There, we were greeted by the familiar Land Cruisers that have travelled with the Voetspore team, their bonnets emblazoned with the map of South Africa. Imagine the stories those vehicles could tell! Inside, the store offers almost anything for your next 4×4 expedition, from pre-made flapjack mix to braai gear and full suspension kits. I had to resist exploring until after the interview, knowing I’d easily get lost in its treasures.

Johan greeted us with a warm cup of his famous Voetspore moer coffee in his cozy little corner at the back of the store, where one could sit and admire his sticker collection from all his travels. He also showed us his one-of-a-kind coffee table, decorated with a worldwide coin collection. Pointing out a coin, he’d tell a short story of its origin. If I could’ve, I would have spent hours listening to each and every one’s history – Johan simply has this captivating way of drawing you in and painting a vivid picture, making you feel like you were right there next to him.

Trying to snap out of it, we sat down to start our interview. Nervous as a scholar on their first day of school, I was able to ask Johan a few questions. I hope you’ll be taken on the same journey I was:

J: Well, we started about 25 years ago. Traveling Africa mostly, did a number of transcontinental journeys, visited most countries in Africa, more than 40 of them, and then later on even expanded that to other places as well, Madagascar, India, South America, and so on.

Many people refer to Voetspore perhaps as a 4×4 brand. I think it’s perhaps a bit more; it’s a lifestyle brand.

It’s the type of thing that we as South Africans like to do. You know, get in your 4×4 or any other vehicle and just go and enjoy the great outdoors. Go and camp and sleep under the stars, go and have a braai. I think that’s one of the big, big privileges that we still have in South Africa and in Africa, is to enjoy it in that way.

So, Voetspore is to a large extent a program in which we live that lifestyle, and therefore we’ve been going for a quarter of a century, 25 years. We’ve produced 18 series, most of them originally in Africa, but then later on, as I say, Madagascar, India, and South America as well. And, yeah, we may continue perhaps in the future in a few other places.

J: We are there for the armchair travellers. And we engage quite a bit with our viewers as well. We’ve got a massive Facebook and social media following, more than 200,000 people that we engage with on a regular basis. Also on YouTube, each one of our episodes gets viewed more than 100,000 times. And from all over the world, you know, that’s the nice thing about this. Even though the program is in Afrikaans, we have English subtitles. And the other day I met someone in a small town in Brazil, and he came up to me and he greeted me, because he follows us on YouTube.

We have a following from all over the world, and I think what we do and how we do it actually resonates with a lot of people because we don’t try and do fancy stuff. We just try and do what the normal guy would like to do. We are very privileged to do that, and I’ve been enjoying it tremendously over the last years. For me it’s not a job, it’s a life, you know. That’s what we do. It’s a lifestyle.

J: It’s very important for us to take something like that with us. It’s important for us to have a braai wherever we are. And the COBB allows us to do that come rain or sunshine, it doesn’t matter which. We always have the opportunity to use the COBB. I actually use the bigger one. The Supreme. Because there are six of us on the team, instead of actually trying to force two chickens into the smaller one, we use the Supreme. I always take it with. I’ve got a special box, and it’s got a special place in one of our cars.

In Afrikaans we say “Dit is ‘n bietjie moeite, maar dit is die moeite werd”. It’s a little bit of effort to actually get it there, but it’s worth it’s while every single time. Every single moment when we use it. I like the COBB because it’s so versatile, and portable, there are just so many things which is special about this cooker. So I’ll never go anywhere without it.

J: Quite often, and we especially found this in South America, because in Africa, most places you have perhaps a campsite and a place to have a braai. In South America we never had that. We stayed in a truck stop where the truckers come to stop, and then they go have takeaway foods and stuff like that. While we rather prefer to cook our own food. Cooking is very much part of what we do as well, apart from driving 4×4’s and exploring the world and stuff, cooking is also important… Because we also like to show to our viewers what is possible. So we go and we forage and feast. Wherever we go, we go to the local market and get the local sausages and local vegetables and stuff. And to put that onto the COBB is rather special.

J: It’s perhaps not the answer you’re looking for, but I can remember one night in Brazil and we were travelling south. We had just finished an extensive journey on the Amazon River, spent a journey of about 1,400 kilometres on the river on a boat where we used a COBB, which was quite good to do. But the following day, as we started travelling south, we camped next to the road at the so-called truck stop. And it started raining and was actually pouring down like you only get in the Amazon rainforest. And we took out the COBB and we made that very special South African meal, “braai broodjies”. There’s absolutely nothing like it. I think Stefan and Nina were responsible for it. And there was nothing as good as that. It was pouring down with rain, and we were in the Amazon rainforest and we managed to do “braai broodjies” at the roadside. I think it’s not that much a backdrop, but it’s where we were that made it special for us.

