Perfect mix to my love potion

Confession: This proved to be a difficult one, I struggled to come up with the desired draft. A confession is not an apology, right!

Where should I start on this one? The challenge is leaving me vulnerable to the issues I didn’t take time to ask myself due to my false sense of consciousness. I used to think questions of favorite food are meant for auto-books i saw as a junior secondary schools pupil.

Today’s topic is to me connected to memory: the connection between what it was, what it is and the uncertainty of the future. Thinking of my favorite food is making me realize the intensity of the uprooting that has happened to me through globalization and it’s enablers that visited through education and migration. The seductions of the city and it’s telltales made us crave for for foods we cannot find in the garden or field, kraal or fowl run. These are pizza, broiler chicken, ice cream and so forth.

The most painful memory about the question is what I am missing and the fear of missing it for a life time. With all honest I am a lover of a lot of local products that furnished my body as I was growing up. These are but not limited to local fruits such as matohwe, maapfura, hubvu and chechete.

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Add to the list delicious local relishes; my favorite being muboora (pumpkin leaves). My grandmother was a star in coking this relish. She used different recipes by my favorite was the one made of the mix with a few pods of young pumpkins and either butter or milk. Oooooooooh my God, I wish time would take me back.

I am a lover of ground nuts and ipwa. I remember how one Easter holidays I embarked on a strenuous 10 hr journey from the university to my rural home for these two. I was not at a university, I learnt at the capital university of the land. Their dining food which we ate for survival was not enough to keep me in their hostel.

My Gogo was aware of my coming. Thus she prepared for me some great parcel to take to the university. The parcel was made of dried meat and nuts. Ipwa was stripped of their outer coat before being dried whilst the nuts were boiled with salt before being dried. I proudly took these to my rented university hostel room (Manfred Hall, Room S3). What fascinated me is how my pizza friends would invade my room enjoy my parcel from grandmother. Having been raised by a generous grandmother I allowed us to make my luggage to go to waste in less than a week.

My journey with food tells me that there is more to it than what meets the tongue. Apart from taste and nourishment of the body, food is political. Choice being there I will fill in my stomach with local. If you were to find my love, tell her if ever she attempts to pimp our love with some potion, muboora with milk or peanut but is the right mix for it. The stirring should be done using naked ipwa (sweet sorghum).

From

The Advocate’s Desk