Step away from the pots, chief, or risk a national crisis
Agrown man committed sacrilege on Twitter last week. I’ve never seen anything like it. He took perfectly good lamb and dunked it in enough water to give a two-year-old baby a bath. His caption was: “Wait before commenting. Boil the lamb, then introduce the spices, onions and GARLIC!”
At the mention of “GARLIC” in caps, all of creation groaned, because this man has been guilty of gross violations against dead animals in recent times. You do not need to have a Twitter account to know I’m referring to our erstwhile finance minister, Tito Mboweni, the self-titled “Duke of the Duchy of Makgoebaskloof”.
I’m surprised that the ANC
NEC hasn’t commented on this national crisis — a disaster just waiting to happen. Tito needs an intervention from the highest office in the land. He is dragging the National Democratic Revolution through the mud. By the time his “gourmet lamb” dish was ready to serve, it was a sorry sea of brown sawdust and watery olive oil, with some stubborn garlic scuba divers. All that was missing was Madiba’s voice from the grave, going: “Never, never and never again shall it be that lamb is dealt such a cruel blow.” Some people should never be allowed near pots.
Back in the early 1990s, I shared a flat with a fellow from Eshowe in Durban’s Albert Park. We agreed to take turns cooking. The arrangement lasted a long, looong two weeks of culinary comedy.
Let’s call him Titoette, to protect his identity. His idea of preparing chicken was to take it out of the freezer and drown it in enough sunflower oil to elicit acute coronary failure. I’d sit on the couch pretending to watch Riaan Cruywagen regale us with tales of “black on black violence” on Thokoza’s infamous Khumalo
Street, but deep down inside I’d be weeping for the poor bird sacrificing its life in 190°C oil on a random Tuesday evening, without so much as a little masala.
When his dish was nearly done, Titoette would add two whole tomatoes and half an onion to the pot and, with a flourish, sprinkle in a handful of salt.
On the days that I cooked, he would ask, “What are those leaves that you put in the meat to make it smell so good?” The following day
I’d enter the flat to be met by the sight of hapless curry leaves toasting in an ocean of oil. Eventually, I mustered the courage to have an “It’s not you, it’s me” heart-to-heart.
About five years ago, my friend Ndabezitha and I found ourselves stranded at his Vorna Valley house while our Christian friends basked in the glory of Good Friday Holy Mass and whatnot. We decided to go buy a goat and enjoy freshly slaughtered goat meat. This is how a new feast called Umkhozi Wokuphanyeka was born. The idea was to showcase the versatility of goat meat. Zulu people generally just boil it and eat it; we boiled it, sautéed it, made goat curry, goat biryani, oven-grilled goat ribs and goat stirfry-stuffed tortillas. The tradition continued for the next three years until 2020, when it was stopped by Covid-19 restrictions.
You can imagine our excitement when the 2021 Easter weekend was approaching. One of my mates was asked to host Umkhozi Wokuphanyeka. The whole week we salivated at the prospect. Lebo, a friend’s wife and brilliant cook, had a Moroccan goat tagine and fennel dish up her sleeve.
On the day, we arrived with our spices, herbs and knives, ready to display our culinary skill. But our host had an admission to make: “All I know is goat meat can only be boiled so that’s what I did with all of it.”
And that is how it came to pass that, at the 2021 Umkhozi Wokuphanyeka, we sat there stuffing boiled goat with salt into our mouths.
Wise people say a fish rots from the head. The ANC national conference needs to draft a resolution ordering Tito to desist from dragging the National Democratic Revolution through the mud with his chunks of garlic stuffed up hapless chickens’ arses. We cannot have a senior leader assaulting meat with impunity on a global platform.
Zulu people generally just boil it and eat it; we made goat curry, goat biryani, oven-grilled goat ribs ...