm feeling pleased with myself for finishing it all, the dessert arrives. Apparently there is to be no clemency. A small bread and butter pudding with berries; Cape gooseberry (physalis) cheesecake; and blueberry and apple pie are brought out to torture us further. Thankfully I survive unbroken, having successfully sampled the lot. I take respite in some iced honeybush and berry tea while my digestive system comes to terms with what I've done to it.

In a day it is impossible to give each dish attention, so when Davidowitz says he's written a cook book we snap them up so we can digest the information at least at our leisure.

More pleasures follow in this short but fantastic voyage, though luckily our eating work is done. We are treated to a safari, spotting zebras and wildebeests on the journey back to the hotel.

Before I came to Cape Town I would never have guessed that such generous and varied people could have emerged from this country's troubled past. I feel privileged to have have eaten at their tables, met their children and to have had the unique opportunity to have visited them in their homes.