Bunny chow

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This entry is about a South African cuisine, for the film see Bunny Chow (film)

Bunny chow is a South African fast food consisting of a loaf of bread, with the inside scooped out, and filled with curry.

It was created in Durban, during the 1940s, where the largest population of Indians in South Africa live. Although it is clear that the food began under apartheid, the precise origins of the food are disputed. One story, which also provides an etymology for bunny chow, or bunnies as they are also known, 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, which is how bunny chow got its name. The food was a means to serve take-aways to excluded people. They cut out the center portion of the bread and filled it with curry and capped the filling with the portion (the Virgin) that was cut out.

Another story is that the food began because Indian caddies were prohibited from using utensils at the canteen at a whites-only golf course, possibly at the Greyville Race Track. The food then migrated to other areas of Durban, including Grey Street.

Bunny chows are very popular amongst Indians, as well as other races, throughout South Africa and there are various restaurants all over South Africa now serving these dishes. Bunny chows are more commonly filled with curries made using traditional recipes from Durban: mutton or lamb, chicken and bean curries are the more popular fillings, however the original bunny chow was strictly vegetarian. Bunnys are often served with a side portion of grated carrot, chilli and onion salad, commonly known as sambals. To keep the bread from going soggy, a lining of french fries is sometimes added to keep the curry away from the bread, however this deviation from the original recipe, does change the dish considerably, as the idea originally, was for the gravy from the curry fillings to soak into the walls of the bread, thereby rounding the dish off with the fusion of flavors & textures.

Bunny chows come in quarter, half and full loaves. When ordering a bunny chow in Durban, the rules of the local lingo dictate 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.