South Africa is a country passionate about cooking over fires! The country celebrates National Braai (barbecue) Day on 24 September every year. A day for all the citizens of South Africa to unite around fires with family and friends. The driving force behind this initiative is a man known as Jan Braai. If anyone knows how to cook over a fire, it is Jan. He has cooked over a fire almost every day for the five years since the launch of National Braai Day, he has travelled South Africa and the world cooking over fires with friends. And he knows what people want to know about cooking on a fire. In Fireworks, his first book, Jan Braai shares this knowledge: about making fires with wood and about cooking great meals on the coals. So start with Jan's clear rules for the perfect steak cooked over a fire and, once you have mastered that, move on to lamb chops, curried sosaties (kebabs) and the oxtail cooked in a cast-iron pot over the coals. From there you can move to rack of lamb, lamb on the spit, the perfect ribs and the staples of bread, corn and even a dessert or two cooked over the fire. Hunting and fishing may not be the measure of a man any longer, but you do need to be able to make the perfect fire, 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' Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, Patron of National Braai Day
