A LONE MAN IN AFRICA
What’s a man to do, stranded without dinner in Africa, a man who finally left his office (late), and now stands fixed in place, pondering which meal will, tonight, have a hot date with his microwave? The thing to have done, about a year ago, was to have created an app that allowed hungry South Africans to rate and comment on their Woolworths prepared lasagne, pizzas, pies and curries, in real time, fork in one hand, iPhone in the other. Live video chat would let your friends judge how good those bobotie-filled pancakes were by the grin (or grimace) on your chipmunk face.
By now, you’d be wildly successful and fêted by moguls of foodie-chic, your hairstyles copied, your tweets retweeted. These would be deserved rewards for marshalling the vast blooms of ambivalence and anticipation that drift across our country each evening as we pull into the mall parking lots. Because we are going to Woolies. A legion of hopeful wayfarers between work and home. Deciding what to eat.
The Woolworths food scientists had one job: make young professionals salivate at the thought of watching two minutes and 30 seconds count down on a digital clock. (Admit it. You do this.) And they Pavlova’d it. Their formula is simplicity itself. Provide a slew of take-outs that all cook the same way, fast. And their product — for it’s not only the age of vicarious thrills, bachelors and bachelorettes, it’s also the age of product, unremitting product — actually tastes OK. It’s at least as good as what you would expect to come out of a food replicator on Star Trek. And it’s a warp jump ahead of the competition.
So like you, Captain, I have lived on Woolies product. Especially these*:
Indian lamb takeaway that might either be biryani or rogan josh. It comes with rice, but the soul of the dish is the onions, those long, looping, crisp, chewy, golden, dirty, cinnamony onions.
Haloumi with lentils and leafy bits, which feels worryingly light in the hand but has a hidden reward: cherry tomatoes that burst like little bombs inside the lenticulated loam (alert: made-up food word), giving the rapidly shrivelling spinach and slabs of squeaky Mediterranean curd a sweet, juicy coating. (Buy two, though.)
Cheesy enchiladas with emphasis on the cheese, in particular the unnameable stripe of cottony-white cream between the two bashful, meat-stuffed tortillas, deliquescing as it rotates in the microwave into a puddle of moisturiser that you coax into every bite.
Chicken linguine with red pepper or “Boss Bird”, because it was boss of my kitchen for six months. It’s such a stripped-down, scrawny tub of eats that it barely counts as supper by itself. But after you’ve nuked it, top it with half a pillow pack of salad or diced cucumbers and tomatoes or cubes of roast butternut. And the caterpillar becomes a butterfly.
* Certain dishes may be from olden Woolies days, and, curses, retired.