"Dinner is now served" - and then the madness begins

IN DECADES of attending all kinds of events, from gatherings where simple finger snacks would be served to right royal banquets, it has never ceased to astonish me how some people will openly display gluttony.

The phrase “dinner is now served” is music to their ears and they will make a beeline for the buffet and return to the table with a mountain of food on the plate, mixing all kinds of curries, roasts, salads and pickles. That’s in addition to the three massive scoops of rice, four folded rotis, two bread rolls and four pats of butter.

Most times they cannot finish all the food but will crane their necks to see if the dessert station has opened. It’s human nature to enjoy getting things for free, but it can be amusing - and sometimes frustrating - to see how people react in the moment.

If prawns are served, either grilled or curried, voracious eaters will ignore the other dishes and load their plates with the crustaceans. And as if that is not enough, they will unabashedly tuck into one or two of the plump shrimps, licking their fingers, on the way from the buffet to the dining table. I suppose the price of prawns as well as their status as a special occasion food, makes some people throw social graces and manners to the winds.

Greed for booze is also much in evidence when liquor is limitless and without charge. Free-loaders, who take advantage of others' generosity, forego their favourite brand of budget-priced spirit, and will instantly graduate to 12-year-old single malt whisky - carrying double shots in two glasses from the bar to the table, only to wobblingly return for a refill 15 minutes later.

There’s something about free food that taps into a deep, almost primal instinct. It’s a mix of psychology, social dynamics, and even a bit of economics. The scarcity mindset kicks in even when food is abundant. Some people subconsciously think, this might run out! and rush to grab as much as they can. The moment the words "free food" hit the brain, rational thought sometimes takes a backseat to sheer excitement. 

The rising cost of quality meat also feeds gluttony among some folk. At a buffet, the food is sure to be replenished. So there is no need to be inconsiderate and take heaped spoons of breyani; then rummage through the rice looking for a mooleh or marrow bone; and take a large potato, only to return it to the bain-marie and battle to cut it in half with the serving spoon, all the while holding up those waiting in the growing line.

Social etiquette is to take an appropriate amount, and then go back for seconds later, so everyone gets a chance to have some. Also fascinating for me is how certain foods that were frowned upon by the hoity-toity as “poor man’s food” have made a come-back at public events and are much in demand. It will only occur to you when you think long and hard about it that in the past 50 years or so, the range of foods that formed the staple diet of the majority within the Indian community has changed.

When last were you offered a dish comprising mielie rice, dhall and a piece of fried “dried fish” (salted snoek) or Bombay duck? Or how about mealie rice kitchari with boiled egg chutney? Up to about the mid-60s, the less privileged among us could afford to cook with no better than strong-smelling, orange-coloured mustard oil. And that too had to be decanted by shopkeepers from a 44-gallon drum into an empty Mainstay cane spirit bottle, often a wad of newspaper substituting for a lid.

Those were the days when the homes of the more fortunate featured mutton (not lamb) curry, or Zulu chicken curry with pink-tipped double beans on the menu only once a week - always on a Saturday. The rest of the week belonged to offal and fresh vegetables. It was also then that rich and poor alike enjoyed fresh shad in abundance because Durban’s professional surf anglers did not have to bother with myriad fishing regulations and pay high annual licence fees.

Prawns were something you feasted on only when you went on holiday to LM or Lourenco Marques (now Maputo). As the years went by, peaceful communities were uprooted and resettled in terms of the obnoxious Group Areas Act, thus contributing to the joint or extended family system becoming less prevalent. Increased educational opportunities resulted in better-paying jobs. This translated into a more upmarket lifestyle for many families.

When race barriers came crashing down, Indians were more exposed to the living standards and eating habits of other race groups, especially whites. A victim of this social re-engineering of the Indian people was their diet, especially the cheaper - but nonetheless tastier - foods that became less popular. Most prominent by their shift from being plentiful and cheap, to scarce and pricey, were offal such as sheep tripe, trotters, head and pluck.

There was a certain stigma attached to offal - such as it being the staple food of the poor masses - and this did not sit well with younger folk who quickly developed a taste for the food of the affluent. Mutton made way for lamb; chicken curry was replaced by chicken Alfredo pasta. To appease their guilt of abandoning long-held traditional culinary dishes, the excuse that offal were high in cholesterol was proffered.

Yet our forefathers lived until a ripe old age eating offal thrice a week, drinking a nightly nip of cane spirit and smoking 20 Cavalla cigarettes a day. A whole generation has grown up with the notion that offal is a rarity whereas previously it was the principal food of the not-so-rich. The lack of demand for offal and the fact that today’s housewives want them sold “ready for the pot” - that is assuming they know how to cook them - has escalated prices.

Whereas in days gone by a full uncleaned tripe weighing up to three kilograms sold for between five and 10 cents and were often given away free with the purchase of half a sheep, today cleaned tripe sells for about R50 a kilogram. Woefully, we nowadays find that while the older members of a family who were reared on offal are willing to eat sheep tripe, head and trotters, the children detest these delicacies, even complaining about the smell during cooking.

Thus more than one dish must be prepared for the supper table. Also a worrying factor is that few younger people can nowadays prepare offal for the table because the recipe is no longer passed from mother to daughter. Gone are the days when irons would be heated in a bhawla (coal-fired brazier) to singe the wool on the sheep head and trotters. Those who crave trotters and sugar beans or tripe and gram dhall must now visit Brittania Restaurant in Durban’s Umgeni Road or Govender’s Curry Kitchen in Eaton Road, to satiate their taste buds with heritage dishes.

It has also become fashionable that yesteryear’s staple foods such as trotters and tripe curries now take pride of place at the buffet at wedding eve jols. When bell-bottoms and platform shoes make a comeback in the not-too-distant future, it could well happen that the strong smell of Bombay duck in the air fryer could waft through gated estates north of Durban.

Yogin Devan is a media consultant and social commentator. Share your comments with him on: [email protected]

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media

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