FOOD
If you are reading this from South Africa, you may see little of interest here, but if from elsewhere these memories take on either a sentimental reminder or uniqueness. Time and place of course add their slant on the subject. As with other subjects, these are my own memories and I have not mentioned by brother by name for privacy reasons.
I naturally get onto my childhood memories, but wonder too about the food habits of my ancestors (I cannot be sure that "cullinary" is really applicable here).
Those that came with the 1820 Settlers would have lived on the sparse on-board fare available on the ship voyage over at the time. When they arrived they were given basic supplies by the British Government representatives to start with and venison by their "Voortrekker" guides. (These disaffected mainly Dutch speaking people were yet to formally trek, but were living around Algoa Bay, away from the British controlled Cape). I will cover them again under a separate discussion.
Childhood
I don't remember much about what we ate when very small, although I do remember breaking my glass baby bottle. Plastic not yet being suitable.
I remember groups of black maids sitting on the grass along the pavement in chatty groups shelling fresh peas, most probably bought by their employers at the fresh produce market.
My maternal grandmother Nana, used to sometimes take us to the market. Bulk sales were made to the, shops, hotels and similar establishment, but smaller sales were made to the public at the "German Market" section. Nana would buy a wooden box of peas or tomatoes, for instance, perhaps with minimal haggling, and then share it out with her friends and neighbours. There was a large German presence in the Border region around East London due to the British German Legionaires brought here in the 1850's after the Crimea War to bolster the white population and act as a further buffer against the black tribes from the north east. Almost all turned to farming.
Nana would sometimes bake bread. I remember this as always being white bread and with hard unappetising carboard crusts. As with her fresh produce shopping, she would produce too much and hand it out to her friends after church who were very polite about it.
When we visited Nana and Da at their flat next to the church in Belgravia (EL) we would be offered home-made ginger beer or a variety of fizzy drinks. These could be Hubbly Bubbly (the equivalent of Fanta today) or one of the Cockburn's soft drinks. All cooldrinks had pressed on caps (screw caps came much later) and I would open them with my teeth (the metal was much softer then). I also liked Canada Dry. We were not offered Coca Cola although it was made in EL. And we were given sweets. (Bad habits were setting in). Coca Cola was to play a bigger part in my life. I found that it was good for asthma. I still use it to clear sticky asthma as from oily foods.
Coca Cola and its associate brands used to promote themselves with products such as yoyos and even get "professional" experts to come to the schools to demonstrate. Another was the production of fairly good quality collectable African animals and birds. One would need to hand in a certain number of the cap inserts to a participating shop to get them.
Litter and flytipping had its benefits and we would scour the dumps near the house to get as many as possible. This was an era when bottle recycling was more literal. We would take intact bottles to the shop and get hard cash. get hard cash which would inevitably be used to buy bubble gum. As little kids, we loved Chappie's Bubble Gum. These came with jokes or silly facts inside the wrapper. My friend Robert's little sister called them "guggle bum".
A visit to the dentist, the only medical treatment we were given as Christian Scientists, meant a penny chocolate as a reward.
We sometimes had Moir's Jelly. For a while they included nice animal cards on the boxes. My primary school teacher was a Miss Moir and when she told us it was a good idea to collect them so that we could learn the animal names, I took this very seriously, thinking it was her family company. I got rather stressed when my mother bought another brand.
This possible family connection to a product was not that daft. The grandfather of Peter Wilson in my class owned Wilson's Sweets. He sometimes brought in some freebies and parties were similarly themed. The company was eventually bought out by Rowntree and became Wilson-Rowntree. Great sweets that we don't get here. Wilson's toffees, Butter Scotch in a tin and others. With the new company owners came Big Tex, Peppermint Crisps and others. Some of these are available at South African shops in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
There were no restaurants at that time, at least not we we know them now (or were known in Europe). We were taken to eat at hotel dining rooms. I hated this. It seemed to be all steak and kidney pie with smelly cabbage. And my father was extremely severe in getting us to finish in order to get pudding eg ice cream. I am allergic to egg, so this was almost the only alternative.
There was a weekly routine.
Unlike in the UK, schools did not provide meals. The "tuck shop" was very limited. We would take a packed lunch with us. Sandwiches etc. and a small bottle of juice. "Juice" would normally be KoolAid, a colourful mix of a powder of that name with water. No nutritious value at all. When we got to high school we packed our own lunches or walked home, having by then moved to Clarendon Road in Selborne, or bought from the ice cream or pie men at the school gates. These guys would have insulated containers on the front of their bicycles or push carts. They also sold sweets.
We had both participated in school sports such as hockey and rowing, but Saturdays were for some years when we went horse riding. That was followed by the usual lunch of fish fingers or Escort pork sausages with peas and/or sweetcorn.
