PODCAST: Zola Nene's Post-Apartheid Kitchen

Solveig Rennan
Welcome to Under-Told: Verbatim. I’m Solveig Rennan for the Under-Told Stories Project. We report from all over the world for PBS NewsHour on the consequences of poverty and the work of change agents addressing them. We’ve done extended interviews with hundreds of experts and people making a difference in their communities. In this podcast, we’re revisiting those under told stories, so you can hear change makers around the world in their own words. This is Under-Told: Verbatim.

Nelson Mandela
The sun shall never set on so glorious a human achievement. Let freedom reign, God bless Africa. I thank you.

Solveig Rennan
In 1994, Nelson Mandela’s election marked the end of apartheid and the beginning of democracy in South Africa. But the scars of racial segregation haven’t healed yet. Infrastructure designed for 5 million white South Africans has failed to support the majority black population of over 56 million power outages and water shortages are a part of daily life.

Zola Nene
You know, you can’t help if you know if your your lights don’t work. Forget loving people around you, you’re going to be angry, like regardless of the celebration of the 25th year of democracy.

Solveig Rennan
Zola Nene was 10 years old when apartheid ended. Today her cookbooks and television appearances have made her a famous and beloved celebrity chef. I traveled to South Africa and met Nene when I first started with Under-Told Stories as an intern. Our director Fred de Sam Lazaro, talked to Zola in a Cape Town coffee shop about cooking in a post apartheid kitchen.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
Why don’t we begin by actually starting at the beginning of your career at any rate,

Solveig Rennan
that’s Fred, the reporter

Fred de Sam Lazaro
what possessed you to go into the business of food and food preparation?

Zola Nene
Well, I thought coming out of high school, I wanted to be a lawyer.

Solveig Rennan
And that’s chef Zola Nene.

Zola Nene
I realized very quickly that it wasn’t really what I wanted to do. So I had a conversation, my dad and he asked me, What do you love to do? Because he’s always said, Whatever you choose to do, it’s got to be something that you love, because you’re gonna do it for more than half your life. So I was like, I like to cook. So he was like, cool. Let’s explore that. So that’s pretty much where my cooking career my chef career started. I did some training overseas in the UK and I worked in a brasserie, I started as a potato peeler, carrot peeler, and was sort of looking around trying to learn and they saw my eagerness. So they sort of moved me up the ranks pretty quickly. By the end of my two years they, I was head of the pastry section. And by then I realized yes, this is exactly what I want to do. And then I came home. And I officially studied culinary arts and got my qualification. And I specialize in food media, which is why I’m in the sort of media food sphere. As yeah, as a today.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
There’s a big foodie scene in this in this country, is there not and especially in this city?

Zola Nene
And yeah, I mean, Cape Town, I think we would probably say is sort of the foodie capital of South Africa. It’s where the top 10 restaurants are. Yeah, I think Cape Townians and I think sort of embrace food a little bit more, I think that we’re willing to be I think spend a bit more on on food. And we also see the value in cuisine culture, if you will. Yeah, so Cape Town is a bustling food, metropolitan city.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
And so here you are breaking into the scene. What kinds of things did you think could distinguish you as you contemplated moving forward? I mean, what did you think would carve your niche out what do you see as the gap that you can fill most effectively?

Zola Nene
That’s very interesting question because I think, you know, the best way for me to answer that is what sets me apart is the fact that I’m me. And I’m the only one who can be me and authentically myself. And in everything I do when it comes to food and my brand as a whole, I always try to keep it authentic. And that means a lot of things for different people. So yes, I’m, I’m Zulu and identify with that culture. And I love the fact that I am that culture. But I also understand that I am not the authority on Zulu food and culture. So I can only tell the story from my perspective. And you know, and I think that that’s what makes it unique. I also love to make food accessible to everybody. So for me my entire sort of food philosophy when it comes to my recipes, my cooking show is keeping things as simple as possible and as understandable as possible to people who aren’t professional chefs. So I make food very simple. I like to cook and take traditional maybe ingredients or recipes that I grew up eating with my mom or my mom cooking and give them sort of a new spin because my training essentially is French based. So that’s the basis of, you know, Chef, or culinary and training. And yeah, but I sort of take things like mini pap, and I’ll make pap lasagna, you know, so make it a little bit more accessible to maybe people who wouldn’t, wouldn’t ordinarily try it as we traditionally eat it. Yeah. So just to make it accessible and simple is probably what I think what I want to set me apart,

Fred de Sam Lazaro
right, and philosophically, what’s the basis for that?

