Curry And Kindness

On a quest to find the perfect SA curry, Ishay Govender-Ypma spent a year collecting recipes and the stories behind them for her brand-new cookbook. She’ll never forget one woman’s story – or her delicious recipe for potjie beef curry

- Ishay Govender-Ypma

When I think of township-style beef curry, prepared outdoors on the fire with Rajah curry powder – a spice mix I can attest to being the curry flavouring of choice of the majority of South African cooks – I think of Noxolo Gamakulu. This caterer in Qunu, a rural village in the Eastern Cape known to many of us from the late Nelson Mandela’s boyhood descriptions of clear lakes and gentle green valleys, answers her cellphone sporadically. On occasion I call and speak to a set of different voices – men and women – and learn that she is out shopping or busy with a task. It feels like I’ve willingly ensnared myself in a game of hide-and-seek, but I’ve heard about Noxolo’s delicious cooking and I’m not easily deterred.