Top chef cooks up cook book to toast kasi cuisine
LesDaChef likes sharing delicious ideas on our food
Whether you’re a foodie or not, the odds that you’ve come across a tweet about food by Lesego Semenya are fairly high. Known as LesDaChef on twitter, he often sparks debates that rage for days. He challenges what South Africans know about the food they consume and imparts knowledge that would not have been looked for otherwise. Born in Soweto and armed with both a BCom degree and a Grande Diploma in Food and Wine from the Prue Leith Chef’s Academy, the former University of the Witwatersrand student certainly knows his stuff. These are not his only accomplishments, Semenya has been a judge on Top Chef SA and runs his own culinary business, LesDaChef Culinary Solutions. He also cooks for the high profile and the layman. He’s brought his powerful and simple way of removing the intimidating culture of fine dining into his first cookbook, Dijo: My Food My journey. While reading the cookbook, which also features anecdotes about himself, you realise that our food journey is communal like most aspects of black lives in this country. There’s a delightful recipe for di-ice, as people from Gauteng would call it, but back home in KwaZulu-Natal it would be referred to as is’qeda, short for is’qeda koma (thirst quencher). These frozen drinks are made from cool aid or nesquik that would be poured into small clear plastic bags and frozen overnight, and sold at 50c each. We’d go about our merry way with this refreshment roaming townships. Semenya’s version is a much healthier option made with watermelon and strawberry. He pleads in the book that it’s best to use ice lolly trays to protect the environment. Semenya teaches about and reinvents the foods we grew up with. Not only is the book a celebration of our food, it’s also a glimpse into who Semenya is.
He comes across as an adventurous chef, who deeply cares about informing and celebrating our cuisine. He melds together the techniques of his culinary training with the raw, homey ingredients of our people. If you’re looking for some surprising desserts for your Christmas lunch, do grab a copy to try out the Inkomazi Panna Cotta or the Makipkip white chocolate mousse, yes makipkip guys. The book features beautiful shots of food images and of Semenya and heart-warming images of family sitting down and eating together. Essential once again for the coming season of brunches and lunches for those who love to host or want to start, are his #cheftips. Semenya imparts tips on wine and food pairings, tips on red meat and even how to make your own pasta. The theme of the book is to “remove snobbery from food” we all eat and it can be an experience whether the food is served on fine china or enamel plates or trays. The ingredients used are easily accessible, fairly priced and are familiar. With Dijo you as the reader have Semenya as a companion, one that seems familiar and takes out the stress of trying a new recipe. It’s a book to keep and build new food traditions from, which are based on our past but showcase what we can do with our food.