Zola Nene
For simplifying?

Fred de Sam Lazaro
For simplifying, for incorporating what your mother taught you for incorporating your cultural background into this, this proverbial stew.

Zola Nene
Um, you know, it comes from a sense of pride. It comes from a sense of pride of where I come from the people in my life who taught me certain things. My mom in particular was a fantastic cook. My maternal grandmother was a fantastic cook and I think that my love of food, probably stemmed from them. And in sort of paying it forward and sort of, you know, teaching people about the certain things that I grew up eating, and maybe, you know, presenting in a different way, but the core of it is, you know, my childhood and my traditions, I think it’s a way to sort of pay tribute to them and and the contribution that they’ve had in my life. And I think it’s, it’s, I think it’s important to also tell your story. I mean, as different as everyone’s story is and as unique it as it is, I think that everyone’s story is interesting. And my food story may be very different to other people’s food story. But I think that it’s it’s interesting to learn about other people’s perspective

Fred de Sam Lazaro
you were the first generation post apartheid, to have access from the non white community to what the world had to offer. Did you ever reflect on that I mean, that your father was How could your father have told you to go do whatever you want when those opportunities were so restricted for his and your mother’s generation?

Zola Nene
I always think and it actually it makes me like a little bit teary and emotional when I think about it because, for me, I think that the I always feel like there’s no, there’s no real room for me to fail because I’ve been given so much opportunity. My dad is like a completely self made self educated man who comes from extreme poverty. And he, I always asked him as well, I’m like, how did you decide that you weren’t going to be a victim of your circumstance. And he said to me, he decided very early on that he wanted to make his mom proud. And he didn’t want to be a statistic. So he decided anything that would sort of lead him astray, he wouldn’t get involved in so he never drank. He had to actually it’s a funny story that he tells he had to pretend to be drunk so that he wouldn’t be bullied for not drinking, growing up. And he understood that, you know, putting in the graft and putting himself through college and education, etc, was important for him to in order to build a life that would offer, afford us the opportunity. So yeah, in fact, he made, you know, quite a sacrifice for me to be able to have these choices. And you also failure for me, isn’t an option and like to come from a man who grew up in extreme poverty but saw so much more for himself and for his children is just like the most admirable quality. And that’s I want to sort of be proud of that. I want him to be proud of that, you know, what he gave me and what I’ve done with it. So I’m running with it

Fred de Sam Lazaro
And what was his occupation and profession.

Zola Nene
My dad is an engineer, and he works in the petroleum industry.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
And your mother?

Zola Nene
My mom was a teacher, she’s now retired. So she used to uh yeah, she started teaching primary school and she later to taught high school, but she is retired now, like I said

Fred de Sam Lazaro
Tell us a little bit about your upbringing early on, and especially until 1994. I mean, you live through in your youth, a very tumultuous period in this country’s history. And then you were a pioneer of sorts, in the post apartheid period. Talk a little bit about living through that to an audience that could not fathom it

