I’ve Slaw points

Sam Woulidge’s ultimate coleslaw has been 10 years in the making. And the result of her journey – with a little help from her husband – has turned into the best braai side you could ask for

never really been a fan of coleslaw. Or cold slaw as I have been incorrectly calling it all these years. I only learned the true origins of the name a minute or two into writing this column. Apparently coleslaw is an anglicised version of the Dutch word koolsla, meaning cabbage salad. Colis is the Latin word for cabbage. This little bit of knowledge led me to burrow down the rabbit hole that is

Google and discover that this salad was brought to New York by the Dutch founders in the 18th century, but only really became an American staple in the early 19th century with the invention of mayonnaise. All of which has absolutely nothing to do with my relationship with the coleslaws of my past. The unpretentious and ubiquitous salad was one I steadfastly avoided at all buffets and braais; I intensely disliked the lukewarm sweet synthetic creaminess of it and loathed how my people added raisins to the shredded cabbage-and-carrot mix.

The first coleslaw I ever liked, no loved, was the apple slaw my friend Alida Ryder made for me. The name alone meant I should have avoided it, because another one of my food foibles is that I believe apples should either be eaten raw and alone or baked and drenched in cinnamon batter. But Alida knows her stuff. She julienned apples into the slaw and replaced half the mayo with plain yoghurt and a generous amount of lemon juice. It was served as a side to slow-roasted pork on soft Portuguese rolls, and I was instantly infatuated. That was nine years ago; the day I began eating coleslaw.

And so began my quest to make the perfect slaw, one that I could call my own. The spicy coleslaw that Publik served as a side to their lockdown fried chicken sandwich was pretty spectacular. But it was theirs. Coleslaw – a cabbage-and-carrot salad of such humble suburban beginnings

– had reinvented itself as something a lot more hip and happening and was now flaunting itself on Cape Town’s Kloof Nek Road. I had a lot of catching up to do.

I have also been briefly infatuated with a coleslaw made with horseradish. But I soon decided it was too harsh. However Bill Granger’s ginger, garlic, soya and peanut butter coleslaw, while startling in flavour, reminded me of holidays in Asia and was my favourite for the longest time – for the past five years it has accompanied my slowcooked ginger-beer Christmas gammon. It contains no mayonnaise and, as such, I thought it was The One. Unbeatable.

But then my husband developed an obsession with Kewpie mayonnaise – that iconic Japanese mayo in the squidgy plastic bottle imprinted with the image of my favourite childhood doll. Jacques put it onto, and into, everything. Eventually, daring to tread on my turf, he added it to a coleslaw. He used the ginger, garlic and soya sauce that went into my beloved Bill Granger slaw, which was annoying because the addition of the mayo made Jacques’ version taste more familiar than mine. And then he added salted peanuts at the end (a show-off move but not snobby because, of all the nuts, the peanut is the most unpretentious).

By the general consensus of a few close friends, it was declared that this version was so much nicer than mine.

“It needs a bit more tang,” I countered churlishly, splashing in a bit more rice vinegar. Admittedly, this was a low point, even for me. But not for the coleslaw. Because it was now ours. Mine and Jacques’. For all our buffets and braais. W confessionsofahungrywoman.com, @samwoulidge