When we were children at least one school holiday of the year would involve a road trip. We’d pile into our old battered VW kombi (a Jamie Oliver type van in widespread use all over South Africa) and off we’d go. Not forgetting dogs, boogey boards, pillows, sleeping bags, packets of cards, snorkels, masks and flippers…in general, all the kathundu a 6 – 10 year old couldn’t possibly live without, even on a 3 week beach holiday. What does kathundu mean? Well, actually, I couldn’t tell you, let me rather tell you what it is. I don’t know where the word comes from but it has always been used in our house to denote an excess of superfluous baggage. Hm! That’s summed it up rather succinctly, now let me be a bit more visual. You know those movies where a bus is going through a South American jungle and tied onto the roof are piles of suitcases, boxes, bags, and the odd cage full of chickens – that’s kathundu.

And it must be a genetically inherited trait, because my daughter is equally incapable of going anywhere without it. Last week she camped out on the front lawn (for 1 night) and took with her enough kathundu to furnish a small studio apartment. I think you get the idea. I’m not exaggerating about the chickens either. Well not chickens for us exactly, but we more often than not took one or two dogs along, and on several trips we stopped to pick up injured tortoises along the way, especially if we were going to visit my great aunt in Port Alfred, as her garden was a sanctuary for these shy but endearing creatures.

Before we moved to Cape Town permanently, every trip would involve a visit to the coast, whether it be to Cape Town proper or further up the east coast. Because Africa is so vast, a large portion of the holiday would be the actual trip. And everybody in South Africa knows that if you’re going on a trip you need “padkos“.

Padkos quite literally translates as ‘food for the road’, and that’s just what it was. Before the days of motorway rest stops, when you would drive across the Boland for hours without visible sign of life, “padkos” was essential. Apart from the requisite thermos flask of tea or coffee (milk and sugar already stirred in), there was generally some sort of egg sandwich, some buttermilk rusks, and of course some biltong. This is somewhat similar to beef jerky, and although an acquired taste for many Europeans, it’s mother’s milk to South Africans. Several cans of coca cola (before the days of plastic bottles) and a few mars bars would be added in for my dad, who would sneak us sips when my mom was not looking. Yeah, right! I am now in a position to know that mothers are ALWAYS looking, and for every illicit bite of chocolate a piece of dried fruit or some grapes would be silently handed into the back seat. Of course, we wanted the biltong and the coca-cola so there were always several bananas rather the worse for wear by the time we reached our destination, and any unwanted apples forced upon us were summarily fed to our golden labbie, aptly nicknamed dustbin.

This wild junk food fest would continue for most of the holidays. For us, anything not cooked at home was ‘junk food’ , all the better if it was clearly predominantly composed of refined sugars, starches and colouring. I’m sure my mother was quite happy to let us count fish and chips, wrapped in newsprint and served fresh off the boats from the little hut at the end of the wharf as ‘junk food’ , as well as exotic fruits like mangoes, paw paws, avocados, pineapples, coconuts and even sugar cane, bought from roadside vendors. For three glorious weeks, we would be wild, untamed, answerable to no mother…

…and by the time we got home, the novelty having worn off, we would happily dig in to roast chicken and veggies dug fresh from the garden. For this reason this always sticks in my mind as a welcome home meal, and in fact it is almost always what my mom serves when we get off a plane in Africa. For the rest of the holidays there are restaurants to be explored, delis to discover and seafood in abundance, but this one night it is always the simple, comforting delights of a chicken roast dinner.

How appropriate then, that when my neighbours returned home from their holidays today, 7 children in tow (not all theirs), a roast chicken with veg freshly dug from the garden was just what was needed to fill up 8 hungry and over-excited tummies. I guess some things never go out of fashion…

Recipe Journal

Crispy Roast Chicken

• Wash and pat dry a free range, preferably organic, chicken.
• Rub inside and out with olive oil, maldon salt and fresh crushed black pepper
• Stuff the cavity with half an onion, 2 cloves of garlic, 2 t lemon zest, 2 t powdered mustard and 2 t chopped herbs (rosemary / thyme ).
• Season the outside as well.
• Tuck extra garlic and herbs in between the legs and the breast.
• Add a quartered onion, a chopped carrot, & some celery in the roasting pan, for gravy
• Put the chicken on a roasting rack
• Add 500 ml boiling water to the pan
• Cook in a preheated oven for 10 minutes at 200*C
• Turn down to 175*C and cook for 20 minutes / 500g, or until skin is crispy and a skewer poked in near the leg bone shows the juices running clear.

For the gravy

• skim off any oil or fat on the top of the pan juices
• cook them off on the stove top with the veggies, deglazing with a glass of white wine
• push the vegetables through a sieve to thicken the gravy
• stir in and serve

The trimmings:

Garlic, honey and thyme roast carrots

• Well basically – roast some carrots with whole cloves of garlic, some fresh thyme and some spoonfuls of honey.
• Oh – wash the carrots first and chop so the pieces are roughly the same size.
• Season with freshly crushed black pepper and maldon sea salt
• Add some butter to forma glaze with the honey.
• Put into the oven with the chicken when there is only 45 minutes to go

Oven roast Rosemary Potato Chips

This is a nice variation on roast potatoes, not as much oil is used and they take less time to prepare

• Scrub your potatoes, but leave the skin on
• Dry them and chop them in half length ways
• lay the flat half down and chop length ways again, until you have 4 or 5 fat ‘chips’ from each half. Sort of like orange segments.
• Toss these in a little olive oil
• Sprinkle with sea salt flakes
• tuck in some fresh rosemary and bake at 180*C for around 1 1/2 – 2 hours, depending on how many potatoes in the roasting tray.
• Check frequently, scraping the chips off the bottom and re-tossing in olive oil.
• in the last half hour you may want to turn the oven up a little and leave them to crisp.

All you need now is a fresh salad or some steamed green beans. Don’t forget to pick all the leftovers off the carcass for sandwiches, salad, wraps …or the cat, and to put the bones and skin in the stockpot. Chicken consomme or chicken noodle soup is a great easy supper for a week night.

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