Krijay Govender on food and family

GUEST VOICES FROM THE WORLD OF FOOD

If you ever missed a visit to the aquarium or the seaside, you could always visit the security scanners at King Shaka international airport on a Sunday night. Hoards of cellophane containers making their way through the scanner to Johannesburg filled with crab and fish, albeit deliciously cooked and curried. This is the trek that I often make from my parents' home in Durbs, where my every culinary desire is met ... and then some takeaways. There really is no better way to feel loved than the comfort of a home-cooked family meal.

Food is so intrinsically linked to being Indian and being part of a family that we even used it to punish our mothers. As cruel teenagers we knew that our mother could not sleep if one of us had an argument and refused to eat - and boy, did we use it. There would be a melodramatic cry from the kitchen: "The food didn't do anything ... come eat." If ever we returned from any visit or event, the first question was always: "What did you eat?" followed quickly by the invitation to eat again. The Greeks, the Jews, the Indians, among others, all share this mothering-and-smothering and family-food experience and, although I joke about it, its function in connecting, comforting and nurturing can never be underestimated.

Special soup recipes when you are ill. Extra-special soup recipes when you are pregnant. An old T-shirt and a solitary experience with crab curry when you are down and need a lift. Wedding eves and neighbourhood parties all equipped with takeaway parcels - it is all a grand part of the South African Indian experience. But nothing compares to the variety on the table when all the family is home. Spiced fresh fried fish with dhal on the side, my sister's favourite; mince kebabs and roti, my brother's favourite; Indian turmeric eggs with finely chopped onion and chilli, any drunk uncle's favourite (and hangover necessity). It is all there at the family table. No one is left out, there's even an extra plate for the younger guys from the neighbourhood who pop in for a visit.

All of this is taken for granted at the time, but stepping away from it I realise it is the foundation for good memories, if not the memories themselves. Furthermore, the communal participation caters for every character and personality. You can set the table if you don't feel like engaging, or you can pull up a chair and just be surprised by the spread as a chatty participant (no doubt, I am the latter).

As the concept of sitting around a table in a home without televisions, smartphones and iPads becomes more and more foreign to our age, there is something to be said about the old. Old habits and old recipes and old-fashioned banter give one such a sense of belonging. A sense of belonging is crucial to the human experience.

Remember that lovely scene in the movie Notting Hill with Julia Roberts as a famous movie star who is Hugh Grant's date to his sister's birthday? It was a home-cooked dinner (burnt as I recall) which expresses this sense of belonging in an effortless, beautiful manner. I often watch it and am grateful that I have that, particularly with family. But family itself shifts in the conventional sense when one is invited to a home-cooked meal.

My grandmother always said giving a gift is a lovely gesture, but cooking a meal is a loving one. It says, welcome, you are family.

• Krijay Govender is an actor and comedian as well as director of the M-Net drama series, The Wild.