(d)urban(a)

First Days in Durban

Although yesterday (Wednesday) was technically my first day in Durban, after going to the Woolies (Woolworth’s, the more expensive but better quality grocery store) for food in the early afternoon, I slept most of the rest of the day.  Today (Thursday) was my first full day around the city.  This morning around 9:30 I went with J, my landlady, to a local art gallery and café to meet up with her friend N for some coffee.  Both J and N are immigrants to South Africa, entering the country from Scotland and Bulgaria, respectively, about two decades ago at a time when immigration (at least from certain areas) was more encouraged by the government.  The gallery also housed a fair trade shop, which reminded me a bit of being back at 10,000 Villages in Champaign.  Most of the crafts were from within SA, but they also had some items from various artisan groups in other African countries.  I bought a wonderful beaded doll made by Monkeybiz South Africa, a group that supports craftwork made by disadvantaged people in the townships of Cape Town.  The practice of beaded crafts predates colonialism in SA, unlike most needlework crafts, which arose amongst women after its introduction by (mostly) British missionaries (more detail on needlework and British missionaries later).  After the gallery J took me to a shopping mall to obtain a cell phone to use while I am here.  They are pervasive in Durban so I was able to find one for R350.  Unfortunately I can’t use the phone in the US so as much as I can save it as a souvenir or possible future use here or in Europe, it will likely end up adding to the technological waste-pile, even after disposing of it “properly” (as in, not just chucking it into a trash can).

In the afternoon I visited the University of KwaZulu-Natal, which is located along the same ridge where I’m staying.  The view of Durban’s harbor was so beautiful from outside of the library - it is cluttered with industry compared to the wide, empty expansiveness of the beaches but Durban's port is one of the ten busiest in the world.  The sky was so blue and everywhere the verdure landscape filled my views with intense greens.  There are dandelions here too!  Since their bracts are shaped differently from the species I am familiar with, I had to take a picture.  At the university I visited the library and spoke to the very friendly officer in charge of the special collections whom I hope to see again in the future after I have set up my affiliation so I can use materials there.  For the rest of the afternoon I sat at a table in the library and looked out at the view of harbor as the sky darkened somewhat (thunderstorms were predicted but never arrived – only overcast skies and cool winds that made the walk up the ridge a lot easier).  I read some of Modikwe Dikobe’s poetry (from Dispossessed) and then started a novel, Second-Class Taxi, by Sylvester Stein.  The latter was one of the first satirical books written about apartheid; it was first published in 1958 but promptly banned in SA.  I’m reading them in context with Mike Davis’ Planet of Slums and will have much more to say about this soon.

After the library I walked along the ridge and passed where I am staying to walk down Moore Street to the Glenwood Shopping Centre.  I browsed a fabric store (nothing caught my interest and I’m still a bit confused at how to order fabric here anyway since it’s certainly not by the yard) and then shopped for some food and supplies to take back home at the SuperSpar grocery store there.  I still haven’t tired of wandering the aisles of the local grocery stores to note the persistence of originally US brands of foodstuffs and also to note differences in food tastes.  I knew things were going to go well culinarily speaking when I spied the Russian rolls behind the bakery stand.  It’s a hot dog baked within a seasoned bun that has melted cheese on top – and all for less than $1 US!  It was so savory and made part of a great dinner.  I also discovered something else that I am looking forward to trying – “Mince Mate” – much like “Hamburger Helper” except you “just add mince,” which is seasoned textured vegetable protein.  The produce here is so fresh and very reasonable compared to the US so I bought mangoes, nectarines, sweetcorn, and baby marrows (squash).  I caught the Mynah bus back up the hill (public transportation in Durban is not ideal so I am lucky to be staying right next to the Mynah line, which runs from Entabeni Hospital on the top of the ridge where I am all the way down to the beachfront, where I will be working).  Tomorrow I spend my first day at Create South Africa’s offices where they store the archive of cloths.  I look forward to writing about it afterwards – so far as I know now, I will be photographing the cloths for my research use but also assisting in editing the English translations associated with the cloths.   

