Hunger for Freedom - new slant on Mandela story
by Anna Trapido

Not just another biography about this awesome man, but his story told in a whole new slant - weaved around food, his love of people and often how a shared meal could have such profound results.

Hunger for Freedom: The Story of Food in the Life of Nelson Mandela by Anna Trapido, the anthropologist-cum-chef from Pretoria, this weekend.

At the book launch, held on a sunny Saturday afternoon at the Constitutional Cour, Achmat Dangor of the Nelson Mandela Foundation started by praising the "gastro-political biography" that interweaves the stories of so many Struggle veterans around the theme of the food they shared.

Many dishes appearing in the book were available for sampling and some half-dozen lambs were braaied on the spit under the capable co-ordination of Alexi Bizos and the team of catering students from the Prue Leith College. The tiny glasses of "rice water" set out in the catering tents were not saki, but the milky tasteless brew given to prisoners punished with "spare rations". It was a salutory and stark reminder of darker times, but the Amajika Dance Group's energetic and well-choreographed routines meant that nobody brooded for long.

Mangise Gule of African Rainbow Minerals - sponsors of the book and the day's celebration - said he was proud to be part of the occasion. He felt it was a particularly special project, “because it demonstrates in a practical way, the saying: ‘Healthy food breeds a healthy body’. And a healthy body breeds a healthy mind, and a healthy mind breeds brilliant ideas.”

He said it augured well to consider what Madiba had done for the country and the world. “It’s true that if you eat healthily, you will breed healthy ideas and we are all here today, healthy witnesses to the creativeness of Tata. It’s fitting that this launch happens during his birthday month. To that we say, ‘Unululuthe Tata’.”


Bridget Impey, introducing Zindzi Mandela, said, "It feels like all of us gathered here have been invited to a Mandela family lunch, a meal that stretched back through the years. It’s a wonderfully generous gesture.”

“It all began," Zindzi said, "with an email that went: Dear Ms Mandela, My name is Anna Trapido and I’m writing a book on your father… I thought, Oh no. Not another one. My siblings and I always joke about how if we see another publication with Tata’s face on it, we’re going to drown the manager of that particular branch of Exclusive Books.”

Zindzi read on and thought the project sounded interesting enough to give it a try. "We spoke on the phone and arranged an interview with my mother. Anna started speaking about the spaghetti and mince dish that Tata would write to Mama about from prison; we remembered the letters saying, ‘The first thing I want when I get home is this mince and spaghetti. If it's not on the table, there'll be a divorce...’

"When Anna mentioned this, I remembered something from my very early childhood. I remembered sitting in the car on a dark evening and the green casserole dish that my mother prepared the mince and spaghetti in; I remembered her taking it in to the police station where my father was being held."

And so the idea developed, with Trapido's passion for what she does and everyone's love for Madiba. “It’s been an emotional journey, bringing people back into the circle. We were once a very close circle and then we drifted apart, but through this book and what has emanated from the mini-TV series, I’ve been given a chance to confront my ghosts,” said Zindzi.

She continued that it was not always easy for the family to associate with projects about Madiba as these were often far more about the personality initiating the project than it was about the former president. "This one was different," she said.

Anna writes beautifully, she’s very wise. She manages to step back and let the stories unfold and reveal themselves. She’s enabled Sis Xoli, who has cooked and looked after Tata for years, to realise how important they have been in his life. She’s done this using food as the keeper of memories. I’m very attracted to food – as you can see – and using it in this way, I have been able to relate to my own father.”

Zindzi shared how her father acquired the prison habit of dunking one’s slice of bread into soft porridge. “After his return from prison, Mama and I would look at each other across the table and think, 'Interesting!' Even when we travelled overseas, there it was again.”

It would seem old prison habits die hard. “Uncle Kathy, do you still do this?” she asked Ahmed Kathrada, sitting nearby.

Zindzi thanked Anna for helping her document and archive the role of those who had stood by the family and by her father. “I want my children to know these stories. I want my father to know them too, as many of them were forgotten along the way.”

She thanked the Naidu family, recalling Ama’s delicious rice with butter and sugar – “When my relationship with cellulite began! Ama gave me this wonderful food, sitting on her lap. She was always there for us when my mother was locked up, looking after us under an assumed name.”

There were many others who made them feel special, people from different backgrounds. “Barbara Wait was someone from a completely apolitical background who came to Brandfort to make us steak-and-kidney pie and milk tart. During very difficult times, people were there for us.”

She reflected how, in a free South Africa, it seemed so good to reconnect with people who played a role. “Christo Brand was a prison warder on Robben Island who risked his career to do special things, like smuggling the babies in so that my father could hug and hold them. He never even told us about this!”

Zindzi told of Mrs Naga Naidu, who cooked Tata’s last meal before his arrest, “Very little has been said about this family who played an important part. Also Ella Govender who cooked in the Presidency – we dragged her along to Qunu to cook for Tata there. Thank you for sharing in this project.”

She recalled going to Qunu for a family gathering. “Tata called me through Zelda, asking me to bring kiwi fruit and kumquats. I didn’t know what these things were. 'What do you call them in Xhosa?' I called Lunga Williams and we drove to every Woolies in Johannesburg, but we couldn’t find them. I kept relaying the messages to Zelda, and Lunga was joking, ‘What the hell are kumquats? What did prison do to this man?’"

"The book attests to the simple background of the man. So often people talk about him as if he appeared first in Robben Island, but he grew up in a simple village and ate simple foods in the years that shaped him. That’s where he acquired his sense of hierarchy, discipline and humility." She acknowledged the work done by Verne Harris, Achmat Dangor and Sahm Venter and praised Anna Trapido and her photographer-come-baby-sitter husband, Richard Goode.

In conclusion, Anna Trapido said food was an unusual tool for biography. “Once the book is there, it seems like a good idea, but in the abstract… I remember poor Mr Kathrada, nobly and politely sitting through an interview, describing some epic heroic political event, after which I’d ask, ‘So what did you have for lunch?’ He was good and kind, and never said, ‘You silly girl, go away!’”

Anna enjoyed discovering how much Madiba was a product of an astonishing generation of activists. “Everyone around him was completely fabulous too. It was a privilege to talk about dinner parties in those days, to talk about Fort Hare rye bread with Joe Matthews, to talk about how to chop up a pig’s head with the Khoma family. So many astonishing South African played a support role who are not in the official histories. I hope the book puts the people who fed the struggle back into the picture."

Courtesy: BOOK Southern Africa http://book.co.za/

Book Details

Hunger for Freedom: The Story of Food in the Life of Nelson Mandela (softcover) by Anna Trapido
EAN: 9781770095656
Hunger for Freedom: The Story of Food in the Life of Nelson Mandela (hardcover) by Anna Trapido
EAN: 9781770095786