Safari dining mistakes - Candid tips by Howard Hillman

Safari dining
mistakes

Safari tips you can trust

Expecting gourmet
food at a safari
lodge or camp

Not high-end gourmet

Luxury safari kitchens are not gastronomic temples, nor do they try to be one. You are in a remote natural environment and the focus is on the wildlife, not wild thyme. Still, the food is admirable - and clearly superior to what is prepared at sub-luxury safari lodges and camps.

Handicaps

It's important to recognize that safari chefs (including those in luxury venues) face some culinary handicaps that few restaurants suffer. Your lodge or camp is in the middle of nowhere, distant from the nearest town. All the food has to be trucked in through the wilderness over rough dirt roads.

For practicality's sake...

Much of the food shipped to the lodges and camps has to be frozen and stockpiled in bulk in freezers (just in case the dirt roads become muddy and impassable for days).