Eish! It's Because I'm South African

Bunny chow is a slang term for a South African fast food consisting of a hollowed out loaf of bread filled with curry.

It was created in Durban, during the 1940s, home to a large community of people of Indian origin. The dish was developed while apartheid was still in effect, but the precise origins of the food are disputed.

One story (which also provides an etymology for bunny chow) has it that a restaurant run by people known as Banias (an Indian caste) first created the scooped-out bread and curry dish, in Grey Street, Durban. The food was a means to serve take-aways to excluded people. They cut out the centre portion of the bread and filled it with curry and capped the filling with the portion that was cut out.

Stories of the origin of bunny chow have also dated as far back as the migrant Indian workers arrival in South Africa. One account suggests that Indian migrant workers from India were brought to South Africa to work the sugar cane plantations of Kwazulu-Natal (Port Natal) and required a way of carrying their lunches to the field; the hollowed out loaf of bread was a convenient way to transport their vegetarian curries. Meat based fillings came later.

Bunny chows are very popular amongst Indians, as well as other ethnic groups. Bunny chows are commonly filled with curries made using traditional recipes from Durban: mutton or lamb, chicken and bean curries are popular fillings now, although the original bunny chow was vegetarian. Bunny chows are often served with a side portion of grated carrot, chilli and onion salad, commonly known as sambals. A key characteristic of a bunny chow is created when gravy from the curry fillings soak into the walls of the bread, thereby rounding the dish off with the fusion of flavours & textures. Sharing a single bunny chow is not uncommon.

Bunny chows come in quarter, half and full loaves. When ordering a bunny chow in Durban, the local slang dictates that you need only ask for a “quarter mutton” (or flavour and size of your choice). Bunny chows are strictly a messy fingers affair, locals find the use of utensils quite amusing.

Today bunny chows are available in many small take-aways and indian restaurants, not only in Durban but Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Johannesburg and East London to name a few. The price ranges from R20 for a quarter Bunny up to R40-R50 for a whole bunny.