Wow! Let's go to South Africa

Okay, seriously, I just made the most awesome dish, completely out of my comfort zone, within which I have cowardly been hiding (I’ve made vegan osh about 3 times, vegan lasagna twice). Sorry it’s been a while, but here I go.

First of all, I would like to thank a publisher from Peace Corps Writers, Marian Beil, who sent me an African cookbook from her Peace Corps Service. It served as a guiding force, although of course I made some changes (and incidentally some mistakes).

I made a meal combining 3 South African dishes: yellow rice, greens and peanuts, garnished with apricot blatjang (chutney). I made the apricot chutney first, as it does not need to be served hot, and then set it aside.

Apricot Blatjang

1 ¼ cups dried apricots, quartered
¼ cup onion, diced
¼ cup raisins
½ white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons cane sugar
1 tablespoon fresh ginger
3 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon cayenne
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon salt
¼ sliced almonds

Put the apricots, onion, raisins and vinegar into a saucepan. Add one cup of water, enough until all the ingredients are covered. Bring to a boil, but don’t start getting busy with anything else or otherwise spacing out, because you need to keep stirring the mixture. Reduce heat to medium. Now, this is where it gets tricky: you need to pound the garlic, ginger and cayenne with a mortar and pestle—at first I thought that was a joke. I saw a mortar and pestle at Crate and Barrel the other day and laughed at the thing, but those aren’t just for apothecaries. I think I could have used it today. What I did was stick the garlic, ginger and cayenne into a coffee cup and mash it with the end of a spoon, but that was a little frustrating. After that’s mixed decently well, add the salt and coriander (ah-hm, first time I’ve EVER cooked with that spice and it blows me away). Keep stirring your apricot mixture. Once the fruit is soft and the liquid looks like honey (about 15 minutes later), remove it from the heat. Combine the spices. Mix well and put in a serving dish.

Geel Rys

3 tablespoons butter substitute
2 cups long grain rice
2 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp salt
1 tsp turmeric
½ cup raisins
½ sliced almonds

Melt the butter in a large pot first. Then add the salt and turmeric. Add the rice and make sure to coat each grain before you add 2 cups water. Add your cinnamon sticks and cover, stirring every few minutes. In 20-30 minutes, your rice should be tender, but mine wasn’t. I had to add at least another 1/3 cup of water. I remembered to rinse my rice this time too.

UM’Bido

1 ½ packages or spinach
1 cup coarsely ground peanuts
1 tablespoon butter substitute
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper

Place one package of spinach in a pot with about 2 cups of water—I know, I said 1 ½ packages, that’s because I had to add more spinach to soak up all the water. Maybe you should start with 1 cup water. Heat on medium high. Now the peanuts gave me trouble. I didn’t have pre-ground peanuts and my blender’s broken. I got the bright idea to fix it with duck tape (the ring at the base was cracked), but that only made a HUGE mess and God-awful sounds that I’ll leave to your imagination. I thought about sticking the peanuts in the coffee grinder but even after I washed it, the scent of coffee was just too overwhelming. So I stuck the peanuts in a baggie—I even double-bagged it—and started beating the peanuts with a wooden spoon (it kind of reminded me of the way I used to beat Russian chocolate bars to make chocolate chips in Uzbekistan). That worked reasonably well, and after 20 minutes, the spinach was ready. I added my butter substitute and peanuts and mixed well.

South African poet Dennis Brutus was imprisoned and tortured by the authorities because of his anti-apartheid activities. After his release, he emigrated to the US.

At Night

At night
on the smooth grey concrete of my cell
I heard the enormous roar of the surf
and saw in my mind’s eye
the great white wall of spray rising
like a sheet of shattering glass
where the surge broke
on the shore and rocks and barbed wire
and going to the shed
in hope of a visitor
I greeted the great cypresses
green and black
dreaming of their poised serenity
in the limpid stillness of the brilliant afternoon
gracious as an Umbrian Raphael landscape
but more brilliant and more sharp.

-by Dennis Brutus