Zola Nene
wow, I never, never thought of myself as a pioneer for anything but I guess I’ll take it. Um, I was born in (?), Umlazi is the area that I was that we first lived in when I was brought home from the hospital. And my family moved from (?) into George when my dad got and was offered a job opportunity to go and open a new petroleum plant in the Western Cape. So we all moved, I was about five or six years old and we moved. We obviously, I’d never traveled anywhere outside of you know, where I’d lived, etc. So we did this whole big I say it was like a 17 hour drive to move the whole family to George, arrived in George, I must also just say that I was I grew up very sheltered. Like I never, I was never aware of like the discrimination that was happening around me. I think that my parents work really hard to protect us from that. Sort of my first inkling of the fact that I was different and people would look at me differently was when I arrived in George my my brother and I were the first enrollment of black kids in our primary school in George. So then I was like, Oh, this is different, like, you know, there’s not many people that look like us, but whatever it is what it is. And then when we started sort of going, you know, in primary school, you at some stage, you start learning about history. And we started learning about South African history and apartheid. And I remember going home after one of the lessons and I was going home, and I was said to my mom, I was like, oh, they’re teaching us the most unbelievable stuff. Like, did this really happen? And my, that was the moment when my mom was like, Okay, now you’re learning about it, Let me tell you, let me tell you about, you know, the dompas and the things that we had to go through the fact that we had to get permission to walk in certain neighborhoods. And, you know, then it all sort of, I was like, wow, gosh, and I realized then how protected or sheltered I was by my parents, because I guess they didn’t want me to harbor any resentment for anyone. They wanted me to just have Equal Opportunity and look at everybody the same and I think that that’s a really a really powerful position for them to have to have taken for themselves because it’s I think it’s really easy to to teach people negativity and share the negativity that you experienced. But instead they decided for their kids, they’ll let them sort of discover discover it when they discovered not necessarily through them.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
But what kind of emotions did that cause to rush through you? I mean, were you welled up with with dismay, with anger with a new self awareness of any kind?

Zola Nene
I think I was probably shocked more than anything. I was like, wow, this is this. This is what I live in. It was like, I think a bit of disbelief. But then hindsight is 2020 as they say, because then you remembers it moments, and you’re like, oh, was that why we got kicked off the bus at one time? Do you remember in the moment you were just like, Oh, we got kicked off the bus like what so you know what? I can understand why but then in hindsight, you sort of thing. Oh, is that what was happening? Is that what it

Fred de Sam Lazaro
Was that an actual event?

Zola Nene
Oh, that happened. Yeah, that happened to us. Yeah. So I think it was it was disbelief at first and then just wanting to know more was was the the next natural reaction

Fred de Sam Lazaro
How about your reception in the new social millieu were you able to integrate fairly easily was the school hospitable to to integrating itself?

Zola Nene
Definitely because it was a convent, a convent primary school. Also, we were really young and we were surrounded by other young children who probably experienced the same sheltering as we did. So we all sort of learned the new system together. Yeah, I don’t remember being treated badly in any way. And yeah, and I remember my my sub a teacher, actually a great one, but this is I’m just telling my age, and I’ll call it sub A, my grade one teacher was also very interested in teaching our children about my culture because the majority of them would never would never have, you know, come across as a Zulu person, for example, so she’d add to the lesson she’d be like, okay, we’re gonna learn what milk is, you know, you use spelling and learning to write, etc. And she’d be like, Zola what is milk in Isi Zulu? And I’d be like, ubisi. And then everybody would be like, Oh, ubisi, you know what I mean? so she, it was it was all very welcoming. And it didn’t feel negative in any way.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
You had a good teacher.

Zola Nene
I did.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
So you go on to, to culinary school. And I imagine a few years have passed by and you’re kind of processing all of this. And, and you’ve said that you’ve noticed that they were biases in kind of cuisine, and there was no room at the time for African traditions in culinary school. Can you talk a little bit about the biases that you you saw then and probably still prevalent

Zola Nene
and what you know, going into the cheffing industry, even as early as I did, I did I it’s a male dominated industry. So I was very aware. That being a female, good trying to sort of break into this industry was already a hurdle. And then being a female of color was, you know, even a secondary hurdle, which is why it was very important for me to even hich is why it was very important for me to even even though it was the second career and I was much older than all the people in my culinary class, it was very important for me to, to get the qualification. So I wanted to be able to walk into the kitchen, no matter which male chefs were in there who may as a female have seen me as less than and didn’t want to show me respect that because I had the qualification, no matter what they thought of me, they had to call me chef I mean, it was like my own little personal victory and lead for that. And I think that as an industry as a whole, I think that there are still very few females it you know, in dominant roles in the culinary industry. So we still have a way to go but it is getting better in terms of people of color. I mean, if you look at our top 10 restaurants, they’ll be really difficult to find a black person In a high position, so also in that sphere we need we have a lot to still go through and experience to get, you know, proper diversity within the industry, the industry at that level. And in terms of what how we were taught. So the basis of my culinary arts teaching is French cuisine, which is I mean, Escoffier is the you know, the father of the godfather of, you know, the cheffing profession, if you will. So all the, the teachings are French, so you learn French methods, you learn French basic recipes. And so for me, it’s important to sort of take those skills that I’ve learned as a professional chef and apply them to my culture. And I guess that that’s the point the point you were talking about, about what makes you make makes me unique or different is the fact that I have that you know, French professional training, but I also have great cultural reference. And when I when I talk about culture, culture is very Different to everybody. So within Yes, I’m Zulu culturally, but within the Zulu culture, there are so many different you know, avenues of the culture. So, yeah, that’s why I’m very careful to go I’m not the authority on you know, Zulu cuisine and Zulu culture, I can only draw from my traditions and experiences. So yeah, I think that I’ve found a way to sort of integrate the two so you’re taking traditional recipes, traditional ingredients, and you know, applying new methods to them,you know