As much as I am here in Durban, I wish everyone I know in Urbana to be safe and well with the impending snowstorm that has been predicted for Friday.

Food Notes: Mutton Kebab Roti

Saturday I spent the morning at the Essenwood Market in Berea Park.  Every Saturday morning, several rows of stalls filled with crafts and food cover part of the park.  Bypassing the braai (the very popular Afrikaans barbecue), I finally got to try some of the Indian food I had heard so much about before arriving in Durban.  The city and its surrounding areas has a population of at about one million Indians in large part because of a massive influx of Indians as indentured laborers in the mid-19th century.  They came to the KwaZulu-Natal area primarily to work in sugar plantations or the mines for the British.  Their imprint on the local food culture here has been indelible - there is even a particular curry widely known as "Durban curry" that I hope to try soon.  On Saturday I had a kebab sandwich - it was made from ground mutton and served on roti, unleavened flat bread.  The kebab was delicious - very spicy with strong accents of cilantro and coriander. 

Food Notes: Jerky and Boer Ethnic Pride

You can find it at convenience shops in the airport, at stands in local outdoor markets, and even in the larger supermarkets around here.  It's meat jerky - called biltung here - and it may be made from ostrich, wildebeest, springbok, other game meats, beef, or a blend of several of these meats.  The jerky is also inextricably connected to Boer ethnic pride.  During the "Great Trek" of the 1830s and 40s, a group of about 12,000 Boers, later called Voortrekkers (Pioneers), migrated from the Cape Colony to the areas now known as the Natal, Free State, and Transvaal regions.  For the most part, historians suggest this group was fleeing from recently imposed British rule but population pressures and constant border wars with Xhosa-speaking African groups along the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony may also have contributed to the move.  Along the way, the voortrekkers relied heavily on dried meat jerky to sustain them.  I sampled an "ostrich chunk" that I purchased from major food retailer, Woolworth's, and can't say that I was particularly fond of ostrich.  The flavor struck me as somewhat heavy or "gamy," but it is a flavor that many find very enjoyable. 

Food Notes: Cottage Pie

Before I left Urbana in late January, my friend G made a delicious Shepherd's Pie for a potluck to celebrate my trip.  Now that I am in Durban, I know that she actually made Cottage Pie.  From what I have read, "Shepherd's Pie" in Britain refers to either a beef or lamb stewed with veg and topped with potato mash, but here in South Africa and in Australia they make a distinction between Shepherd's Pie (which uses lamb) and Cottage Pie (which uses beef).  Cottage Pie is sold here in every supermarket (fresh and frozen) and I discovered a company that makes a version for vegetarians.  Since my food posts had been getting a little meat-centric, I thought I would try this version made with textured vegetable protein and lentils.  Although it didn't look especially appetizing, this frozen cottage pie was actually quite good and the veg, particularly the peas, still tasted fresh.  I suppose I'm still left with the question - if Shepherd's Pie should indicate lamb and Cottage Pie should indicate beef, then shouldn't the use of TVP and lentils require another name for the pie?  I welcome any suggestions.

Food Notes: Snack Time

I've made a few food missteps since I've been here, including buying some wheat "crackerbread" that I'm convinced contains 80% Styrofoam.  Seriously - I filled up my sink to do dishes the other day and the cracker floated on top of the water and NEVER sank.  I have found a few snack foods I am going to miss upon leaving already though.  Simba "sunbites" pretzels come in several different kinds of flavors and shapes - the chutney flavored, fish-shaped pretzels are pretty good but my favorite are the sweet chilli flavored.  For sweet snacks, besides drinking lots of "iced coffee" when I'm out (here that means a blended coffee milkshake), I've grown fond of Bakers Red Label Lemon Cream Biscuits.  They have a really tangy flavor rather than just being cloyingly sweet and they taste like real lemon even though the frightening ingredient list says the flavoring is artificial but "nature identical."  Most items that would contain corn syrup (high fructose or otherwise) in the United States - thanks to our overproduction of corn - contain sugar here because of the sugar cane grown and processed in South Africa, particularly in this area.  So Coca-cola products, which dominate the carbonated beverage market here, all contain sugar rather than corn syrup.  In terms of fast food, the US chains that have made it over here are McDonalds (of course, right?) and KFC.  There seem to be KFCs everywhere, although they don't serve the fried chicken with side dishes, instead customers get chips (french fries).

