Most Africans of a certain age and background will have had a feminine figure in their life who tended a garden.
Often she would impart knowledge such as how to make tea from lemon peels and other gems on how not to waste the precious produce that comes from the land.
For businesswoman, food writer, chef, food champion and now cookbook author Mokgadi Itsweng, this feminine presence came in the form of her paternal grandmother, who taught her about the wealth and health that can come from the garden.
Her maternal grandmother, who worked as a cook at a Durban hotel, and her mother, introduced her to culinary delights infused with flavours .
Itsweng details all of this in her debut cookbook Veggielicious, which features plant-based recipes that are easy to make using indigenous plants, grains, fruits and nuts and are affordable and scrumptious.
After getting my hands on a copy of the book, which impresses with its vibrant and mouth-watering images, the author and I chat about it and I bring up the fact that there were so many feminine hands involved in the making of it.
From photographer to food stylist Charmaine Ramalope-Makhubela, known as the Glam Foodie, who was styling a book for the first time, and even down to the person that helped with the press, they were all women. “The female energy just carries through in the whole book... that is who I am.”
Itsweng mentions that most of the helping hands she’s had in her career were women; she was under the tutelage of the late renowned Mam’ Dorah Sitole, who actually recommended the book’s publisher to her.
“I lost my mom years ago, 24 years ago, and losing a mom is a wound that you struggle to heal over the years, and Mam’ Dorah stepped up and she became my mom in the culinary industry. She guided me and gave me tips. She opened doors for me… she put my name forward in a lot of things that opened me up into the culinary world. This book is also a testament to her love and belief in me.”
The book features a brief yet detailed explanation on what it means to have a plant-based or plant-forward diet. She takes you through the types of vegetarianism, veganism, flexitarianism and pollotarianism.
After enjoying all that the culinary world had to offer, Itsweng had to change her diet due to health reasons and so focused on a more plant-based diet.
In the first section of the book, Itsweng encourages readers to start their own gardens from wherever they are and provides tips and how tos. There is also a guide to create a weekly menu, to store food to maximise it, how to keep a waste-less kitchen with recipes to help and a lot more.
“We’ll peel the carrots and throw away the tops, when you could actually take those tops, make a dressing with those tops, you could make a pesto with the tops, you could even chop up the tops and put them in soup as flavourant like you would herbs. The same with beetroot – we only use the bulb but those beetroot leafs are like morogo, they are packed with iron, they’re delicious.”
The second section contains recipes for each season featuring meals that fall under the different types of diets mentioned above. There’s even recipes for condiments and spice mixes to ensure that your food does not lack any flavour.
It took Itsweng an entire year to put the book together, and there are recipes for roasted vegetables and feta salad, sorghum balls and salad, rainbow slaw and other creative ways to use vegetables.
Itsweng has worked in the culinary industry for over 17 years, from her start in Brooklyn, New York, to even opening a restaurant, developing recipes for local and international magazines and owning her own company, Lotsha Home Foods, which is a food company that provides catering and other services.
It even has a brand called Uju Spice, which uses surplus produce from urban farmers to create sauces which are sold and then the profit is shared between the farmer and the business. This part of the business was started during lockdown, to help take care of food waste and also help farmers.
“I’m like a chameleon in the industry.. I do quite a lot of things in the food space.”
I found the recipes in the book easy to follow and fun. Thanks to the book I’ve started drinking a pre-breakfast tea or rather a herbal tonic of garlic, ginger, turmeric and lemon, that Itsweng refers to as imbiza, in the morning.
It has proven to be just the medicine after a night of indulging in rich foods.
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