Fred de Sam Lazaro
Give us an example or two of things that people at the other end of the equation you know, in, in, in a restaurant or in a kitchen are experiencing when they when they have say, a pap lasagna for example, can you think of anecdotes or examples in which you’ve successfully lit the lightbulbs?

Zola Nene
my pap lasagna for my first cookbook was always is a great one. So in in South Africa, We have a pap which is huge, you know, staple food across all the cultures milliemeal is really big part of of all of our cuisines. So pap I love grew up eating it. lasagna is, you know, also familiar to many, many families even though it is westernized, it’s also you know, lasagna, you go to a friend’s house and you’d have lasagna you take takeaway lasagna either, you know, for, whatever. So lasagna and putting the two together sort of, I think, in a way, it was a way of food to bridge the gap, if you will. So for people who didn’t know and understand pap, maybe it’s a way that they could be introduced to it in a familiar way and go, Oh, you know, and be a little bit more open to trying it. So yeah, are those really fun recipe that I love of mine.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
When I asked you a very broad question about the legacy of apartheid when it comes to the kitchen, and the culinary arts in general. What do you think that legacy is today in what we don’t see on the culinary scene today, because of the marginalization of anything non European during the apartheid years here.

Zola Nene
Oh, it’s very, very interesting question because my I know that my paternal grandmother was a domestic worker. So she cooked the same food for her boss’s kids and their families as she did for her family. So it’s interesting that they, you know, a lot of people who potentially run the kitchens grew up with a nanny who was black who taught you know, who fed them black foods, yet somehow there’s still like a disconnect you I think that more now people are a little bit more aware of that connection are more more proud to sort of go Oh, actually, I do remember having (?) with you know, my my domestic is to make (?) for me and embracing it that way. I think that is for for a lot of people as well, it’s, it’s still very difficult for them to, to admit that they connect with certain foods for some reason. I don’t know what it may be it’s a status thing.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
Is that why you wouldn’t find traditionally African dishes or at least described by the African names on a typical menu in a restaurant here?

Zola Nene
more so because maybe they don’t really know the African names as well. And also, it’s not mainstream. I mean, it’s getting there now you know, there’s more African food in the forefront and people are, you know, probably eating African food that was once associated with poverty. That I’m glad to say no longer is because for me food is food. It’s just it’s all in the way you prepare it. And so I think, you know, I think it’s, it’s it’s a fear that people won’t recognize certain things. So maybe what they eat, you know, at home is very traditional and very cultural, if you will. But at the restaurants they’re trying to cater to the mass and it’s I think it’s a little bit more difficult to to push something with a name that people don’t necessarily recognize if that makes sense.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
Yeah, but in in some of the trendy restaurants in this very trendy city were you to go into a place and order food, maybe you find a lot of quote unquote black food as you call it on the menu and

Zola Nene
well the restaurant industry in Cape Town is is is leaning towards traditional or indigenous foods or ingredients so we do have you know, Cape Malay themed restaurants we do have, you know, restaurants on the coast that only make, you know, West Coast cuisine. So I think that there is more of an awareness of indigenous stuff. To say that that’s necessarily traditional. I’m not so I’m not so sure that they’re one in the same, if you will,

Fred de Sam Lazaro
is there still though, a bias just generally in favor of Western cuisines like, like French, like Italian? Greek?

