Dining with elephants

IF YOU like your cuisine served with a side of mischievous wildlife, Françoise Malby-Anthony’s latest book, Dining with Elephants, is right up your alley.

This “memoir-cookbook hybrid” is a celebration of life, French-inspired food, and a touch of Zulu vibrancy, as she shares stories from her kitchen at the Thula Thula Private Game Reserve in Zululand. Malby-Anthony, who is also the bestselling author of An Elephant in My Kitchen and The Elephants of Thula Thula, moved from France to South Africa, where she and her late husband, Anthony Lawrence, co-founded the Thula Thula Game Reserve in 1998.

At its heart, the book reflects a deep love for the animals, especially the elephants, whose presence shaped her life and deepened her connection to the natural world.

Her pages are filled with delicious recipes created with her Zulu kitchen team, and vivid, often humorous encounters with the wildlife she has lived alongside for 27 years. 

From comforting dishes like French onion soup to more inventive plates such as mushroom and biltong vol-au-vents, venison terrine, duck cassoulet, and even chicken with pineapple and chocolate chilli sauce, the 58 recipes are simple yet full of character, each one carrying a sense of place and story.

Interwoven with these are unforgettable moments from life on the reserve. 

There’s Nana, the elephant matriarch, and her son Mandla, lingering on the verandah as if curious about life indoors. There’s Frankie  who moves through the garden “like she was inspecting a property she might buy,” while Thabo the rhino thinks he was human, and Savannah the cheetah spreads panic among animals and humans whenever she appears at the lodge.

Of the elephants, Malby-Anthony writes: “The gentle giants have been my inspiration. They gave me the strength to face adversity and the courage to overcome the toughest beginnings. They have given me the passion to fight for a better future for Thula Thula, for its animals, its land, and its people.”

The book is filled with humour and heartwarming anecdotes. A garden once described as “a chef’s dream, a gardener’s triumph…and an elephant’s buffet” is devoured, save for lemons and chillies, after a visit from the herd. Yet she and Papa John, the gardener, choose to see it as a quiet compliment from notoriously fussy eaters.

Dining with Elephants: French cuisine. African journey. Wild inspiration. is a 194-page blend of flavour, memory, and wild beauty. It will leave you smiling, and perhaps a little hungry. It retails for R430 and is available at all good bookshops.

Egg en cocotte with mushrooms and white truffle oil 

Ingredients 

20g mushrooms

2 eggs

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 teaspoon truffle oil

10g butter

Salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Fry the mushrooms in olive oil.
2. Butter the bottom of the ramekin.
3. Break two whole eggs into the ramekin and add the mushrooms.
4. Add salt and pepper.
5. Cook in a bain-marie (water bath) for about 10 minutes.
6. Before serving, add a spoonful of truffle oil for a sublime flavour.

Smoked trout with lemon and chives Chantilly on potato rosti

Ingredients 

120g smoked trout

500ml cream

20g chives, chopped

1 tsp of fresh lemon juice

4 medium potatoes

2 tsp olive oil

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions 

1. Peel and grate the potatoes. Add salt and pepper.
2. Shape the potato rosti into 8 circles, each about 7cm in diameter and 1cm thick.
3. Place the rosti in a pan and fry in olive oil until crispy and golden on both sides. Remove from the pan and let it cool. If they’re too fatty for your taste, use paper towels to sponge the fat off.
4. To make the chives Chantilly, whip the cream until smooth and fluffy. Add lemon juice, chopped chives, salt, and pepper.
5. Marinate the smoked trout with olive oil and pepper.
6. On a plate, place 1 potato rosti, top with the chives Chantilly, then add the smoked trout. Place the second rosti on top as a ‘hat’. Garnish with fresh chives.

Croque Madame

Ingredients

20g butter

30g flour or 15g Maizena

300ml full-fat or whole milk

A pinch of cayenne pepper

A pinch of nutmeg

1⁄2 teaspoon Dijon mustard

2 slices of bread

Salt and pepper

1 egg

30g cheddar cheese (or gruyère, mozzarella, gouda)

30g bacon

Parsley or chives for garnish

Instructions

Make the roux

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan set over medium heat. Stir in the flour. Cook for 1-2 minutes until the roux turns a light golden brown.
2. Whisk in the milk, a little at a time, until the sauce is smooth and the milk has been incorporated.
3. Reduce the heat and allow to simmer gently, stirring regularly, until the sauce is smooth and thick.
4. Add the spices, 15g of cheese, and mustard. Whisk and season to taste.

Make the sandwich

1. Butter each slice of bread on one side. Put both slices butter-side down in the pan on a medium heat.
2. Add 10g of grated cheese on one slice of bread.
3. Fry the bacon and cut into small pieces.
4. Add the bacon on top of the cheese and place the other slice of bread on top.

Assemble the sandwich

1. Remove the sandwich from the pan and place it in an oven dish.
2. Add the béchamel sauce over the sandwich, followed by 5g grated cheese.
3. Put in the oven and grill for 3 minutes.
4. Fry the egg in a pan.
5. Remove the sandwich from the oven and place on a hot plate.
6. Top up with the fried egg and sprinkle with pieces of bacon and some herbs to garnish.