The cuisine of South Africa is sometimes called "rainbow cuisine", as it has had a variety of multicultural sources and stages. The cuisine can be generalized as:
- Cookery practiced by indigenous people of Africa such as the Sotho- and Nguni-speaking people.
- Cookery that emerged from several waves of colonization and immigration introduced during the colonial period by white European people of Dutch (since 1652), German, French, Italian, Greek and British (since 1805~1820) descent and their Indo-Asian slaves or servants - this includes the cuisine of the so-called Cape Malay people, which has many characteristics of Indonesia and cooking styles from neighboring colonial cultures such as Portuguese Mozambique.