Every sport needs a superhero, and when it comes to braaing, I’m your man. Having braaied every day for the last 15 or so years, this braai guy’s tongs have seen some of of the world’s most beautiful braai sites and met some amazing people. You’ll find me braaing in between the Jacaranda trees in Pretoria, along the beaches of Durban, through African landscapes, in Vegas hotel rooms… in fact anywhere you would/could find a chop and some coals.

In 2009, April 17th to be exact, I started braaing on a dare and have done so every day since. A few days before that we were kuiering around the fire and, as usual, someone made a comment about how great it is to be South African, being able to braai whenever we want. Equally usual, someone piped up that they’d be happy to braai every day if they could. 

Now, my friends and I (as I am sure is the case with many other South Africans) have often solved the world’s problems around a braai after a few beers. We’ve come up with weird and wonderful inventions, and some truly inspired (and some equally stupid) ideas have been born around these fires… and BraaiBoy is one of them (wonderful that is, not stupid).

So now, come rain or shine, you’ll find me around a fire at least once a day, and have no plans of stopping any time soon either. When asked when I plan to hang up my tongs, my standard response is “Hopefully never… or maybe the day I figure out how to braai ice cream”.

What are the rules?

Fortunately for me, no-one else has done this before, so I get to make them up as I go along, but in short:

a) There must be fire; b) There must be meat; c) I must eat this meat

• Potjiekos for example has been classified as a braai,
• even cooking on gas has been allowed (I can show you some tricks on gas that would outclass and “outflavour” most trying the same on a charcoal braai) – Gas vs Wood vs Charocal experiment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tql_qi97d2Q,
• I don’t HAVE TO do ALL the braaing. After all, a braai is a social event/place and handing over the tongs to someone else (especially when it’s at their house) also counts as a braai for the day… I must at chow the food though and it would be rude to not lend a helping hand at the very least 😉
• One very NB rule though is that meat must be cooked. I’m a carnivorous kinda braai guy, and prior to BraaiBoy, even classed chicken as a vegetable. That doesn’t mean I’m opposed to wrapping a potato in some foil and letting it cook in the coals. I’m just saying that the potato must be accompanied by some meat (pref. red meat, but chicken has since been reassigned to the meat category – for the purposes of this guy’s braai adventure anyway).

I’m so grateful for the many many adventures the BraaiBoy lifestyle has afforded me… some of the highlights include breaking the Guinness World Record for the longest continuous braai, which stood at 62 consecutive hours of braai’ing in 2012. Being the first person to braai underwater (my current record for doing that stands at 4 hours). Being a part of the team that broke the record when we braaied 50 different species in one go… and more. I’ve been fortunate enough to regularly travel overseas to represent South Africa in international competitions regularly get to go on adventure road trips and generally travel more than your average postage stamp.