I only started paying attention to Finance Minister Tito Mboweni's aspirations to become some sort of "foodie social influencer" just this year.
I guess in all the awkwardness of the year that is 2020, it was no surprise that even the most memorable dinner plate of the year would be a visual horror. In fact, I am always left with an actual after-taste after viewing the ministerial dining experiences and none has been pleasant so far. By looking at the plate, I can just taste how injured the tomatoes are after a heated braising with a squadron of potent garlic!
Every time Tito wages a war with vegetables and some dead meat, I am reminded of both my parents' cooking. I must say, one of the best freedoms that came with being a self-sufficient adult was finally never having to ever be subjected to my parent's cooking. Ever!
I either do the cooking myself when I visit home, or just surrender to the good old tea and a margarine and peanut butter sandwich for supper.
I grew up believing that I am allergic to beef, I was not. But I would always react to it every time we had it for supper. Mostly I would just gag. Sometimes I would get itchy all over from just the thought of having to chew on beef. It took a while before I could stomach red meats, and beef remains a no-go area for me.
Truth is, I was never allergic to beef, or any foods really. I was just so repulsed by Mother's cooking that I developed all sorts of phantom illnesses towards certain foods as a form of resistance. And on the other side, the sheer size of the onions in my father's cooking was enough to cause a gastral revolt from just a sight of his infamous "ushatini" dish.
It was as if the two were in competition to discover who the worst cook of all time was between them. My siblings still believe my father's cooking is delicious - if you have a throat big enough to pass vegetable chunks the size of a fist of course.
On the other hand, Mother's plates always looked great. Deceiving! She had the full set AMC pots and the complementary recipe book. Then she would dish up in matching plates and make it look like your taste buds were about to have an orgasm. Only, often times there would be that lingering outdoor, just not an aroma from spices, no. It was always the smell of burnt stew.
By the time she dishes up, she would have emptied the initial pot of stew into another clean pot - mid cooking - after a good part of it had been burnt while she was watching Brooke Logan shed a tear again.
With Mother, every time you thought you could tolerate the taste of burnt food, the real surprise would be that the meat would still be not well cooked. Yes, you would be preparing to chew a piece of rare meat marinated in charcoal stew, sitting on very wet rice! Then, to save the day, she would add a beans and mayonnaise salad and call it a feast!
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.