Adulthood has to be the cruellest prank in the life cycle of the human species. Children spend the first 18 years of their lives yearning for the day they become independent adults. Of course, in the case of millennials, you can substitute that "18 years" with "30 years". And, in the case of ANC Youth League members, adulthood kicks in somewhere between 35 and 45 years old.
When I was a kid, I couldn't wait until I became an adult. The way I imagined it, being a grown-up meant freedom to do as I pleased. And the freedom I fantasised awaited me in adulthood was no homework, staying up late to watch SNVL 18 movies, owning a car that I'd drive anywhere I wanted, engaging in legal coitus and drinking beer.
But more than anything else, when I was 10, I would daydream about stockpiling cans of condensed milk. And then I would sit in my house digging into the goo with a spoon, to my heart's content.
The Zulu word ukukhuma refers to the practice of eating food ingredients meant to be used with other ingredients to make a finished dish. I can think of no more obvious an ingredient than good ole cane sugar to illustrate the concept of ukukhuma.I'd venture that roughly 99.99% of children have, at some point, scooped a teaspoonful of sugar and stuffed it into their mouth. Sugar tends to be the gateway drug to more adventurous ingredients for juvenile ukukhuma connoisseurs, or khumarists, as I like to call all children.
Once I'd perfected my sugar-pinching skills as a seven-year-old, I graduated to icing sugar. And, as we all know, icing sugar is cane sugar 2.0 because of its melting properties on the tongue. This was a bit trickier as icing sugar is not really an everyday ingredient. My mom only ever took it out about once a month when she was inspired to spend Saturday morning baking.
Smuggling icing sugar involved the use of a kitchen stepladder, as baking ingredients resided in the top shelves of our kitchen cabinet. I can't think of anything more incriminating than a seven-year-old on a stepladder reaching into a kitchen cupboard. So, as icing sugar was out of reach, I started going for teaspoonfuls of Milo powder instead.
I cannot begin to describe the first time my palate experienced the orgasmic, organoleptic pleasure of condensed milk melting all over my tongue. Condensed milk was never a part of the grocery list at my house. I discovered it at Aunt Clara's house when I was nine.
My paternal gran, MaMbhele, was visiting and she asked me to make her tea. As I was about to add sugar and milk, she said: "No, I take it with condensed milk."
The khumarist inside me was awakened and I scooped some into my mouth. I have never been sufficiently curious to try cocaine but if the descriptions I have read about are anything to go by, I think coke is not too dissimilar to condensed milk.
My elder brother Mazwi was simultaneously carving his own khumarist path. Any packet of strawberry Kool-Aid lying around the house waiting for a hot day to make a refreshing drink was expeditiously dispatched of, one scoop at a time.One of his other favourite things to consume raw was Nespray powdered milk. I remember standing in the kitchen as he snuck a tablespoon of the powder into his mouth. As Murphy's Law dictates, exactly half a second later my mom stepped into the kitchen. She spotted traces of white powder in the corner of his mouth and asked: "Are you khumaring milk?"
Seeing as he hadn't had a chance to melt the powder in his mouth and swallow, he responds with a tentative shake of the head. She yells: "Don't shake your head! Answer me when I speak to you!" The Zulu word for "No" is Cha. That's a click sound. As he went Cha, a puffy cloud of Nespray was created around his face, instantly dissipating any legal defence.
I have not stuffed sugar, Milo or Nespray into my mouth in years. But you'll find most adults secretly enjoy extremely bizarre pleasures.
A few years ago I admitted on Twitter that I often buy a bottle of anchovies and eat them from the container. The only thing is that I don't call it ukukhuma anymore. Nowadays I call it snacking.
Folks on Twitter started owning up to their own curious snacking habits. Someone regularly ate Knorrox beef stock cubes. As is. Another confessed to chewing raw fresh ginger. Yet another suckled on Lecol lemon juice concentrate.
I started to feel "normal". So I shared how, when my kids were young, I always volunteered for feeding duty.
But only when the meal was Purity fruit jars. Especially pear...