Pilot-TAS-Roots on a plate e-manual

TAS – Roots on a Plate is a South African Traditional Cuisines manual, Heritage & Holistic Wellness

culinary-experience, exploring the relationship between food, identity, culture, community

and wellbeing. It documents traditional and indigenous foods not simply as recipes, but as living

forms of knowledge carried through families, communities and generations.

The digital manual brings together heritage food profiles, indigenous ingredients, traditional

recipes and preparation methods with reflections on food memory, cultural practice and the

changing ways people experience heritage at the table. Its central premise is that culinary

heritage is living and evolving foods travel, adapt, acquire new names and meanings, and

continue to connect people across generations and cultural boundaries.

This pilot selection demonstrates this approach through foods and foodways, a nose-to-tail cooking, and familiar/unfamiliar South African preparations.

The added Heritage Chronicle on vetkoek and achaar further illustrates how different culinary histories

can meet in an everyday South African food experience.

Written for a broad readership, the project is intended to appeal to home cooks and families,

students and educators, heritage and cultural organisations, food and wellness audiences, and

readers interested in South African identity and food history. The Digital Pilot Edition presents a

concise sample of the wider manuscript, establishing its editorial voice, visual direction and

heritage-centred framework while creating a foundation for a fuller publication.

Core proposition

Heritage food is not frozen in time. Roots on a Plate explores how culinary traditions are

preserved, adapted and shared — nourishing cultural memory while remaining relevant to

contemporary life.

This pilot also invites readers to share, reading and cooking experiences as feedback for shaping the final edition.