NEW ISSUE: Our wants and needs

Ed's Note

We have looked forward to producing our first Food issue for several months. Food — what keeps us alive and, we trust, what regularly elicits untold joy — is consistently one of our best-performing pillars and it was only a matter of time before we dedicated an entire issue to it. While we are not short of spectacular restaurants, dishes, drinks, and fascinating personalities, the thought of celebrating gastronomy in a vacuum would be antithetical to the way we have, over the past three years, approached much of our output: escapism, with one eye firmly fixed IRL.

Weekly, our contributors to the online FFS (For Food’s Sake) column locate what is undoubtedly great food in family, community, travel, and even philosophy, among the myriad ways it moves us beyond our tastebuds.Our approach to this issue is no different, with fine dining and Michelin stars co-existing with nostalgia and food security.

In our anchor feature Tshepo Mathabathe speaks to some impressive folks — a lauded artist and a lawyer, a chef and a farmer — about their relationship with, and the meaning of, food in their day jobs and/or their varied side hustles. Chef and Wanted columnist Yang Zhao transports us to the Guangzhou of her four-year-old self, with her grandparents and a favourite dim sum restaurant taking centre stage.

Author of our Hot Seat food column Steve Steinfeld dives deep into Canadian chef Jessica Rosval’s daily toil in Modena, Italy: cooking the very best meals — at two sites — at the highest level, with a mentor like Massimo Bottura, and then making time to train African and other immigrant women, allowing them not only the space to create dishes inspired by their heritage but also to go on to create opportunities for themselves in the culinary industry. In the context of often-violent resistance to immigration in a Europe whose slide to the right has picked up alarming pace, this is a radical act of humanity.

Shortly after the elections, Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane was asked whether he would be changing his cabinet, in a province that saw the most emphatic win at the polls for the erstwhile solo governing party. This is also the province in a hunger emergency, with children routinely dying of starvation. In the six months to September 2023, nearly half a million people in the Eastern Cape simply ran out of money to buy food. In a functioning democracy, this is the kind of outrageous reality we shouldn’t be comfortable with. And yet, when the premier was quizzed about cabinet changes, he quipped, “If it is not broken, why fix it?” As it turned out, he made only two changes and did some performative reshuffling. I pick on the place that raised me, but starvation knows no artificial provincial borders.

So, if you would like to make an immediate and direct contribution towards alleviating hunger, Gift of the Givers runs its own and supports other hunger-alleviation programmes around the country. Every bit goes a long way. giftofthegivers.org/make-a-difference/ info@giftofthegivers.org

P.S. We’ve been teasing it for a bit and the Most Wanted Club is finally here. Keep an eye on our digital platforms (wantedonline.co.za; @wantedonlinesa) for information on how to join what is about to become the most talked-about club in the land. The innovative member’s club was launched to our commercial partners recently and will be introduced to the public very soon.

• Remember, you can subscribe to the Business Day newspaper to receive your gorgeous, glossy physical copy of Wanted in the mail.