One of the most fun ways to connect to food and indigenous African ingredients is through the Food, I Love You cooking school in Braamfontein, Johannesburg. This cooking class pairs produce sourced from African Marmalade's organic, sustainable indigenous focused farm and lets your cooking skills go wild. They also have a restaurant at this location. The cooking school and restaurant is located at Constitution Hill, an important political site as it was originally a prison that held South Africa's most famous freedom fighters and political prisoners including Nelson Mandela. See what the whole experience is like!
The owner and founder of Food, I love You is Mpho Phalane who grew up in Soweto but is a self-taught cook. And in a tale that is very familiar to me, she left the world of advertising for the world of food. It's no coincidence that her restaurant and cooking school is located at Constitution Hill, former prison, now museum. "This place chose me. I feel extremely honoured" says Mpho. The cooking school is actually located in the original prison kitchen.
The prisoners at Constitution Hill were segregated with the black prisoners at the lower wing and the white prisoners in the higher wing where the kitchen sits. The prison kitchen was the only place black and white prisoners met for food preparation. The food that each prisoner received was different with the black prisoners not allowed meat, sugar or milk but they had to prepare these ingredients for the white prisoners. "We've are 30 years in democracy. I’m here to rewrite the story. I’m here because it’s an evolution and who better than a black woman?" says Mpho.
As we have a very large group of 39 African media and crew (and 1 Australian, me) we are booked in to a cooking class but if you are visiting in a smaller group of less than 20 then you can still come here and eat at the restaurant. Open Monday to Friday from 8:30am-5pm Mpho and her team prepares a Harvest Table. This buffet style selection lets the customers select what they want (typically there is a selection of 2 meats and 4 vegetable dishes plus bread). The plate is then weighed and you pay for your lunch according to the weight.
As they are setting up we sip on delicious Rooibos cocktails with naartjie (tangerine) and ginger and nibble on little toasted breads filled with mince beef, pickled onions and a coriander sauce. This bread accompanies braiis and is designed to be eaten with meat.
Then we are allowed into the kitchen. It's a stunning kitchen with a display of white corn and a huge range of colourful spices. There's a dizzying array of vegetables and grains - the grains and some of the vegetables are all cooked for us. We each draw a card and I get "Fresh Salad" so I pair up with Vishal who never cooks at all but is an enthusiastic sous chef. He follows me around with trays as we collect ingredients from the display. We only have 1 hour to cook and I had immediately spied the pumpkin, but was even happier when I saw that the pumpkin was cut and steamed in segments. I also grab a dozen red onions, a head of garlic, buckets of sunflower seeds and pepitas with the idea to recreate one of my favourite dishes: caramelised pumpkin with seeds and nuts.
All of the tables have oil, salt, pepper, sugar and Vishal gets to work peeling and quartering the red onions while I toss the pumpkin and onions with honey and lots of extra virgin olive oil. We slide this into the oven and then I get to making the dressing by reducing down some balsamic vinegar with sugar. Once this is slightly syrupy but not too thick I let it cool and then add some finely diced garlic and olive oil.
After 15 minutes the pumpkin is nicely caramelised and we turn it over so that it gets lightly browned on the other side. The pumpkin seeds and pepitas are toasted in a dry pan and the salad dressing is ready. Vishal chops some parsley and quarters some limes and we plate up the onions, pumpkin and sprinkle a very generous amount of toasted seeds and then dress them in the simple balsamic garlic vinaigrette. On top I sprinkle some grated parmigiano and parsley and then it's ready.
I should know by now that being on time isn't really the thing here. In Africa they've got a more laid back approach to time and the last dishes aren't ready until 1.5 hours after the 1 hour limit. I fret over the sogginess of my crunchy nuts but there's nothing I can do but sit back and enjoy watching the rest of them create their masterpieces.
We sit down to eat and there's a gorgeous array of food from fresh rainbow salads, stir fried vegetables with berber spice, three bean dips, grilled and curry fish (unfortunately it's barramundi so I miss out on these) and our caramelised pumpkin salad. To supplement our efforts the staff have also prepared some delicious beef short rib and grilled chicken. I'm so impressed by everyone's efforts as everyone's dips and salads are delicious and perfectly seasoned. The beef goes particularly well with the pumpkin and there is such a beautiful range of dishes and textures.
For dessert there's also a delicious Ethiopian cake which is made with coffee and chocolate. This cake has a streusel style topping made with ground pumpkin and pepita seeds.
After lunch South African anthropologist Anna Trapido and I walk around the building. It's extraordinary that even upstairs to where we are eating were the former prison cells that housed prisoners up until 1983. The most famous prisoners at Constitution Hill were Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Joe Slovo, Bram Fischer, Albert Lutuli and Robert Sobukwe. I go for a quick investigation down the cell block row upstairs but there is a forbidding presence so I don't take more than a step or two down the hall.
There are also some fascinating exhibits here including a room devoted to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 28 years. There is a cell that housed repugnant characters like Joseph Silver dubbed the "King of Pimps". He was also a Jack the Ripper suspect and a misogynist who doled out beatings to women and preyed on vulnerable Jewish women seeking a better life. After wining and dining them, the situation turned quickly into psychological and physical abuse where he raped and imprisoned the women and stripped them of their identity only to push them into white slavery.
Because this wasn't a prison for convicted criminals, the rules were slightly different and smart prisoners and their wives were able to sneak messages to each other. Anna explains that wives of prisoners were allowed to collect and wash the sheets of their husbands and the male prisoners used urine as a means to communicate. They would write messages of who had buckled under interrogation in urine on the sheets and the wives would collect the sheets for cleaning and add lemon juice to the sheets and the message would appear.
Anna also tells me a story that she recounted in her book, Hunger for Freedom; the story of food in the life of Nelson Mandela. "On 30 July 1952 Madiba and twenty other Defiance Campaign leaders were arrested for violating the Suppression of Communism Act. While they were awaiting trial, Transvaal Indian Congress activist Adelaide Joseph (whose husband Paul had also been arrested) smuggled messages to the prisoners interleaved between roti flat breads. She would deliver them to the prison and say to the policeman on duty, “Please ask them to send back what my husband doesn’t eat because we’ve got a dog and we’re poor,” and that’s how the messages would come out again.’ The resultant trial ended with Madiba being sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment with hard labour."
So tell me Dear Reader, have you ever visited a place that left a profound impression on you?
Food I Love You
Constitution Hill Human Rights Precinct
11 Kotze St, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, 2017, South Africa
Open Monday to Friday 8:30am-5pm
Phone: +27 79 386 8786
https://www.foodiloveyou.co.za/
If you would like to book transport or a tour (which I recommend), we used Tshuku Tours (mpho@tshuku.co.za). If you want a specific food tour, you can also contact Anna Trapido @trapidoterritory or email her here
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