Zola Nene
Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Yes. I think especially in Cape Town as well, I think that you’re I’m in Cape Town what people refer to Cape Town as the Europe of South Africa, if you will. I think that in Johannesburg, definitely, you’ll find lots more African themed restaurants here in Cape Town, you have to search a little bit harder to find those. Potentially it’s because you know, it is such a tourist city and there are a lot of tourists coming in here. So you want to offer them cuisines that they also recognize and will enjoy etc. but they definitely could be more there’s definitely room for more.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
And you and your role is to try and introduce the sort of commonality is fusion the right word for it by incorporating some of your your traditions and indigenous cuisine traditions.

Zola Nene
I guess fusion is an apt description, yeah, because it is taking sort of two concepts and sort of making a new one out of them. Yeah. And for me it is it is about sort of introducing things that aren’t necessarily as familiar in a in a familiar way. And therefore making people a little bit more open to, to trying it.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
You’ve said in the past that, you know, don’t you, you, you felt that there were these biases in culinary school and when you attended, and there were also barriers to young black South Africans getting into these schools. Can you talk a little bit about that, and is it getting better?

Zola Nene
I, I think, you know, I’m so proud of the fact that I can call I am a black female chef, on platforms that people can see and you know, really look at it as a legitimate career. Because a lot of black parents think oh, you’re gonna you’re going to be a chef like Why would you want to go and cook for other people all day? You know what I mean? There’s so much more more to it. So now they’re young black girls who have an example of what they can, they can be and aspire to be and can tell their parents Look, it’s not just, you know, being hidden in a kitchen, necessarily cooking for other people. It’s not, you know, there’s so much more more to it than that. And for me, I think that opportunity is still not exactly equal. So, yeah, a lot of the black communities are still very, very, you know, poverty stricken, and it’s an expensive profession to get into. Because, you know, it’s got a practicals and lots of equipment, etc. So, yeah, it you know, you have to be at your at a certain earning potential for your parents to be able to put you through these types of schools. So, is it getting better? Yes, because there are more female faces a black faces, you know, in the culinary industry for people to to actually be like, Oh, I can see that step. That’s a person that looks like myself I can do that. Could we do better? Absolutely, absolutely. I wish more than anything because I knew for me how important being educated as a as a female and a black, black chef in the industry, just, you know, for a leg up for a leg up, you know, because, yeah, that’s what it felt like for me it was like, at least I’m coming in with with something like my title of chef. You know, nobody can take that away from me. So I understand the importance of it as well. I wish I wish that there were more bursary opportunities

Fred de Sam Lazaro
scholarships

Zola Nene
Yeah,  offered to to underprivileged communities, who are perhaps interested in pursuing this, this profession.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
What about in general, finally, about being a South African today, tell us a little bit about what you’re optimistic about what you’re disappointed about. In a country that’s not 25 years old and a big deal country, it’s the largest democracy in Africa. It’s it’s one that so many eyes are on. How do you feel about being South African today?

Zola Nene
I’ve never had a moment where I was never proud to be South African. I think that our history may be painful and maybe sordid in some in some ways, but the fact that we’ve overcome a lot of those things makes us so much stronger as a country First of all, what’s what’s sad for me is that 25 years later, you still hearing terrible like racist stories do you know what I mean?

Give me an example

It’s sort of, it hits you really hard. I mean, there are so many isn’t I mean, daily, there are cases of, you know, people referring to people as the K word and it goes all over Twitter. And that, for me is like really painful. It’s like, it’s as if we’ve taken like, four steps forward, and then every time we take a step back, so I think that there’s a this store it’s I think it’s an it’s an ongoing process this democracy thing. And it’s easy to go Yes, it’s 25 years later, but like have has everybody’s fundamental values changed, because there are some people who still think that, you know, racism is okay. And that’s and for you to be a South African and think that and know the history and know where we’ve come from. I think that that, for me is a really sad part that whenever I hear those stories, it really impacts me a lot because I, I have a nephew who has a black mom, my sister, and a white dad, my brother in law, and he is like the first sort of mixed mixed race person in our family. And I think, you know, this kid can grow up, because he has both sides and he’s from I’m getting emotional, but but he has, he has, you know, white side of his family, black side of his family. But he’ll never know all the sordid history that comes you know, that comes from that all he sees is like happy people integrating. And for me, the saddest part is that it takes one person To go up to my nephew one day and be like, Oh, you know, your dad’s white, your dad’s white and your mom’s black like, you know, and do something racially inappropriate, or say something racially inappropriate. And it sort of sits, you know, it puts that in his mind. So for me, that’s the live with that fear. And hopefully, it won’t come to fruition. Yeah

yeah. What about overall? I mean, is this the rainbow? You know, this is the rainbow nation ideal that the country was born with. But do you think economically financially, you think your nephews prospects in the future are going to be as promising as they could be?