J: In South America it was rather interesting because most people travel there in campers. So, in other words, they cook inside their camper/RV. And with us, with Voetspore, it’s different because we live outside. You know, we live outside our vehicles, outside our cruisers. And then we take out the COBB and then obviously just have a braai and put some sausages on. But in South America, they call it asado. Now, asado is the Spanish word for what they refer to for a braai (meat cooked on the open fire). It actually refers more to the short rib. That’s the specific asado, the short rib, and they cook it quite a lot – now they just refer to anything that’s prepared on fire as asado. So, we get various kinds of sausages, the chorizo is mostly pork sausages. But, the moment we take out the COBB and we start preparing that, the whole campsite, you know, starts smelling of people having a braai. And that’s when we draw a lot of attention from local people, who sit and make their little meal there inside their little camper. It’s just so much better to do it on a COBB though – and the smell is just lingering around the campsite.

J: The one thing that I really appreciate about the COBB is the fact that you don’t need that much fuel. We get charcoal wherever we go, carbon they call it in South America, and you don’t need a whole bag just to get the COBB going (being an oven and so it contains the heat). So, you cook with very little amount of ‘carbon’. I do like the pellets (CobbleStones) that you have in South Africa, but obviously if you start travelling you can’t always take a sufficient amount with, especially us going on a three-month journey. When I’m in South Africa I use the pellets, but over there we use more of the local charcoal. About the CobbleStone, I do appreciate that you can use it straight away. You don’t have to wait like with carbon, you need to wait like 20, 25 minutes. So that is also from an environmental point of view, perfect because you don’t deplete as much or don’t use as much charcoal as making an open fire. So, in that sense I think the COBB is always very, very cost effective and environmentally friendly.

J: Chicken is always good. I love the taste of the chicken that is prepared on a COBB because it gives it a certain smoky kind of texture as well. So, yes, quite often we would do chicken. But the one thing that I know, Stefan is our main “braaier”. In South America we’ve got quite a bit of pork as well, but that’s more on the open fire, not with the Dome Lid on the COBB – just open. So, we did quite a lot of pork on there as well. But I would always go back to chicken.

J: Yeah. Sometimes you need to make use of wood. And it stands up well. But I think most of the time, we always use a container of charcoal that we carry with. Even before we used the COBB, 20 years ago in Africa, in Africa especially, wherever you go charcoal is sold. And the charcoal is of such good quality that you can use it over and over again. Once you’ve finished the braai, you just doze it with water. Let it dry again and use it again. That’s the quality of the charcoal you get in Africa. But in South America, the charcoal is not of such quality. But I always see to that we have enough charcoal on hand. That’s the easiest way for us to… if you have a COBB, see to it that you have charcoal.

J: I must tell you about one day when we were in Quito in Ecuador and it was Adam’s birthday and we wanted to surprise him with a birthday cake. So when he went to bed that night, Nina got a cake mix somewhere and she baked him a cake in the COBB. The next morning, to his surprise, there was a birthday cake in the middle of, you know, in the middle of South America. In the middle of nowhere. Something that he would never expect.

J: Oh, that’s quite a good one… Next time I’ll remember that, yeah!

J: I think see to that you have a good container for it to travel in with. For the normal COBB the bag is quite convenient. For the bigger one, I’ve got a crate that it actually fits in exactly. You put the COBB in there and you close the lid and it’s easy to pack away. And if you don’t use the COBB, you can use that as something to sit on. So I think it’s very, very, very important for you to see to that the COBB is portable. You know, see to that you have a specific spot in your vehicle where you can actually put it. And it’s easy to pack once you’ve made specific room for that. And then the other thing is, the COBB needs to be cleaned regularly. So take the necessary cleaning material with. The best thing is to clean it immediately after you’ve used it and then it’s ready to use for the next time.

J: Yeah, the interesting thing in South America is that, especially in South America, and I refer to that because that’s where we’ve spent the last three years, is that they don’t use as much spices as we do. We love a “Six-gun grill” or whatever there is to spice it up. But they use the fat of the meat to flavour the meat, and therefore the meat is cooked well done. Norbert likes it because he likes all his food well done. I like a picanha, which is still red or pinkish in the middle – I prefer that. But the way that they cook, especially their meat, is a bit different to ours in the sense that they make use, especially in South America, of an outdoor cooker, like the COBB, much more than us. When we did corn, for instance in the COBB, it was very similar to what these people were doing in their own kind of cookers. South Africans tend to cook more on an open fire, and then the COBB, to a certain extent, changed the way that a lot of cooking is done here. It’s now not only on open fire, but it’s also inside of an outdoor cooker/oven.

