Photo: David Berkowitz

Don’t worry – a bunny chow doesn’t actually involve eating bunnies.
It does involve eating spicy curry and at least a quarter of a loaf of white bread, though.

A bunny chow is a South African delicacy consisting of a loaf of bread cut in half across, with the inside of the bread scooped out, and the cavity filled with curry of some description. The bread is then piled on top again, and used to scoop out the curry, making a knife and fork not only redundant, but bad bunny chow form.

The classic bunny chow is a bean bunny, filled with a curry of sugar beans (the cheapest curry to make), but you can also get a mutton bunny or a chicken bunny. There are even some places that make ‘designer bunnies’ these days, but that’s a lot less authentic (in my humble opinion). If half a loaf of bread is too much for you, go for the quarter bunny.

The bunny chow was created to save on take aways having to give away plates – if the curry was placed inside the bread, it could be taken away easily and didn’t need a plate. A close relative of the bunny is the roti (a large savoury ‘pancake’ filled with curry, or chips and cheese).