Simply soothing

I am on the most wonderful heartwarming beach holiday with one of my best friends, her beautiful twin girls, and her parents. You know those trips where you feel the relaxation hit bone deep? It has been one of those holidays and I cannot remember being this relaxed in so long.

I don’t know of anyone who can say that 2023 has been an easy year. We’re halfway through and it has been a year that has seen a yearning for real comfort. With lots of work travel over the past two months, I’ve not only craved eating at home, eating my own food cooked by myself where I have control over all the ingredients, but I’ve actually yearned for the food of my childhood.

What this holiday has revealed is a real hankering for the dishes I enjoyed as a child. This holiday, in a beautiful remote part of Mozambique takes me back to childhood holidays in Port St Johns. We arrived and I imagined my granny with her big glasses in her yellow apron with the frills waving from the top of the hill from her house on First Beach. I used to always wonder how she knew we were coming, because this was way before cellphones and we couldn’t call to say when we were round the corner. I always loved that moment and as a kid I suspected that she had a special sense and I thought it was magical.

This break with my best friend has not only sparked that deep sense of nostalgia, but also a return to nourishing meals of old. I made samp and beans two weeks ago, cooked in bone broth. I am not sure of the nutritional value of the meal itself, but it seems to reasonably represent all the food groups. We were speaking about how breakfast is  our favourite meal of the day and I’d just been introduced to Kimmy’s “fried bread” (that deserves a column all of its own). I thought to myself, what is my favourite breakfast? I let the answer come to me intuitively and it was a resounding ‘yes’ to a simple but soothing bowl of goodness — Isidudu, or good old mielie meal porridge. I can have this in the blazing heat of summer with butter and a squeeze of lemon and only the slightest sprinkle of sugar, or some raw honey now that I’ve learnt some city ways. Though in winter or when I’m feeling poorly , this is what I turn to.

I am so glad I eventually learnt to make it myself, because I’d never watched my mother or grandmother make it when we were kids. I always received this warm bowl passed over my head and placed in front of me and there was not a lump to be found, just smooth, creamy goodness. What’s not to like?

These days we are no longer the Iwisa gang, but I seek out organic mealie meal from the specialist grocer and it makes the Isidudu of my childhood. Being half Pedi and half Xhosa, I learnt to make pap first — on a Saturday evening when I was a teen and my dad decided it was time I learnt to cook pap. That was an interesting lesson, but it was not the water and mielie meal combo that my heart really wanted to learn. Isidudu, is more than just that warm, white goodness in a bowl with golden butter and the tartness of lemon, but it was the communion with which it was enjoyed. It was the one meal, where the table was always full of people and it always brought calm hums of enjoyment from everyone. This is what has been stirred by this beautiful beach holiday with my dear friends as well — the wonderful warmth that sharing a meal, musings and much laughter around a table with your favourite people brings.

Ingredients:

1. 1 cup of mealie meal ( Organic and GMO free)
2. 2 ½ cups of water

Toppings:

1. 1 Tsp of raw honey
2. Sprinkle of Maldon salt
3. ¼ lemon depending on taste

Method:

• Bring a cup of water to the boil
• In a separate glass bowl whisk together the cup of mielie meal with room temperature water and stir into a paste
• Stir this paste into the boiling water until it all forms a combined mixture (no lumps)
• Once everything is combined, lower the heat to medium to low , stir in more water depending on consistency (this is not a running porridge, neither is it thick)
• Cook on this heat for about an hour — I like it slow cooked

Serve piping hot with a good helping of real butter, a dollop of raw honey, a squeeze of lemon and a sprinkling of Maldon salt, or keep it old school and just add butter and brown sugar. Share it around the table with your favourite people and simply enjoy this soul food.