Editor’s letter
IT’S AMAZING WHAT CAN HAPPEN IN A YEAR.
I used to think that. Now, I think it’s amazing what can happen between print deadlines. This isn’t just because TASTE is now bigger and bi-monthly, it’s because we live in a different world now, where things change faster than you can cook chicken in an air-fryer.
By the time you read this, I will be about to have my second vaccination, but when I started writing it, that moment felt very far away. And all because I made the decision, one Saturday afternoon in July, to go to my lovely, respectable ceramics class full of lovely, responsible people who had all had at least one jab (some two) and wore masks and washed their hands and were socially distant. Still, two days later, I was about 90% sure I had Covid.
What followed were two of the most interminably long weeks of my life. But now, as a member of the Survivor’s Club, I am reminded of what I said when this all started – we are the lucky ones. Yes, I got sick, but I got better. The Salad Dodger also got sick, but he’d had the jab more than 15 days before and got off a bit more lightly. The Cherub likely had it too, but she didn’t even notice. She just got to watch more TV and had mom and dad to herself every day. Bonus!
I know I was lucky, but at the time it was extraordinarily stressful. And it was made even more frightening by the fact that we’d lost someone we all loved just a week before – our wonderful TASTETube host and columnist Lesego Semenya.
It still doesn’t seem possible that Les Da Chef and his incredible versions of heritage dishes will no longer grace TASTE channels. Of all the precious things we have lost to this virus, this loss felt very personal. I only hope he knew how much he was loved.
At times like these, thinking about what to cook may feel trivial, but I imagine Lesego would have wanted us to turn to the stove for solace. Or better yet, the fire. Les was the master of the braai and modern comfort food, so it is fitting that this, our heritage issue, features his very last recipe for us (p 60).
And this is our braai issue too, of course, marking the end of a particularly discontented winter. Also apt. These past few months have not been proud ones for South Africa. We’ve been tested. But we have to believe it will get better.
When I was sick, I did what I always do and started making soup. There is no smell more comforting to me than chicken stock simmering on the stove.
The problem was I couldn’t smell it. That was a low point for me, not being able to turn to my familiar ritual for comfort.
Our food associations are so powerful: they provide a connection to those we have lost and can bring real, guilt-free joy to moments of unimaginable grief. The desserts of our childhood recreated: lemon fluff (p 94), fridge tart (p 92), choc-fudge sauce (p 92). Or the definitive SA braai staples – chakalaka, wors, pap (p 74), and potjie (p 96), reinvented, but always with respect for their place in our collective histories.
This is why I love the township term for cabbage, Johanne 14, a reference to the bible verse John 14:1 “Let not your heart be troubled”. It is often read at funerals where cabbage is also an affordable ingredient for feeding a crowd. Simple food to comfort a troubled heart. I’d recommend doing it on the braai, like Vusi Ndlovu (p 68), in Hannah’s creamy coleslaw (p 79), or perhaps in Lesego’s fritters, in his honour.
This issue of TASTE is dedicated to Les, whose light shone so brightly. Go well, Chef.
“Thinking about what to cook may feel trivial, but I imagine Lesego would have wanted us to turn to the stove for solace”