Give me an African Christmas………

A few weeks ago, I was comparing notes (online ofcourse) with a friend of mine on what we will be having for Christmas lunch. Christmas is all about food these days, a far cry from the days when it was about Nativity plays, dressing up in masks and going from house to house asking for a ‘Christmas box’. These days it’s a family affair, family wakes up and each person has their specialty dish that they make. This has changed at my home though, my brothers wake and cure their hangover (a three day hangover build up), my mom goes to church and I slave away in the kitchen. Nothing elaborate, just good food.

The question I have regarding Christmas is this: Is there anything wrong with African people cooking European food during Christmas? Am I just some darkie that is too fixated with race and all things African?

I still get shocked when I see black people buying gammon and massive, chemical laden turkeys during Christmas. It’s not your culture, I say to myself. What then should they be eating?

I like Christmas lunches that have those Africanized dishes. For the uninitiated, these are Western dishes that are cooked in an African way. Top of this list is rice, with turmeric and raisins. It’s a must have at Sunday lunches and functions. Next up are salads: potato salad which has tinned peas. Then the beetroot. No fancy vinegar, just plain vinegar. Cabbage, that is stir fried with a curry powder. A bit of chakalaka to give it an African feel and last but not least, some meat. We love our meat! And roast potatoes.

That is what I think Christmas food should be for black people. Wake up in the morning with some tripe and steamed bread, or fresh liver. Then while the guys sip some traditional beer, the ladies prepare a meal. Dessert should be include trifle, jelly and custard (not runny like the one you get in restaurants, but cold and stiff) and that can of mixed fruit, the one with soggy pineapple and some sweet syrup. And if you can still get it, some chocolate pudding. Cold.

Notice the absence of a starter? We don’t do starters, we go for the kill!

As is customary, some braaied meat to round the whole thing off, and start the drinking session. For the teetotalers, home made ginger beer.
Maybe I am saying this because my home town doesn’t have shops that stock up the gourmet stuff like turkey, Peking duck, gammon, panetonne and French champagne

The absence of a street food culture in South Africa – who is to blame?

During the very few times I have gone overseas, I have always marveled at how other nations simply buy food from a street vendor and nibble on while window shopping, or waiting for the bus. You will find people in Malaysia nibbling on some skewered pork satay, people eating a bag of roast chestnuts in Singapore, the thousands of samoosa stands in Chennai, etc. The concept is simple; food on the go.

Not that I have been to all these places.

My fascination with street food started when I spent a couple of weeks in Singapore, which is the epicenter of Oriental cuisine in my opinion. At every street corner there is something for you to buy, nibble on and by the time you get to the next corner, you have finished and need to replenish. I once had a street dinner there, walked to the first stand and bought chicken satay, then to the next one and got a portion of sweet and sour pork, next was a can of Coke Light, and I had pork satay. It was pretty filling and dirt cheap, that is why I could afford Haagen Dazs for dessert.

Now back to South Africa……

We have so much good food that one can buy and eat on the go, but for some reason we don’t exploit what could be a wonderful culture. Let me give you a few, boerewors roll, the peanuts sold in central Johannesburg street corners, our lovely fruit, koeksisters, moatwana (chicken feet), sheeps’ feet, vetkoek and mince, mealies, etc. Why can’t I walk to a fruit vendor, and ask her to make me a fruit salad of banana and papaya, right there on the street?

These are just a few examples of things that could make for wonderful street food. Portable, and affordable. I think the reason we don’t have a street food culture is because we don’t walk around a lot, especially at night. Blame it on crime, or the apartheid architects who forced us into shopping in malls and not walking up and down the streets in the city centers. The reality is that we do not walk the streets in South Africa. You simply step out of your office, grab a cob of mealies and then dash back to your desk and eat it there. Why don’t you walk around the block, marvel at the city buildings while nibbling on some fresh mealies?

Just leave valuables behind.

My journey to the perfect coffee………..

I have a relationship with coffee that dates back to the apartheid era. It has had its highs and lows, sometimes coffee hasn’t delivered in the taste department, and I have also not been willing to splash out on good coffee.

It started off in boarding school, a Catholic convent school run by Swiss nuns. Sub standard coffee, mainly because of the milk powder they used. That milk powder was definitely relief aid quality, and I felt guilty every time I had some, as I was convinced it was initially destined for starving kids in Ethiopia and Bosnia.

Our options at home were Kloof and Mona. I am not sure if you remember the stuff, but it was basically chicory with a pinch of coffee. Tooth stainer extraordinaire, that nestled between your teeth if not strained well. I think previously disadvantaged people should sue the retailers for depriving them of the good stuff during apartheid years. First time I saw olive oil was when I went to varsity. Let’s not even talk about the first time I had cheese, other than Gouda or cheddar. You think they would sell Camembert and Gruyere cheese in the homelands?

