#HeritageDay - Share a meal, share your heritage

Coming together and sharing a meal has always been part of our South African culture and what better way to celebrate Heritage Day than the coming together of different individuals from different cultures to share a meal.

It was a “Come Dine With Me” affair without the pressure of being a host, when HeraldLIVE invited five Nelson Mandela Bay residents to showcase their heritage by sharing their favourite cultural meal.

Mogan Segadavan shared his lamb curry and rice dish, Sisa Pazi made a samp and beans dish with “uLusu” (tripe) representing AmaXhosa.

Sheryll Pillay shared her lamb stew, a favourite in the coloured community, with the group, Taylor Foong brought traditional Chinese Boa buns and Siu Mai dish and Riaan Marais made the famous Afrikaans “melktert” for dessert.

The group shared stories of what they loved most about their culture and why they prepared the specific dish for the table.

What do you like most about your heritage?

Taylor Foong (Chinese): I love our strong work ethic and our honesty. We never like doing anything bad to others because we believe that the bad you do may come back to you. I enjoy the fact that whenever we have a celebration there is always food and we get to spend time with each other.

Riaan Marais (Afrikaner): I have a big love for my mother tongue (Afrikaans). For me it is the most expressive language to use.

Sheryll Pillay (Coloured): I love how we are able to laugh our way through sorrow and joy; it is a wonderful way to cope.

Mogan Segadavan (Indian): I like how we as Indians have made great progress in this country despite many challenges. I like how we are passive people.

Sisa Pazi (Xhosa): Respect is very important in our culture and you are taught to respect from a very young age. I love our sense of community where your parents are not just the people you live with but everyone who is a parent is your parent as well.

Why did you prepare this specific dish?

Sheryll Pillay: Growing up a bredie/stew was a dish that could feed everybody.

Sisa Pazi: My dish reminds me of home. Back in the day everyone used to grow their own mielies and you could prepare different meals from the mielies, and samp and beans was always my favourite. Eating tripe is a very important part of our culture. We always slaughter a cow or a sheep when we have functions and we would than cook the insides of the animal and sit together and eat it.

Taylor Foong: I chose my dish because you do not find it in a lot of restaurants. This is a very simple dish and is nice to share with a group of people.

Mogan Segadavan: Indians curry anything and everything.

Riaan Marais: This is a recipe I got from my mother and she used to make us “melktert” all the time growing up.

See the recipes for the dishes here: