EATING THE BUNNY

We were laaities. Pre-teens. That wonderful sepiacoloured time just before you looked at boys in a different way. We were all friends — boys, girls, it didn’t matter. We were good kids and bunked school only when we knew we wouldn’t get in trouble — especially during those chalkdowns in the 1990s.

We always had a plan — to watch the latest movie that someone had on VHS. So we trekked to that person’s house, hunched over by school cases filled with heavy textbooks that wouldn’t be opened that day.

But first we needed food. There was really no choice when we were that young and that hungry. We called it “biff”. We would pool the little pocket money we had. We were not rich, but neither were we poor. As children we could afford a few loaves of bread, chips, polony and atchaar. Or mutton curry. Or mince curry. Or viennas — the halaal ones were pink and spicy.

We would go to one of the many cafés in Bosmont, our small town in the western part of Johannesburg, and order. They always had specials for us school kids. We were their best customers.

Then we would divide the loaves into quarters. Scoop out the centre part of the bread with our fingers, fill the hole with whatever we bought and stuff the scooped-out piece back in again. Wash down with Fanta Orange.

Those were probably the best meals of my life.

Sitting around with my best friends, laughing and kidding around as we stuffed our faces with double carbs.

That’s the beauty of the bunny chow. All it takes is a quarter loaf of bread and life is good. People say that for the best ones you have to go to Durban, but I’ve eaten delicious ones in Cape Town, Kimberley, Vrede, Randburg, Soweto ...

Some places call them “scambane” or “kota” (quarter), but they all taste more or less the same and every time I bite into one, it brings back those golden memories of childhood. LS

All it takes is a quarter loaf of bread and life is good