Search for ‘mazondos’ ends up in twilight zone

NOSE to tail eating has always been popular in Zimbabwe.

Not only is each part of a beast, if correctly prepared, delicious, but rural tradition demands that nothing be wasted, down to the horns and the hide.

In the cities, more and more lovers of good food are preferring to eat ‘on the wild side’, choosing a steaming bowl of maguru nematumbu over a T-bone steak, or a plate of crisp-fried kapenta and greens over a cheese burger. Cow heels, aka mazondos, are an international delicacy. In Lancashire, England, they are made into cow heel pie, while in the Caribbean they are simmered with split peas and okra to make a richly appetising soup. In Zimbabwe, the full-bodied flavour of mazondos simmered with onion, tomato and chilli is something special. This was the dish I wanted to eat two Sundays ago.

Recalling a splendid traditional meal enjoyed at Garwe some five years or so ago, I phoned through a reservation for a table for two, and we set off in the direction of Eastlea.

Turning off Samora Machel Avenue, the road immediately deteriorated. Navigating pot holes at a snail’s pace, we eventually passed Churchill Boys High School, and shortly afterwards, Roosevelt Girls High School. Left into Donald Macdonald

Drive, we searched in vain for the Garwe sign. Four or five cars were parked outside an unmarked entrance. Could this be the entrance to Garwe?

You can tell a lot about a place from the number of cars parked outside. Either the crowds had eaten early and gone home, or Garwe was no longer the flavour of the month.

A narrow path led us past some newly-built cottages, and then opened up into the familiar woodland glade and trickling stream we had visited some years before. The day was overcast, and the restaurant was overhung by trees.

The sight of black table cloths and many empty tables and chairs was not reassuring, but Sally, a bright-faced waitress wearing a clean white blouse, led us to a table in a weak patch of sunlight. Sally smoothed the rumpled table cloth and pulled a piece of paper and a pen out of her pocket.

“There’s no menu”, she said. “We can braai you a pork chop or a bream. If you want road runner, it’ll be ready in 20 minutes.”

Considering the choices, I looked around. In the dark centre of the restaurant, feebly lit by overhead lights, I could make out the shapes of 10 or 12 diners, theirs backs to us. To the left, in an empty and unfinished gazebo littered with straw for thatching, a TV flickered aimlessly.

Could we have entered a twilight zone, a dilapidated parallel universe?

Had mazondos been on the menu, things might have turned out differently. Given the choices, we declined both the pork chop and bream, took our leave, and made our slow way over the potholes back to the CBD and to reality.