Sean O’Conner
food
My dear friend Elize was in mortal danger of over-salivating prior to last week’s Community Chest Carnival, held at Maynardville in Cape Town. Having never been to the Carnival before, she’d heard how important it was for her taste buds to peak at the right time. So she stopped smoking that morning, and starved herself throughout the afternoon. By the time I picked her up she was in a hungry daze. All she could mumble was “bratwurst”.
The annual carnival, now in its 50th year, provides an opportunity to taste exotic foods for a fraction of their normal price. Although a large part of the carnival comprises the familiar range of fairground stuff fashion shows, jumping castles and the like its main attraction is the 20 or so international food stalls, all of which pride themselves on their fare.
All proceeds go to charity: this year the carnival aimed to raise R2-million for over 450 different charities in the Western Cape. Everyone who works is a volunteer (except for security and cleaning), and most of the delectable scoff has been donated, either by expatriate communities or foreign embassies. Catering to South African tastes, most of the food contains meat, and is either fried or braaied.
We started off at the Dutch stall, arguably the heart and soul of the carnival food experience. A table blackened by heaps of dubbelzout licorice stood alongside an eye-worn sign that advertised bitterballen. For R6 you get three of these deep fried, crumbly balls containing a filling of white sauce, herbs, spices, onions and veal. We smeared ours in mustard and munched them while heading towards the next stall, which displayed plates of Noord Zee haring.
The man behind the shoal of stationary fish was Michael Lok, who had planned his trip from Rotterdam to coincide with the carnival. While his sister Carla served us each a herring, along with a slice of buttered white bread, we learned that the Loks’ father had served herring at the carnival for more than 30 years. Carla added that local Dutch people, when visiting the carnival, crave to speak their own language. This applies to other communities as well. In many of the stalls, groups of expatriate friends could be seen reconnecting, resampling the food they grew up on.
Thirst is not a problem at the carnival. While downing some delicious beers from the Alpenbar, staffed by an eager team of ruddy Austrians, we met Herr Rohner. His homemade herbal liqueur instantly put stars in Elize’s eyes. Then we steered past India, Denmark and Mexico, and stood in line outside the German stall for our bratwurst. A short while later Elize had restored her digestive system to controllable levels.
At the Greek stall, Mrs Heppel confided that she and the legion of women alternately working and gossiping behind her made all the biscuits and baklava together. “We have no boss, except Mrs Onaris,” she said. Jerry Thomato, who operated the till, told us he didn’t know how many years he’d been volunteering at the carnival. “I’ll do anything for a good cause,” he said, proving that doing good makes you feel good. It permeates, and spreads around. We were starting to feel quite good as well.
I got to practice my Italian with Mario Strano at the Italian stall. Strano knew exactly how many canolli his wife Amelia sold each year 4?000 but was equally vague about how many years he’d volunteered at the Carnival. Canolli are crisp pastry tubes stuffed with ricotta and sugar (plus a secret ingredient), dipped in chocolate and then dusted with icing sugar. The aroma of fine coffee lured us around the corner, to a mouthwatering line-up of Italian liqueurs.
We then had just enough space to finish off with some Belgian waffles, made with a dash of Stella Artois (a Belgian beer). Much precise effort went into the preparation of the waffles. They tasted fabulous: thick, crunchy, chewy and sweet.
However tempting it was to think that everything revolved around the food, the special ingredient at the carnival was the people. South Africans ambled from stall to stall, meeting at large round tables where there was always room for two more. Perhaps there’s something primeval in our need to gather, to come out and see each other. The carnival fulfilled this basic need, and others, to perfection.