GRIEEEEEEEEN MIELIEEEEEEEEES!

I n the beloved Madam & Eve cartoon strip, the curmudgeonly gin-soaked Ma Anderson freaks out every time she hears the mielie-seller’s call. We all know it — that raucous, raspy, off-key shriek followed by a ghastly piercing whistle. Grieeeeeeeen mielieeeeeees! Grieeeeeeeen mielieeeeeees! . . . As Ma Anderson reaches for her G&T and catapult.

I am the opposite. When I hear the mielie-seller I run towards her or him with glee and cash. Boy, do I love a mielie. The mielie-sellers call them green, I call them white, whatever. I’m not talking about the soft yellow-pearled corn, which is also great, but our national homegrown maize with the big, tough, white teeth. Boiled in their sheaths, braaied, grilled, ground, pounded, mashed or smashed, gimme the mielie, the mielie, the dinkum Seffrican mielie.

THE SELLER WOULD DRINK AN ENTIRE GLASS OF BEER

It’s a taste with memory. I can still hear the sound of the mielie-seller from my childhood, part of which was spent in Craighall Park in Johannesburg on a steep hill. Breaking the hot silence of the dreary ’70s suburb came the cry and whistle of the mielie-seller, growing in pitch and desperate intensity as the hill steepened. Grieen mielieees! Grieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen mielliiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeees!

Fortunately for the mielie-seller my mother was a mielie head, and the mielie-seller’s suburban torment would come to rest at our house for a while. Temples throbbing, throat parched, calf muscles burning, the mielie-seller would drink an entire glass of water or beer in one swallow, be relieved of most of the mielie supply and then head back up the hill again, crying and whistling. As dogs barked and people slammed doors or reached for their G&Ts and catapults.

The thing about our national mielie is that you have to know how to cook it, which is generally for a long time. Parboiled is a good start for just about anything to do with cooking the mielie. While for most Seffricans you braai it brown and eat it with butter and salt, there are many other alluring methods. As I learnt during my mother’s Year of Experimenting with Maize, as it came to be known.

There was a national Maize Board then, which sent out propaganda recipe books to white housewives, which my mother embellished upon wildly. We had well-steamed mielies with burnt sage sauce, grilled mielies rolled in olive oil and dukkah, mielie bread with cheese and onion, turmeric mielies in a Thai stir-fry, crispy mielie bits in salads and as toppings . . .

I can’t imagine my eating life in Jozi without the mielie. As I write this I am sitting in a thunderstorm listening to Nina Simone and boiling some mielies for a dinner of onion, cumin, butternut, fresh coriander and yoghurt. The mielies I bought today however, were not from the shrieking mielie-sellers of yore, but from two very pleasant sellers on the main strip in Parkview. A man and his wife. No bicycles, no crying out, no catapults or barking dogs.

They were from Ralela village near Tzaneen, they told me when I asked, which is near where I come from. We talked of the recent strife there, how the people burnt down the police station and torched the police vans, how the police botched a muti-murder investigation. We clucked this weird Madam & Eve consolation to each other and then they charged me R16 for two green mielies. Hmph. That’s the nature of the national staple for you.