Page 21 - Through the eyes of an African chef

Sadly, over time, I noticed a change in the food that I grew up with. One example is the raw milk we bought in bottles from a nearby Umlazi “N” Section crèche; the pasteurised, tasteless milk we are now used to drinking just cannot compare. The taste of tomatoes and other vegetables has changed with the introduction of pesticides and over-farming. The quick-cooking maize meal of today says a lot about how food structure has been tampered with.
I prefer to stick with tradition, and my cooking passion has ventured into curiosity of different farming methods. I have now built relationships with farmers. I have been educated in the produce seasonal changes while trying to source local ingredients for my menus. I now actively search for pumpkin leaves and amadumbe so that I can adapt my recipes for cooking in season. To my joy, I discovered Baba Nkosi’s gardens at KwaMashu, KZN, where he grows mainly organic spinach, beetroot, peppers and other vegetables, which he rotates seasonally. I have also discovered the “Amawoti Women’s Farming Group” based at Inanda, north of Durban, and have learnt about double-digging, which improves the aeration of the soil.
For me, this was déjà vu. At Fundakahle Lower Primary, where I went to school, we had Agriculture as a subject, during which we went outside and tended to our small school gardens that used to provide vegetables for our lunch, prepared by Aunt Ma Dlamini. I didn’t know it at the time, but we practised the method now called double- digging! I realised that going back to the methods of old had been coined ‘organic’. It is neither new nor a trend; it’s just how things were and how they should still be.
I am vehemently driven by the lack of available authentic South African cuisine in our South African restaurants; food cooked with ingredients of local origin that were part of the African culture before King Shaka’s days is scarce in the very country that survived on it. Amadumbe (taro root), ubhatata (sweet potato), izindlubu (jugo beans), iselwa (baby pumpkin), imbuya (amaranth), imifino yezintanga (pumpkin leaves, of the yellow flower), uqadolo (black jack), and wild berries such as amajingijolo (blueberry) should be widely accessible here at home.
THROUGH THE EYES OF AN AFRICAN CHEF
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