As well as being a trusted restaurant critic and award-winning food writer, Lannice Snyman is also founder of the South African Barbecue Association and an internationally accredited barbecue judge.

But when she’s not inspiring us to reach beyond the boerie and chops for our Sunday braais, Lannice heads up a powerful culinary consultancy and publishing house, specialising (not surprisingly) in cookery books. She’s written 17 books of her own, and says the highlight of her career was ‘the first time I saw my first book (Free from the Sea) in a bookshop, in 1979. And it’s still a thrill, half a million book sales and many, many years later!’

With no formal training in the culinary arts, Lannice says it was her first boyfriend Michael (now her husband) who set her on the path to foodie diva status. ‘He taught me to fish. I fell in love – with fishing and with him – but had no clue about how to cook our catch, so I learnt!’

And learn she did, catapulting herself into the spotlight in every aspect of her career, notching up three Gourmand World Cookbook Awards and taking her place as Regional Chair for Southern Africa for The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, a prestigious international event organised by British publication Restaurant. She even has more cookbooks in the pipeline, in between producing a gourmet product range with Rickety Bridge Wine Estate in Franschhoek.

‘I’m like a sponge,’ she says, ‘tracking trends, challenging predictability and soaking up ideas. My greatest inspiration is that sharing food – a simple snack, a casual campfire repast or a banquet – is a powerful and intimate form of communication.’ What makes SA cuisine unique? Cooks define their food, and South African cuisine has been influenced by a kaleidoscope of social and culinary backgrounds. This has resulted in an extraordinarily complex patchwork of lifestyles and food styles – the world’s original ‘fusion’ of flavours, long before that word became fashionable.

Your favourite SA foodie destination?
My own homes. The one in Hout Bay, where we live and work, has the busiest test kitchen on earth as my daughter Tamsin runs her catering company from there. There’s also a ‘gone fishing’ seaside plekkie at Cape Infanta. Someone is always conjuring up something gorgeous to eat or drink at both. Like-minded friends gravitate to share meals with us.

Most iconic SA brand?
Nestlé Condensed Milk, which I suck from the can, and Lucky Star Canned Pilchards – just the thing when I want to whip up something quick, cheap and nourishing, like fishcakes.

Your foodie secrets?
Cook with love and use the best ingredients you can afford. Most important of all is being surrounded with fun guests who are hungry and have loads of witty repartee.

Your dream dinner guests and what would you cook for them?
I’d invite all five SA chefs currently given the nod by the S Pellegrino World’s Best Restaurant listing – Margot Janse, Luke Dale-Roberts, George Jardine, David Higgs and Harald Bresselschmidt – as well as chefs Peter Goffe-Wood and Walter Ulz (who adores a no-holds-barred argument, especially about Cape Town versus Joburg chefs), and food critic Victor Strugo to keep things orderly. And it wouldn’t be dinner; we’d start with breakfast, go through lunch and end with midnight snacks.

Five ingredients you could never do without?
Garlic, ginger, chillies, expensive dark chocolate and my home-roasted, secret-recipe masala spice mixture, used for everything from roasted patat to fillet steak and fish on the braai.

By Leigh Robertson

Courtesy of Eat In magazine 2010