Food Notes: Bunny Chow

Bunny chow is the term for a fast food item consisting of a whole or part of a bread loaf with the inside scooped out and filled with curry.  They are a product of Durban - originating in the 1940s and traditionally filled with a vegetable curry.  One story about their origin (that also explains its etymology) is that there was a restaurant run by people known as Banias (a Hindi word to denote a specific Indian vendor/merchant caste) and the "bunnies" were created as a means for excluded people under apartheid to transport their take-away since they were not allowed to eat in the restaurant.  There is also another origin story that the Indian sugar cane workers required a way of carrying their lunches into the fields and the bread dish worked out really well to transport their curries.  Regardless of their origin,nowadays you can get them around downtown, especially on Grey Street, and mutton, chicken, and bean curries (with recipes specific to the Durban area) have surpassed the vegetable curries in terms of popularity.  Today I ate at King's Cafe on Aliwal street across from the City Hall and old Courthouse buildings.  I had a delicious "quarter bean" - which was a quarter of a loaf of bread filled with a bean and potato curry with the hollowed out piece of bread crowning the top of the bunny.  A small bowl on the side contained sambals (grated carrot, sliced green chillies, onion, and tomato) to spice up the bunny if I desired.  To temper the heat of the curry, one is supposed to drink hot black tea with cream and sugar.  Even though it was very warm and humid  today, the tea tasted delicious with the bunny and worked to cut heat better than cold water.  I imagine I'll be eating quite a few more bunnies before I leave and would not mind trying to emulate the recipe upon my return to Urbana.
* Image borrowed without explicit permission from www.south-africa-tours-and-travel.com

Food Notes: My "British" Working Lunch

This morning R and I met M at the Create Africa South Palmer Street Offices and worked on developing the materials we need for some funding/grant proposals we are sending out to various organizations that support heritage and craft nongovernmental projects.  Also, I'm developing a "workbook" to distribute during the Amazwi workshops and would contain information for the five day workshops.  For the first day when we discuss and share narratives that will inspire the design for the cloths, the workbook will address ideas about narrative and its function within cultures and for individuals.  Over the next few days when we begin sewing the cloths, there will be technical illustrations (I will draw) with instructions (most likely Mrs. Gambushe will write the Zulu for the booklets for this area) for stitch varieties and other sewing finishing methods.  For the last two days when we discuss how to form craft collectives and basic marketing/business methods for craft collectives, the booklet will contain local and global resources (both governmental and non) for the potential crafters to contact in order to gain access to supplies, micro-loans, etc.  We're all sharing our collective knowledge to create this booklet, so certainly if any of you have resources you can share for any aspect of the booklet, please comment or contact me.  The booklet was my idea and J and R really like the concept, but I have to be prepared to accept that it may not "fit" - at the very least in terms of its first formulation - into the groups the workshops reach.  I can't expect that a universal solution will fit every situation or group, so the booklet may adapt over time for each province/group of women it would reach (at the very least in terms of the language it is printed in and how language-reliant it is).  For now, we want to develop a basic template, including one in English, to show to potential funders (the group that may ultimately be the most impressed/persuaded by the document since it "materializes" the activities that occur in the workshops, most of which occur already physically/orally).  I will focus on its development after I participate in my first workshop (scheduled for March 17-21) so I can get a better sense of what is possible to discuss and complete over the five days. 