Absolutely. Yeah. I think that his future prospects are very promising. I mean, he he is not one generation away from poverty now, you know what I mean? like we’ve worked hard to sort of build ourselves up and and yeah, give him the opportunities that my dad didn’t have my mom petition and have his dad and stuff didn’t have so I think that is absolutely. the playing field isn’t level. But it’s it’s a little bit closer than it was back then. So yeah, I don’t want to you know, I don’t want to put put down on our progress just because I’m emotional about something that could potentially happen to him. Yeah, I’m I am I’m proud of where where we’ve come from, I’m proud of where we’ve, you know, how far we’ve come. And I’m optimistic that eventually it will be a complete thing of the past. And you know, there won’t be any people next anymore who think that way.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
Although that’s such a subtext of so much of the political narrative in this country is that not we interviewed Pat Pillai as I was mentioning before, and one of the things that he says and the mayor of Joburg in particular says that he’s angry and disappointed about in the wake of you know, reports of corruption. For example, That it feeds a narrative of black incompetence. It feels the narrative of well, black people can’t handle that. Does that ever cross your mind and bother you? that there’ve been setbacks like that, that set the whole cause back?

Zola Nene
I mean, that statement in itself is really frustrating. Why does the act of just a handful of corrupt black people, immediately, you know, conjure up the thought of, in all black people are incompetent, you know, mean? Like That in itself, like, angers me. Whereas if it if it was, I’m asking, you know, if it was a group of white people who were corrupt, would you automatically go, oh, corrupt white people, or would you go, those individuals are corrupt? So for me that that’s an issue in itself. And it’s sad, it’s sad that you know, we are at this 25 years of democracy and we have so much filth going on in our government. I think the you know, if there wasn’t so much corruption, we would be so much further along because they wouldn’t be so much to complain about, you know, you can’t help if you know if your, your lights don’t work. Forget loving people around you, you’re going to be angry, like, regardless of you know, of the, you know, the celebration of this 25th, 25th year of democracy, it’s just, it’s, I think it’s a struggle. It’s sad that it is it is a struggle, but it is. It’s our reality. I guess we’re not we’re not done struggling. Maybe we were done fighting, you know, the the race struggle or not done but, you know, that’s where we’re sort of, on our way. The next struggles coming on, corruption is the next struggle, but hopefully, you know, the corruption thing. We can fight it together as a nation and not make it a race thing, because it shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be that’s an incompetent individual or a corrupt individual. as an individual, it’s not a race thing. You know, I hope it gets I hope it gets better. I hope it gets better quickly.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
Well, Zola Nene, it’s been a pleasure talking with you.

Solveig Rennan
Our interview with Zola Nene was originally featured in our story called The Post Apartheid Kitchen, which aired on PBS NewsHour on July 29 2019. To check out the full video head the undertoldstories.org coming up in our next few episodes we’ll learn how heart surgeon Devi Shetty has changed the healthcare game

Devi Shetty
If the solution is not affordable, it is not a solution.

Solveig Rennan
And from the Dalai Lama’s doctor on bringing Buddhist principles of compassion into modern science,

Barry Kerzin
don’t just do the wisdom also do the love and the compassion. In fact do them 50/50, those were his words.

Solveig Rennan
You can find every Under-Told: Verbatim episode, virtual reality 360 experiences and our entire library of Under-Told news reports from around the world at under told stories.org This episode was hosted by me Solveig Rennan and produced and edited by Simeon Lancaster. The interview was conducted by our director Fred de Sam Lazaro. Under-Told: Verbatim is brought to you by the Under-Told Stories Project at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. As always, thanks for your support.