Fast forward through coffee/chicory mixes in high school and varsity to my first year as a tax payer. Now I had truly arrived, and upgraded to Nescafe. Even the ladies commended me on my impeccable coffee taste. A year later, a Cameroonian colleague introduced me to some coffee from the ‘armpit of Africa’ as he calls his country. I was hooked; filter coffee just had this aroma and taste I wanted to take with me wherever I went. Lack of a coffee machine, and budgetary constraints forced me to settle for freeze dried coffee, and this in a way made up for it. During this time I also tried out the various coffee brands like Illy, Lavazza, Ciro, Danessi, etc. and the chain coffee shop stuff like Mugg and Bean, House of Coffees.

A white mate who was off to work in the ‘armpit of Africa’ (funny now that I think of it) left me with his Saeco Gran Crema machine and that is when I started making my own stuff. I was surprised at people telling me that the best coffee was ‘grrrown in Italy’. Didn’t know they had coffee plantations in Italy was my response. ‘No man, you know what I mean. It’s grown here in Africa but mastered in Italy’.

Looks like colonialism never ends, now its plundering things like coffee and tea from Africa and selling them as European products.

That is why my favourite coffee, has never left the African continent. Grown in the Sidamo region of Ethiopia and roasted and packaged in Port Elizabeth, then transported to my local coffee guy. Masterton’s Sidamo coffee is everything coffee should be. It tastes good, and its African renaissance coffee.

Try African coffee like Sidamo, Harar and coffee grown in countries like Kenya and Rwanda. You won’t be disappointed.

Has food gone global?

A few days ago, I got a response about my ‘Why I never do Sunday lunch in a restaurant’ post. The response, from a friend Down Under questioned how I link sangria and an old Italian woman. Sangria, as most people probably do not know is originally a Spanish drink. It is however globally recognized as an Italian drink. In South Africa one could probably blame this on the scarcity of Spanish restaurants and the over supply of pizzerias.

This got me thinking about other foods (if such a word exists) that have gone global. Some have even fully embraced the globalization trend of rebranding. A hot dog is called a boerie roll in South Africa. It’s the same thing really; sausage and synthetic sauces in a bun.

Italian cuisine is probably the most global cuisine, and must have something to do with the mafia forcing people to eat pizza slices and bowls of bolognese or else they make you ‘swim with the fishes’. You have this nation and that nation pizza all over the world. Throw in some jalapenos and its Mexicana, throw in some pineapple and its Hawaiian. Maybe I should come up with a tripe pizza: the Xhosanostra pizza. I even had a pizza with avocado and biltong a while ago.

The most global though, has to be ice cream. It has gone so global that its origin is no longer material. I suspect the Chinese or someone from some cold place in the Orient came up with ice cream. It transcends all boundaries; religious, geographical, you name them. Even the poorest villagers have a bit of ice cream from time to time.

Second on the list has to be the hamburger. Conceptualized in the Mongolian battlefields where warriors would tenderize the meat with their saddles while fighting, it ended up named after a German city.

Has any African food gone global?

That is difficult to say as they pop up on the other side of the world and people claim to have made them since time immemorial. Biltong is beef jerky in the USA and has been around for centuries. Pap is polenta in Italy, the list goes on.

The effects of this globalization of food are similar to the ones you see in the world economy. South African kids are now growing up not knowing how to cook pap, samp and beans or even eat mopani worms, but can make you the best tasking lasagna by the time they reach their teens. Ask a young Afrikaner girl to make some melktert and see what you end up with.

Why I never do Sunday lunch in a restaurant…..

I am not a morning person, so chances are I walk to my nearest mall at about noon to get the essentials for the day, newspapers, juice, etc.

There is always this queue of people outside the mediocre restaurants or what you people call franchise restaurants. Let’s be honest, the franchise joints survive solely because of their prices and not the quality of their foods. Give me an Italian deli owned by some old lady who reeks of sangria any day!

Now back to the people queuing up for their weekly ‘meal out’. These are people who seldom eat out, and thus do not have an idea of what good food should taste like. They woke up, went to church and then decided on a family brunch. Part of the Sunday routine. Also, there are kids in the group, so the place has to be pretty decent when it comes to prices and serve portions that come with the doggy bag at no cost.

This is the perfect time for the restaurant owners to spring clean their restaurant stocks. You use up everything on these people and drastically cut costs; this is when you can serve jersey milk mozzarella instead of the real buffalo milk stuff. You can stash your Lurpak butter and use the no –name brand. These guys simply want to eat.

Besides the noise from the over crowded restaurant and kids crying (I am sorry, I don’t really take too kindly to crying children while feasting on some sarmie of roasted veggies and pesto on a toasted panini) I refuse to eat out on Sunday simply because I know the restaurant is serving sub standard far. Go back the following morning, and you will taste the difference!