After meeting for a while, R dropped M and me off at Victoria Street Market - the part of the city that has FABRIC and lots of cheap clothing items, informal traders, etc.  I found some great fabrics for R5 a meter (that's less than $1 US) and will post soon with pictures of it.  After the market M and I grabbed takeaway to head back to the office and continue working on forming a list of funders and companies who support CSI (community social investment).  We each bought a savory pie for lunch:  M had ham and cheese and I had spinach and cheese.  Pie shops are nearly everywhere and with standard choices including lamb mutton curry and steak and kidney, I'm guessing they're a culinary cultural leftover from British colonial days.  I talked M into splitting a Chelsea bun (also a British culinary import) with me for dessert - in the US we would probably identify it as a cinnamon roll - but they are called Chelsea buns at the bakeries around here.  There are tons of bakeries around and the smell of doughnuts  and the other sweet baked goods usually starts tempting me around lunchtime.  Altogether, the pie and bun cost me about R13.50 (a little under $2 US). 

Food Notes: Where Marmite and Margarine Reign

Marmite, at least the kind manufactured in the United Kingdom and widely available here, is a flavored spread made from yeast extract, salt, vegetable extract, niacin, thiamine, spice extracts, riboflavin, folic acid, and celery extracts.  It has a distinctive taste and by the 1990s its advertising played on the fact that when one tastes Marmite, one usually either loves it or hates it.  Today in Umlazi, Mrs. Gambushe fed M and me lunch while we worked on more sewing - I tried some Marmite with margarine on a cracker and I suppose I fall in the camp of hating it, but it was worth a shot. I liked its rich saltiness but didn't appreciate the oily consistency (it kind of reminded me of thick, dirty sewing machine lubricant).  I have noticed that much of the food I have been served in non-commercial establishments here at homes or centers has been heavy on the margarine.  M said the last time they sponsored a cloth workshop when they were in the Western Cape that all of the women wanted margarine and bologna sandwiches instead of the jam ones they had prepared.  It seems even more than mayonnaise, margarine is the standard spread used on most any kind of sandwich (including the cheese ones we had today for lunch).  Having been a savory/sour taste person most of my life, I have to admit I've been craving some really strong, vinegary mustard lately.  Here, however, the main ingredient of standard, non-imported mustard is sugar. 

Besides the strong reaction Marmite seems to cause amongst those who taste it, its recent acquisition by Unilever is fascinating.  This multi-national corporation has large stakes here in Durban in terms of employment (there is a giant factory off the freeway by Clairwood) and their products dominate several food, home, and personal care markets in Africa.  Besides Marmite, the large brands owned by Unilever that dominate here include Flora margarine, Knorr sauce/spice products, Heartbrand ice cream, Sunlight soap (a particular kind only available in Africa), and especially Sunsilk hair products.   This last brand has a history of being one of the first large hair care brands to create products and advertising with so-called specially crafted formulas to address the hair "issues" of particular ethnic or cultural groups.  Driving through the townships, especially in Umlazi, even the smallest hair salons boast large advertisements for Sunsilk above their doors.  I should probably admit I went for the "Curly/Frizzy" formula my first day here, although I suspect the largest difference in the product from its other formulas was in the packaging! 

Food Notes: Chicken Licken

Not much I can say about Chicken Licken except that it is South Africa's own fried chicken fast food restaurant and, according to their website, the "biggest non-American owned fried chicken franchise in the world."  Their hot wings are really good, although they appeared to have come from the world's smallest chickens.  You get packets of "soul't" - seasoned salt - rather than table salt.  Groan.  My miniature meal (seriously - I think they were wings from Cornish game hens) was R20.  A few weeks ago, this would have been a little shy of $3 US, but, unfortunately for South Africa (and lucky for me as a visitor), their currency has been creeping down in exchange value with all major currencies.  Now my meal cost about $2.50 US.  There doesn't seem to be a foreseeable end to South Africa's economic downturn.