Sweetcorn to me means creamed sweetcorn from a can. A favourite of children. It can be warmed and put on toast too. In the UK it simply means a specific variety of corn.
On Sundays we would return from church and sunday school and stop off at the bakery, usually Premier Bakery, to get hot bread. We would sit in the back of the car gouging out the soft hot white inside and eat it there and then, becoming covered in crumbs. You cannot get hot bread in the UK, at least now, probably due to health and safety, but my children did also ex perience it from the in-store bakery in Beacon Bay in the '80s. This Sunday routine was accompanied by piles of Sunday papers which naturally included comic sections.
Sunday lunch was usually a roast. My father was rather formal at dinner, more so on Sundays. We would arrive home from church with the maid having done at least some of the preparation. He often invited others from church to join us, usually lonely batchelors.
The table would be formally set and he would still be wearing the jacket and tie for church, ie a suit.. Weekday dinner also usually meant a jacket and tie and as he would have been in a suit for work, that was how he was dressed for dinner. Just sometimes, he would be in a more casual jacket such as if it was a holiday and rarely, such as during extremely hot weather, he would forego the tie. He would then apologise to my mother and seek her approval.
Such formality could be stifeling to us kids.
My mother would never find fault with my father, but always apologise for her own cooking. You may read something into that. My parent never had a row as such, but inevitably had some tense moments at meals. My father had this corny way of wriggling his little finger at her to say he was only joking.
We sometimes had chicken curry, which I enjoyed and there were always a selection of extras to make it less burny - coconut, cut banana, etc all laid out in crystal glass containers.
Another curry dish that was popular there, but not available here was curried and peppered snoek (a fish) hot or cold. Very spicy, but very tasty.
While we did sometimes buy fresh fish from the hawkers along the road up from the docks, our family were not into gutting and preparing fish ourselves so that fell to the kitchen maid and I don't remember any great fish dishes.
My father had inherited silver table accessories, some with blue glass inserts. He had his favourite mustard one with its tiny spoon.
Christmas dinners were great and we kids enjoyed participating the table decorations. Bougainvillea cuttings added lots of colour even if they got in the way of the food.
The down side of this dinner time formality was that he chose this as the time to criticise our educational failings. I was doing badly at varsity and my brother at school. I would immerse myself in the Venice painting behind him and gaze blankly at him while being admonished. I still love that painting.
It was also about this time that learnt of the diverse uses of sweetened condense milk. If you sat the whole unopened tin in boiling water for up to two hours it would caramalise and be delicious. If you over did it though the tin would explode with the resultant mess to clean up.
I usually ate cereal for breakfast. We were given hot porridge sometimes, but I was only induced to eat it if it was trickled with honey or syrup. Maltabella though was vaguely chocolately, actually simply malted porridge and I liked that.
Our family shopped at the first supermarket in East London. It was in Curry Street. Very moderate by later standards, it was nevertheless a break from the days of shopping at speciality shops ie the baker, butcher, greengrocer etc. You chose your items, put them into a small cart or a basket and headed for the till. Sounds normal now.
Another good food shop was Sanan's. And they would have a fruit and veg truck-shop go around the suburbs vending their fresh produce. We would sometimes get a free plum or apple. My grandmother would embarass us by trying out the small fruits such as grapes before buying.
As kids we were taken to roadhouse cafes as a treat. We would sit in the car with trays clipped to the windows and order toasted chees sandwiches or burgers with maybe a Sparletta to drink.
There were two popular roadhouses. One at Marina Glen at Eastern Beach which at least had a slight view of the ocean; and one in upper Oxford Street behind Malcomess Motors which sold Mercedes Benz. These each had a screen onto which was projected slides of scenic views interspersed with adverts. The one at Eastern Beach at least developed a proper restaurant alongside it. Similar roadhouse type catering was available at the drive-in cinemas.
So, as I say earlier on, there were no restaurants at that time except within hotels. The roadhouses seemed to fill that gap.
But there were other alternatives. There were tea rooms within the department stores such as Garlicks in Oxford Street and London Dapery in Curry street. There was also an independent tea room in upper Oxford Street in the almost traditional manner with round tables and bentwood chairs and waiters.
There was a "milk bar" within the Colloseum cinema / theatre in lower Oxford Street. As a child this confused me as we never sat there as a family, perhaps as it was a bar. It always seemed to be frequented by adults, none of whom seemed ever drink milk. Another term that confused me was the soda fountain. as I wanted to it spout.
