Unifying fish curry and pap

Recently my favourite and only African ice cream shop in Cape Town, Tapi Tapi — which sold indigenous flavoured ice creams with ingredients such as rooibos, teff, num num berries, fonio, hibiscus, amasi, buchu, hute, lengana and koesister — closed its doors. Owner Tapiwa Guzha’s goal was to encourage critical thinking, decolonise the food space and champion pan-African ingredients. 

In SA, like many places in the world, white supremacy is baked into the system, our brains and into how we live, love, dream and what we value and desire. 

Our high street food scene is a daily offence to our cultural diversity and wealth of local ingredients, recipes and inherent creativity. It is not a reflection of our progress and interconnectedness. Why are we not cross-pollinating food cultures on a large scale? Why aren’t our “home foods” from all cultural groups easy to find together in mainstream restaurants? Why have we not invented new fusion food but we can find European and globally popular cuisines in supermarkets and shopping malls nationwide? So many South Africans eat pap at home but few restaurants serve pap instead of breads, pastas, wraps, salads, chips or rice. Malawi is nearby and boasts delicious cassava pap. There is wealth within SA and all around us, but we are not curious enough to know it. 

There is still time for food to become a flourishing department of unity and national pride, much like Amapiano is to music, seen as highly desirable and unique in the world. 

This week started with the June 16 commemoration of the youth that were killed in 1976 in Soweto while protesting the injustice of one of apartheid’s most evil tools of oppression — Bantu education. Enforced in 1953 as a racially segregated and inferior education system for black South Africans, it aimed to destroy minds, imaginations and self-esteem, stripping black people of everything but the need and desire to serve white people, to instil the belief in racial hierarchy and white superiority. The 1976 Soweto uprisings contributed to the eventual dismantling of apartheid and brought international attention to the injustices of Bantu education and apartheid laws designed to divide and conquer. 

As an artist, I’m enraged by the cruelty and injustice in the country and world right now. What can we do to make a difference and create a more united, liberated world around us? 

Creating a feeling of home for myself and those I care about is one of my life’s missions. Feeling at home is medicine. Food creates a sense of belonging because everyone everywhere eats. It is what makes us human. If we learn to understand people through food and how to touch someone’s heart through their taste buds, the world would feel like a softer place. Where people are divided and pitted against each other, food can be a tool to build a sense of value and that every individual is important. Food can send messages that we are loved, seen and that we are worthy and have a right to exist here and tell our story. Fish curry and pap, also called Kali, is a dish eaten in KwaZulu-Natal where people of Indian, Zulu, European and mixed heritage unite together and enjoy eating it with their fingers. It is a recipe for love and unity.

Fish curry and pap

for 4-6 people 

Fish curry ingredients

2-3 tablespoons coconut oil

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

2-3 dried red chillies

a handful curry leaves

2 large cinnamon sticks

1 large onion, sliced

5 tsp medium Packo Masala or similar

5 tsp chilli powder (or less)

1 tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp cumin powder

1 tsp coriander powder

1 can tomatoes

8-10 cloves of garlic

2 tblsp tamarind paste

1kg kingklip, hake or similar white fish, cubed

Method

Prepare all the ingredients — peel garlic, chop onions, use a blender or food processor to purée tomatoes and set aside.

Add oil to a pot, add mustard seeds, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, red chillies, curry leaves and cinnamon

Once the mustard seeds start popping, add onion

Once golden brown, adjust to medium heat

Add masala, chilli powder, turmeric, coriander power, cumin powder

Add tomato and garlic, then cook until a chutney

Add tamarind, mix well

Add fish and close the pot without stirring

Allow to cook for 10-15 mins.

Stiff pap, also known as Kali

Ingredients:

3 cups maize meal

4.5 cups water

1 tblsp salt

1 tblsp butter/oil 

Method

Boil the water with oil and salt.

Add the maize meal and do not stir.

After five minutes, stir, and leave for another five minutes.

Cook on low heat for 15 minutes, stirring every two minutes.

Once cooked, cool and mould into 4-6 balls or serve pap with fish curry and carrot salad (recipe in the archive).

• Parusha Naidoo is an artist, cookbook author and Wanted’s food columnist.