Biltong comes from southern Africa, and the method is older than the name. Indigenous Khoikhoi herders preserved meat with salt and sun long before European settlers arrived. When Dutch settlers reached the Cape in 1652, they added vinegar and spices such as coriander and pepper to that drying tradition, producing the cured, air-dried beef we call biltong today. The name is Dutch: "bil" means rump and "tong" means strip.
Preserving meat before refrigeration
Before cold storage, drying was one of the few ways to keep meat through a hot season. The Khoikhoi people of the Cape salted strips of game and hung them in the air to dry. The principle is simple: take out the moisture and the meat keeps for months. That basic method still sits behind every piece of biltong made now.
The Dutch at the Cape
Dutch settlers arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652 to set up a supply station for ships rounding southern Africa. They brought vinegar, salt and a taste for cured meat. Combining their ingredients with the local drying method gave biltong its recognisable form: beef or game, rubbed with salt and spice, soaked in vinegar, then air-dried. The Dutch words they used for it, "bil" and "tong", stuck.
The Great Trek
Biltong became a travelling food during the Great Trek of the 1830s, when Boer farmers moved inland from the Cape in ox wagons. Meat that kept for weeks without refrigeration was worth more than almost any other supply on a journey of months. Families made biltong in bulk before setting out. The snack that now sits in UK gym bags was once survival rations on the South African veld.
Biltong today
Biltong is now made well beyond South Africa, including here in Essex. We have produced our own in Basildon since 2004, using beef, vinegar and our own spice blend, dried the traditional way rather than cooked. The recipe has travelled a long way from the Cape, but the method would still be recognisable to the people who first hung meat out to dry.