J: People are what they eat, so one would take note of the different meals that people have in different places. You know, long gone are the times when people would pack three big freezers full of food and then go travelling, and so you must actually go to the local market or go to the local supermarket, if there is one, Shoprite is around all over Africa nowadays and see what they have. What was rather interesting in South America are the massive variety of vegetables that they have there. We got broccoli there that looks totally different to the broccoli that we know, and then we cooked that on the COBB as well, which was rather nice. And to have these variety of vegetables cooked… because you actually go and look for it on the local markets. It’s not only tomatoes and potatoes and onions and so on. There’s just so much more. Things that I just cannot pronounce the names of, it’s too difficult. But to speak to the people there and try and find out how they cook it, it’s rather something.

J: It’s interesting that when people think of Africa, they don’t actually think of the variety of cuisine that we have here. Yet we have found some fantastic meals here. If I think, for instance, in Senegal, Senegalese chicken, “poulet yassa” they call it, which is chicken prepared with a lot of lemon, onion, garlic and also mustard, which works perfectly on a COBB or inside the oven. It’s perfect. Another meal that I can think of also, which you find all around the Mediterranean, also in places like Greece, but also in Africa. We found this in Morocco, is kefta. Some people refer to it as kofta or koffa or something like that, which is minced meat, meatballs. And these meatballs are then cooked on an open fire or inside the COBB. It’s actually much easier in the COBB because it’s cooked all around immediately. You don’t actually have to turn it like on a normal braai griddle. Ever since I learned to do kefta, it’s become a favourite of us at home. My wife and kids will always say, “when next are we going to do kefta”. And then you serve that with naan bread and some tzatziki and stuff like that. It really is perfect. You find that in Africa as well, not only in Greece, but also in other parts of the Mediterranean, like in Libya and Algeria and Morocco and those countries, Egypt and so on.

J: Sometimes when we travel, we always take a bag of “mielie meel” with – we just want to have some “pap”. In South America, we found that they make a kind of bread, which they put on the open fire also made from maize meal, but that was a strange taste for us. But we used to do that. Just now and again, we have some “pap” and “smoor” (tomato-based relish) with the braai and we share it. Something familiar is always good. You go and explore, and you go and eat with other people and then you find out what they do etc. But now and again, it’s just good to get back to some familiar stuff.

J: I think it’s very important to know that enjoying the cuisine of different countries, different places, is so much part of the identity of them. If I just think back when we travelled to India, you know, just to go into a local eatery. And people eat a lot of curry yes, and a lot of chilies. But it’s not always only the chilies which are too hot to handle. Sometimes it’s just really flavoursome. To go and taste where you travel, I think it’s very much part of traveling. It’s not only scenery and challenges as far as the vehicles are concerned. It’s very much also an experience, a culinary experience to see wherever you are. So India is just so much different to Madagascar. Madagascar to some many places in Africa or to South America or to Europe and the Far East. So go and taste where you travel as well. Always a good way to start a conversation.

The other day we were traveling on the coast of Brazil and we stopped and we started preparing a meal. And suddenly one of the local guys came over and he saw that we were eating. And he brought some of this fish soup, which was the tastiest fish soup that I’ve ever tasted. And he was a local guy, you know, a local fisherman. And he made a broth. And he just brought us a plate full of soup, which was fantastic to taste. Afterwards I said to the guys, we should have had a meal with him and not prepared our own food. Yeah, it’s always a good way to start a conversation, to meet the locals and so on. And to taste, to have a taste of that country.

J: The one thing about the COBB that I like is that I think it’s a complete product. I like the bigger one (Supreme) because it just allows for, for instance, me and my family, when six people are having a meal. The other one is just for two people; we have a rental company where we have little Jimny’s that we rent out just for two people where the small COBB is perfect. But the Supreme, the bigger one, I love the Supreme and also to have it in a container, I think that’s very, very handy, but no, I don’t think there’s much you need to change about the COBB, the COBB is a complete product and you can buy it from the shelf and have your first meal in a couple of hours afterwards – it’s perfect.

J: I think that COBB is probably the most portable oven that you can think of. But not only that, you can have a normal braai on it, you can just put it on the table next to your picnic site, but then if you need to bake a cake, it’s there. It’s just so versatile, but taking a COBB with, just broadens the number of recipes that you can use, that you can practice, that you can experiment with and so on. The COBB is the thing to use because it just allows you to be a complete cook wherever you are.

J: It’s just so versatile, and because of its versatility, I think the COBB is essential for any guy who packs his 4×4 and goes and enjoys the great outdoors.

J: Thank you, and happy COBBing!