Something that continued from childhood to adulthood and to our own children was rusks. Also known as Boere Biskuit, this is essentially dried bread. While there are variations, this usually means a buttermilk recipe. This is so much more than just dried bread. As one website says: They are slightly cakey, slightly bready and completly hard – a little bit like Terry Pratchett’s dwarf bread but way more tasty. Sort of like Hobnobs, but bigger and way more healthy. [LookatwhatImade website].
They are good for teething babies and children. But they come into their own in the macho image of stout boers (Afrikaans farmers) sitting around a fire dipping them into their koffee.
Adulthood
When I was conscripted to the navy we new guys had to make coffee for the older ones, most of which (at Gordons Bay) were training as officers. This introduced me to instant coffees such as Riccoffee with its chicory component. (Added for its sweetness and as it was grown in SA would enable the price of coffee to remain lower. It was also used as cattle fodder). Anyway, that also meant the addition of condensed milk. That had to be in exactly the right proportion and whipped up before the hot water was added, to each person's preferene.
It was much the same when I went to university, the first year or two being at a hsotel. We newcomers were at the mercy of the others. This was all part of ontgroening, the process over the first weeks of becoming less "green".
We had well provided hostel / residence dining facilities, but when I left for private digs I needed to fare for myself. I got myself a small grill and would do 'minute' steaks quite often.
Later years
Microwave ovens were a great breakthrough, but when they first came on the market, there was some suspicion of what these micro waves could do to us and warnings were given about their effect, particularly on pregnant women. However we got one as a family and still use one to this day - although air fryers are taking over that role and more.
Braais (BBQs) were obviously fairly important to us (although not nearly as much as the average South African). We were still vegetatarian / piscaterian (fish) and had a lot of chops, usually pork and boerewors (traditional "farmers sausage").
We used to have to buy boerewors for the staff while building our house and then weekly for the gardener together with bread, fags, coke etc. The maid would usually be happy with samp and beans which she cooked in our kitchen and would sometimes share with the gardener. Keeping the gardener and maid organised and fed was a job in itself.
We noticed that some black people would scour the open building lots for edible plants, which were often "weeds" to the rest of us. It goes to show though what we were probably missing. Only in later life did I get interested in native herbs (and have still to really understand and utilise them).
As a young family we had processed cold meats. The cheaper, the more lurid the colour. We now wonder how our daughters survived them. And wonder what was really in them. Toppers was a reasonable cheap alternative to real mince - if mixed with mash or rice. It is no longer available and I see recent posts saying it was vile and "yuck".
Christmas once we had our small family was rather unique. We started with parcel opening and breakfast at our house, but had the main Christmas dinner, and more prezzies, at the grandparents' house in Selborne. But then when we felt it was all over, we went to my wife's aunt and uncle for more Christmas dinner and some more prezzies. Christmas in SA is in mid-summer, this could include a dip in each of their pools.
There is a typically SA slant on the Selborne Christmas. The maid would have done much of the preparation and was called in late in the prezzie opening process to receive some extra money and other items. A slightly embarrassing event with all of our wrapping and prezzies lying around.
When we got married the maid Sophie presented us with a sheep. She had been pre-warned not to give it to us whole so had slaughtered it can cut it up. It was given to us in a plastic sports bag.
At the inauguration of one of my projects in the Ciskei, a primary school opened by the homeland president, Oupa Gqoza, two sheep were delivered live in a bakkie (small pickup truck) to the site on the day. They were slaughtered behind the site office and cooked on an open fire. Ever tasted really fresh meat singed on an open fire?
Almost all building sites in SA had fires going near the workforce facilities. Someone was allocated the job of cooking - if there was indeed meat. This could often be in a well scrubbed shovel and usually involved boerewors, still uncurled (this sausage usually comes in a coil). The near staple for building site labourers would be a half loaf of white bread gouged out and filled with jam or even better gravy and meat. Knorr Aromat goes on just about everything.
Popular drinks included Sparletta (Hubbly Bubbly having disappeared), Liquifruit and Game (in powdered form for mixing with water).
Milk could be bought in plastic bags. You would freeze them, the soft packaging being easier to pak into the freezer drawer. Plastic jugs were sold of the same size. In that climate they melted quickly again.
Something that my wife cannot do without here in Scotland is Mrs Ball's Chutney which she now buys online. There are several stories as to its origins. My father had one (that is at odds with that on the internet), but which may have some founding - chutney is an Indian / Asian creation. Anyway my father would claim that he knew the family of that produced it from army days. SomeMelone had been posted to the East and enjoyed the Malay chutney there. When he returned he decided to set up a local production company. "Mrs Ball's" sounded more convincing a name for a food product so he use that of his in-laws. The company was successful and has since changed ownership. Whatever the validity of this story, it certainly explains a link to Malaysia (or India). [Many Malay recipes came to the Cape well before this and remain favourites, but don't include chutney].
