Q&A with Ishay Govender on CURRY – Stories & Recipes across South Africa

One thing I learned from the various cooks around South Africa, is that the definition of a curry is very elastic – it differs widely between regions, communities, and even families. Sometimes it’s stretched as far as stew territory. When you study the root of the word: curry, a word of British invention derived from the complex dishes made by Indian servant cooks, with its roots in the Malayalam word kari/karil for seasoning spices and a sauteed dish, it becomes apparent that ownership of the dish and what makes it great become complex, fraught even. With that in mind, I hesitate to brand a curry as good or bad – that becomes a matter of taste and custom. I would say, that across the board – Durban, Cape Malay and everything else in between – in the local context, a curry broadly speaking consists of – an aromatic base, spices, protein or vegetables (or a combo) and a liquid component to bring it all together – though some curries are “dry” with very little sauce too.

 

Altogether it took about a year-and-a-half from me starting in the field in December 2015 to the book hitting shelves in July this year. Together with my husband, Jelle, we traveled in three and four-week bursts, traversing the country and meeting with people recommended by communities and community leaders. The stories were as important to me as the recipes, and the transcriptions took a very long time to summarise. I wanted to maintain each person’s particular mannerisms so that you’d feel you were in the room with them, sharing a cup of tea, but I also wanted to include as much historical and political information about the areas they live in, to give context. In retrospect, it’s a three-year project at a leisurely pace, that we took on full-time in a year.

In most instances, I was led to cooks by the communities themselves – librarians, journalists, guides, community organisations, curry lovers. Many of the cooks features have nourished their own neighbourhoods for years – at weddings, funerals, and gatherings big and small. Of course, there are some famous chefs in the books too – but all were pointed out by members of their communities. I certainly did not want to make this about celebrity or top chefs. In most cases, the people mentioned a certain speciality curry the cook makes, or the cooks volunteered a dish. Yes, I did get worried at a stage that we’d have too many chicken curries, but each is so unique, one could have a book of them and not tire.

In order to execute the project in the way I wanted to – without the pressure to feature hotel or restaurant chefs just because a sponsor got on board, without having to write about “freebies” in the process, and to work objectively and in the field for as much as I could, I funded it myself.  Parts of the travel were tougher than others – we traveled to two or so towns a day, living from a suitcase, I postponed a root canal by two weeks because I had to honour all those appointments and knew I would not have a chance to return. In some ways, it was like a regular journalism assignment, but instead of two weeks or a month, it simply never ended.

I can’t stress how honoured I feel to have been invited to so many tables and to share in such fascinating memories about the past. The depth of some of the stories shared left me breathless. I think meeting so many South Africans from such diverse background, who are, in a way, connected by this single dish, was a moving, humbling experience. And being trusted as a  custodian of their precious stories, many of which were very sad, is something I think about daily. It was jolly fun too! All those fabulous curries.

One of the things that became cemented, the further on we went, is how little healing there has been in South Africa post-Apartheid. Not much has been invested in counselling and helping people to cope other than an expectation that they “get on with it.” Which is a sad indication of the lack of priority on mental health I suppose. I mention this in the introduction too. For regular folks who have focussed on working hard and “getting on” with it, the past still weighs heavily, I found.

It’s like picking a favourite child, I suppose. While I can’t answer that I will say, crowds have loved Aunty Roshni’s lamb kofta curry, the spoonable veggie paneer korma and Aunty Kamla’s boiled potato curry which has toasted mustard seeds and coconut in it too.