The first issue that came to mind as I glanced at Anna Trapido and Coco Fathi Reinarhz’s new book of African cuisine was what they had omitted from the continent’s great diversity of dishes. How had they decided what not to put in?
When I arrived at a recipe for koeksisters with inkomazi ice cream. I figured that here is a work of true culinary collision. The term fusion just doesn’t do it. Fusion was something Australians did in the late Eighties to feel more at home in South-East Asia. This new local release, titled To the Banqueting House (Gwynne Conlyn), is an honest attempt to invent sumptuous, happy African food for discerning eaters.
Others in the same league have tried to dress up chakalaka, pap and steak as something extraordinary when, really, the combination is just a boring step closer to full-scale diabetes. Pap, the proud South African staple, isn’t indigenous anyway, having arrived with the Portuguese via central America.
It is pap that is conspicuous by its absence. The reason can be found in the book’s introduction: ”We have taken care not to stereotype Africans as belonging to only an impoverished peasant environment. We want to challenge the prevailing assumption that taking pleasure in flavour is the preserve of the wealthy.”
So I met the two at Reinarhz’s restaurant, The Quartermaine, in Morningside, for a quiet lunch alongside the business class on a weekday when the venue was catering to the conference crowd.
There appear to be two conflicting stories regarding the book’s genesis. In the acknowledgements, Trapido thanks a student of hers at the Prue Leith College of Food and Wine for persisting with a demand that she teach a course on pan-African cuisine. The lessons somehow became the book. During the interview, Reinarhz and Trapido spoke of a disastrous short-term contract with the Moyo chain of African restaurants during which they decided to break out and do an authentic presentation of African dishes.
Surprisingly, the interview begins with an insult to the competition: ”They are not ready to give African food the image that it deserves because, basically, they know nothing about African food,” Reinarhz says about Moyo.
Trapido adds: ”When we tried saying ‘that’s not a chicken yassa’, they’d say people like it that way so let them think it’s a yassa. But we’d say the Senegalese are insulted when you do that.”
I wonder, then, whether all African dishes have to jump at you screaming authenticity. ”No,” says Trapido, ”what both of us felt strongly about, for the book, is that we didn’t want African food to be trapped in a sort of never-never land of long ago. We have absolutely no problem with the idea that African food must be modern and creative. In the same way nobody in France makes the same French food they made 50 years ago.”
It is difficult to predict what is going to matter to culinary types. In this instance, both Trapido and Reinharz are passionate about not recreating the theme park African culinary experience. In a sulky sideswipe Reinharz says something disparaging about Moyo’s clientele expecting the food to arrive to the sound of drumming, then devoured in fake face paint.
Instead, their book takes a broad and inclusive look at the food of Africa and its diaspora, including Sephardic Jews and African North America. There are seven chapters: bananas, dairy, beans, nuts, cassava and yams, spices and grains. Each is introduced with proverbs, literary and historical references. In Jamaica they say ”there are as many plantain recipes as there are grandmothers”, and in Ethiopia they say ”through perseverance the egg walks on legs”.
Talking to Reinarhz and Trapido is like chatting to a pair of non-identical twins. Reinharz, who grew up in Belgium and Burundi, is the grandson of a Belgian coffee planter who married a Burundian princess. His mother was the chef-patronne of Kinshasa’s top restaurant, Pili Pili, where visiting heads of state were entertained.
Trapido was born in the United Kingdom to expatriate Jewish South African parents who have continued to return over the years. The only thing she bonded with in England ”was the cheese”.
At last lunch arrives at The Quartermaine — and I am lucky enough to be served a portion of Nile perch done in a spiced crust with a tamarind sauce on the side. Reinarhz watches while Trapido tucks into an unusual-looking quail salad.
Then I ask why there aren’t any pap recipes in the book. ”Nobody judges European food on the siege of Leningrad,” says Trapido. ”You don’t find recipes for wallpaper in Russian cookbooks.”
Shopping for African ingredients
There is nothing in To the Banqueting House that you can’t find in Gauteng.
Congo Corner, Yeoville Market, Rockey Street, Jo’burg
This market specialises in fresh produce from Central Africa. Everything from plantains, cassava, lenga-lenga spinach and yams to tilapia fish, palm nut pulp and kola nuts are on sale. Ask for Mama Valentine Yaya; she speaks English well and is very willing to share recipes and culinary techniques. This market is staffed entirely by women and is friendly and safe for first-timers.
Nigerian Market, corner Schoeman and Beatrix streets, Arcadia, Pretoria
The stallholders at this market sell a full range of West African dry goods (egusi, kwanga, cassava breads, cassava flour, kola nuts, et cetera). It also offers a limited range of fresh fruit and vegetables — although much of it is purchased in Yeoville and is considerably marked up. The great strength of the Nigerian Market is the proliferation of pavement restaurants. Be warned, this market is quite macho and can be intimidating for first-timers.
Thrupps, Illovo Centre, Oxford Road, Jo’burg
Thrupps sells all the core North African ingredients, from argan oil to pomegranate molasses.
Big Save, Tshwane Fresh Produce Market, DF Malan Drive, Pretoria Central
This market sells all the Afro-Lusitanean (Angolan and Mozambican) and Brazilian ingredients: cassava flour (labelled farina mandioca), palm oil (labelled dende oil) and melugueta peppers.
Mediterranean Fish Centre, Jules Street, Malvern
Cassava flour and a selection of Afro-Lusitanean (Angolan and Mozambican) culinary delights can be found here. — Anna Trapido