Restaurants and cafes belonging to chains had arrived and we had Juicy Lucy with its fruit juices and smoothies, Golden Egg with its eat in or take away fast food. This was British owned. At about the same time Wimpy opened too. These were great places to take children although the menus were very standardised and basic.
The 1980's were a time of great polical turmoil. Apartheid was at its most vicious and rebellion was in the air. The USA was seen as a supporter of Aparheid and American businesses were targeted. A small bomb went off in the Golden Egg in upper Oxford Street, throwing shards of glass across the street. No one was injured (the spate of small bombs of this period were timed for the early hours of the morning), but as you see the bombers mistakenly thought that Golden Egg was American due to its style of identity.
I discuss that situation under POLITICS & SECURITY
The Spur restaurants were relatively speaking, proper restaurants. Each was named after an American indian tribe. We had our favourite as a family in Beacon Bay. The girls were still small then and spent much of the time under the table.
Another popular fast food outlet was KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken). While very obviously American, it did not seem to be similarly targeted. I cynically see this as the former was white supported while the latter was a firm favourite of black people. I would sometimes go into the Public Works offices of the newly independent Ciskei government and the smell of KFC was everywhere. Some potential building contractors and others soon realised that they were better received (I won't go as far as "bribed") if presented with fresh hot fried chicken wings. Staff would often see you with a KFC box open on the desk of tenders and other documents. Discipline improved when the Ciskei regime changed and again when Apartheid evaporated, but those early days were chaotic.
MacDonald's seemed to arrive later. As a student wandering around Scotland for a day in 1975 I thought I had found a nice cheap typically Scottish cafe to buy fish and chips. It was much later that I realised my mistake. (It is based in Illionois, USA).
Malaysian cuisine became introduced with the "Cape Malay" slaves and we still have some great recipes from them that in spite of the Apartheid years have become firm favourites amongst all races. Babotie and Melktert come to mind. Unfortunately these have egg to which I am allergic so can only have them if specially made for me.
Another dish which is typically South African is Waterblommetjiebredie, a traditional stew from the Western Cape. This hearty stew is made with waterblommetjies, an aquatic flower native to South Africa, and is known for its subtle, nutty- earthy flavor. The dish is typically made with lamb, soft vegetables, dried fruit, and aromatic spices, creating a soulful celebration of seasonal local produce. Water blommetjies, ie water lillies grow wild across the country and in dams. I understand this was made by the early white settlers, but is most likely something that the indigenous peoples liked too.
Waatlemoen konfyt. is jam / preserve made from water melon. While water melon is an introduced fruit, it grows well here. The fruit loses its pinkness and becomes more a glutinous sweet yellow. Yummy. There are a number of smaller indigenous melons which were probably used by the early settlers.
Rooibos tea / tee is another beveridge considered truly Afrikaans, but which has been adapted from the indigenous peoples. The indigenous Khoisan people of the Cape region in South Africa were the first to discover the Rooibos plant. They harvested the leaves and stems, crushed them with hammers, and then left them to ferment in heaps before drying them in the sun. The resulting product was a flavorful, red tea that they used for a variety of purposes, including as a herbal remedy and a refreshing drink. [Rooibos.Africa]. Although it never really caught on within my family, it was bought because it does not have caffeine and my parents being staunch Christian Scientists saw this as a positive trend.
My father was not keen on either tea or coffee for the same religious reasons and would (embarrassingly to us) ask for a plain cup of hot water.
The herbal benefits of this herbal tea are well known. Small children can have it as it does not have caffeine. My mother, also trying to avoid the medical remedies, preferred regular treas, but then saw an alternative to vet prescribed skin infection remedies for our dogs. So we bathed them in rooibos tea!
Culinary offerings had come a long way by the 1980's, but incredible as it may seem, East London did not yet have a coffee shop. These were the years of courting and then raising a young family. My wife became a partner in a bookshop called Exclusive Books with someone she knew from the Daily Dispatch. When it grew and moved into new premises that included a coffee shop component. There was a great launch event with a jazz group led by Alan Webster, son of my one time english teacher.
Almost symultaneously, other coffee shops started popping up around East London. It was not so much that Exclusive Books led as that coffee shops were becoming the norm everywhere and they were in tune with that. But they were in the forefront.
LLOOKATWHATIMADE : https://lookatwhatimade.net/cakes/buttermilk-rusks-karringmelk-beskuit/
ROOIBOS. AFRICA : https://rooibos.africa/discover/history.html
SPAZA SHOP : Good source of SA food products in the UK. https://southafricanshop.uk/collections/condiments
