I see mielies season is upon us. Yes, mielies. Not corn. Not maize. The name of the crop is mielies, for those of us who were born when a man called BJ was in the Union Buildings. Back in the good ol' SAUK, there was a sitcom involving a grumpy old man who was aggravated every day by a woman going around his suburb yelling, “Mielies! Mielies!”. And you know how vocally gifted African women are.
Where was I before I interrupted myself? Ah, yes, mielies. It's by far my most favourite street food ever. Throughout this season my car smells like boiled mielies because I don’t mind having them every day. No, not the braaied variety. The lapsed Zulu subject that I am, I'm not sure if this year’s instalment of the annual Umkhosi Wokweshwama (The Feast of First Fruits) has taken place yet (yes, where amabutho upset the SPCA and other animal welfare/rights groups by wringing the neck of a bull with their bare hands). But more importantly, that’s when His Majesty, the King of the Zulus, pronounces that it’s OK to partake in the year’s harvest.
Back in my Hammarsdale birthplace, this was strictly monitored. I once witnessed a woman selling mielies across the road from the KwaMcoyi Shopping Centre have her 20-litre drum full of boiling mielies upended by those “community police officers” called oqonda because it wasn’t time yet.
And speaking of drums, one of the greatest mysteries of the universe is why no one is able to match the flavour of street foods when they try them in their kitchens. How difficult can it be to boil mielies that taste as good as the ones I buy at the entrance to Daveyton, opposite Esihlahleni Butchery?
I’ve asked dozens of street vendors — from Musina to Thabo Mbeki Drive in Polokwane, Warwick Junction in Durban and opposite Bhota Sigcau in Mthatha — how they get them to taste that way. You know exactly what I’m talking about — tastier, tangier, more evenly salted, with a hint of mysterious sweetness. Consistently, across the country. I remember spotting a woman selling mielies in the veld opposite House & Home off Boksburg’s Rondebult. I bought a cob from her with little expectation based, I am embarrassed to say, on what she looked like.
Let me explain. Over the years I’ve harboured the theory that the best street food is served by a rotund woman (at least waist size 48) with fleshy forearms, fat hands, stubby fingers, wearing a doek, a faded floral pinafore with oily smudges on the front, with red ochre covering her face. Not only was this woman a size 28, her pinafore was pristine and her nails manicured. But as anyone who is a street food aficionado knows, there's an informal, inversely proportional correlation between the levels of good hygiene of the mama selling you the food and the flavour. But I was wrong about her batch. It was tastier than anything I’ve cooked.
I’ve recently had an epiphany about the source of the uniqueness of street-boiled mielies. It’s one word: drum. You can’t buy mielies and boil them in your Le Creuset pot using filtered water. The common denominator in the street method is a used Plascon or Dulux 20-litre paint drum. My biochemistry is not what it used to be, but there’s an urgent need for a food science PhD student to conduct research on what chemical reactions occur when mielies boil inside a paint can that can impart such great flavours. And then there’s the heating method — cooked over a makeshift fire with whatever flammable garbage can keep a flame going. I’m convinced this adds to the flavour. And do yourself a favour; don’t ask what their water supply is.
You can’t use fresh cooking oil and expect the same culinary explosions in your mouth as Boomslang’s chips that have been deep fried at low temperatures in oil that was last changed before we even knew sofas and mattresses could be registered financial services providers
The same principle applies to that old favourite — slap chips. Again, millions of South Africans have tried to match the flavour and been humbled. There's no way to match the slap chip you buy off a fellow called Boomslang at the corner of Voortrekker and Station in Brakpan, out of a mobile kitchen. Especially if his skin tone is the colour of old sorghum , he sports a mullet, is missing two front teeth and wearing a Blou Bulle cap backwards. It took me years to figure out why their slap chips “slap differently”.
It’s the old, overused oil. You can’t use fresh cooking oil and expect the same culinary explosions in your mouth as Boomslang’s chips that have been deep fried at low temperatures in oil that was last changed before we even knew sofas and mattresses could be registered financial services providers, particularly since the oil has been used to fry reconstituted crumbed chicken, Russian sausages, viennas, polony, battered fish: a festival of listeriosis.
The same principle applies to vetkoeks, amagwinya. Never the same out of your kitchen. The best amagwinya emerge out of a makeshift kitchen that you’re even scared to peep into because you don’t want to see that brown dishcloth that used to be white used to wipe the table on which your culinary treasures are piled up.
I’m a supporter of the informal street trade. I go out of my way to buy my fruit and veggies from hawkers. And it would surprise you how well their merchandise holds up against your posh favourites, at a fraction of the cost.
I’ve spotted tourists in the precinct enjoying umgxabhiso and inhloko and smiled quietly. This is the future of South African dining; on the street. And remember, the more popular it becomes, the better it will be. And maybe that food science PhD student will solve the mystery about the flavours from paint drums and we'll export this wonderful technology.
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