Food Notes: Milo, the Delicious Taste of Multinational Corporate Corruption

Available at most restaurants, grocery stores, and ice cream shops here, Milo is a chocolate malt powder you mix with milk or water (cold or warm) for a beverage or sprinkle on cereal or ice cream.  It originated in Australia, but is now hugely popular in Malaysia and available here in South Africa as well as a lot of other Asian, South American, and African markets.  When mixed with cold milk, the crispy powder doesn't dissolve completely, lending the drink a characteristic gritty taste.  Named after Greek athlete Milo of Crotona, it is marketed as a vitamin energy drink and an athlete is nearly always pictured on its packaging.  In most markets, however, its primary ingredient is sugar. 

Multinational corporate giant Nestle produces Milo and, since the end of World War II, this company's expansion into "developing" or postcolonial areas for production and expansion of markets and its acquisition of other food companies (from Maggi in 1947 to Gerber in 2007) typifies the rise of multinational companies flourishing through neoliberal economic policies, particularly during the beginning of the 1990s.  Connected to its expansion of markets, Nestle has engaged in corrupt and unethical business practices for at least the past thirty years since the 1977 Nestle boycott brought attention to their artificial baby milk marketing policies in "developing" countries.  The company insinuated the use of infant formula milk products was preferable to and provided greater health benefits than breastfeeding, but in areas where the water infrastructure was unreliable, infant deaths connected to the consumption of formula mixed with contaminated water increased.  Eventually, the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, which advocated against advertising claims for the health benefits of formula use was created in response and Nestle ultimately agreed to them (although as recently as May 2007 organizations including Save the Children Fund have alleged Nestle has breached the Code).  I can't help but wonder if any code has been developed that would challenge its ability to market Milo as a vitamin energy drink when it is basically a sugar drink.

Other recent incidents of Nestle's unethical business practices include -

2002:  Nestle challenged Ethiopia's nationalization of its agricultural production by demanding millions of dollars in compensation because Nestle acquired a parent company connected to an agricultural firm years after it had been nationalized.

2004:  Forbes magazine reported Nestle used slave and child labor on its cocoa farms in West Africa.

2005:  Nestle sold hundreds of thousands of tons of contaminated animal feed in Venezuela.

2006:  Nestle co-opted the Fair Trade movement by creating a Partners Blend coffee product in the United Kingdom.  Of its almost ten thousand products, only one has been certified fair trade.   Also, it's a product that competes directly with Nestle's massively popular and widespread Nescafe brand, which can make no such claims of employing Fair Trade practices.

The big frustration, however, is that it is easy enough to highlight Nestle's bad business practices but advocating the consumption of Fair Trade or local, organic products simply isn't feasible with the structure of our markets.  Insisting that we can all "choose" to consume Fair Trade or local, organic products presupposes an economic status and market access that the majority of the world's population does not possess. 

Also, what happens to a problematic food product after it has existed and been appropriated into a variety of cultures?  For example, in Malaysia, Milo is used by many in the Indian Muslim population as an ingredient  in Roti Canai, a traditional flat bread.  A less branded version of this kind of appropriation can be found in the example of United States Native American frybread.  In the 1800s, forced reservation relocation was accompanied by government-supplied rations of flour and lard.  Making do with what they were given, some groups created frybread (flat dough fried in lard).  This bread has become so popular, that South Dakota named it the "official state bread" in 2005, the same year when activist groups finally gained attention pointing out its connection to obesity, diabetes, and other health problems endemic to reservation conditions and some Native American populations.  But from my experience - go to any Navajo food stand in Northern Arizona and you can get a Navajo taco - a hugely popular, inexpensive (and really delicious) dish that uses the fry bread with seasoned beans, beef, and shredded cheese. 

Rather than vilifying individual products or companies, how effective would highlighting the limited economic and physical access certain groups, whether they are in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia or Flagstaff, Arizona, have to choose food products, healthful or otherwise, and work towards expanding access and choices?