I had an early morning start, chopping garlic and ginger, adding spices, slowly layering up what would be a vegetable curry. With the warming aromas of cumin and coriander permeating through the house, I’m thinking of smells that diffuse back and forth across the boundary of fiction and non-fiction.
Food, the taste of it, the smell of it, transports us to other places. Hot chilli and plentiful salt will always remind me of giant bowls of crushed ful beans in the Sudan, chicken curry eaten with rice, coleslaw and beetroot, or stuffed inside hollowed out bread in the form of a bunny chow, was a delicacy in cafes in South Africa. Mint tea served alongside spiced fish… well that belongs in my world of fiction.
Not to mention baked beans on toast; good old comfort food.
Like the aromas of food, life throws happenings that transport us in time and place. I had a recent chance encounter which did just that. While walking the streets of home, I was stopped by a young woman asking for help. Her rush of broken English revealed her stress. She announced she was meeting her friend in 20 minutes and asked which bus to catch to get to the University. My knowledge of bus routes is limited, but I knew enough to know she was not on the right street. As I explained where she should walk to, I saw the anxiety on her face deepen. Even if she found the bus stop, I doubted she would find where she needed to go. When she stuck her arm out into the road, and explained how everyone hitch hikes where she comes from, I suggested she take a taxi. After several phone calls a taxi was on its way, and we stood together to wait.
I asked where she comes from and she replied, ‘Kurdistan’.
It’s a place I’ve never been to, but in that moment, standing with a woman whose most obvious solution to the problem was hitch hiking, I was catapulted into memories of the Sudan. Being a stranger in a foreign land, surrounded by sights and sounds which at first can feel like an assault on the senses, with only a vague notion of the route to your destination. So you hitchhike; stick out your hand and a car stops, willing to take you in the right direction, no hassle. (I’m skipping the part of clunking in and out of monstrously deep potholes.) Aside from the dry heat, it’s one of the things I remember most about the Sudan, the warmth of everyday people; people getting by in life by talking, doing favours, lending a hand. Such openness can be a rare thing among strangers; it offers a special kind of humility.
Happy Monday!
4 comments for “Food for Thought”