Coetzee, Honeybush, and Bunny Chows [September 24]
Recommendations from Me
In this newsletter I just want to focus on South Africa, where I spent some of September and most of October. I’m a month late in sending this out, so I’ll also publish the October edition shortly.
The South African Up Series, based on the original UK model, is both a rich portrait of South Africa’s many cultures, social classes, and ethnic groups, and is the most ambitious documentary series to track the country’s recent transformations. The first installment (7Up) takes place in 1992, just before the end of apartheid. It features interviews with 20 seven year olds from across the country, where they describe their priorities and expectations for the changing country. They are interviewed again at 14, 21, and 28, and each time asked to reflect on their own experiences of life, love, jobs, crime, housing, gender, and race. In the progression of their lives you see the opportunity and persistent inequities of the country: one dreams of representing South Africa as a Springboek, others live with the spector of HIV/AIDS.
The South African Up-Series also has an excellent theme song, sung in Zulu and English: Iskhathi by Skeem.
I have read three affecting novels by South African author and Nobel laureate, JM Coetzee. Each are harsh and insightful in different ways. Disgrace (1999) tracks the self-destruction of a Cape Town English professor, and the fragile presence of his daughter on an Eastern Cape farm-holding. Waiting for the Barbarians (1980) is a thinly veiled account of the torturous settler colonialism wrought by the British Empire throughout South Africa. Dusklands (1974) transposes another tale of colonialism, enacted by Afrikaans Boers, with a grim tale of US psychological warfare in Vietnam. If there is a central theme running through Coetzee’s work, it is that our own suffering can make us insensitive to the suffering of others.
The emigration of many (mostly Tamil) Indians to KwaZulu-Natal, starting in 1860, has had a deep and lasting impact on the region’s culture and cuisine. Bunny Chow, a dish made by filling a hollowed out loaf of bread with a wholesome curry, is a product of this marriage. I find a butter bean Bunny Chow to be wonderfully comforting.
The full and intricate herbal qualities of rooibos tea are well loved outside of South Africa. Less well known are its sweeter cousin, honeybush, and the slightly bitter, earthy Buchu. In South Africa it is not hard to find rooibos chocolate, ice cream, and kombucha. I’ve also fallen for the red capuccino, where rooibos leaves, rather than coffee beans, are carefully extracted and mixed with steamed milk, allowing for a rich caffiene-free drink.
Recommendations from Others
Tarkan 2024
‘The Greek composer and violinist, Evanthia Reboutsika. Her music touches your soul.’
Lily 2024
‘Forgiveness by Marina Cantacuzino, and looking up a charity called The Forgiveness Project. Stories of reconciliation and compassion can teach us a lot about humanity’s strengths and how to connect with lost words friendships and hobbies.’
Dave 2024
‘Watching/rewatching Coraline. It’s so fun, and it gave me a real feeling of childlike wonderment (+ now I want to get pet rats, just like the dancing mice in the film).’
Harry 2019
‘The Magic Whip by Blur. It was my favourite album of 2015, and one that most people should listen to.’
Yilin 2021
‘Draw more. When you travel, bring a little sketchbook and take some time to just sit somewhere and sketch something (an architecutral detail, overall shape of an object, bark of a tree…). Why? When you draw, you notice so muhc more detail than if you simply look, unguided. There is so much careful design that goes into the world around us, and it so often goes unnoticed.'
