Do you remember your embarrassing school lunchboxes?

I think we can all safely associate our school days with perpetual embarrassment. I mean, magazines dedicate entire “agony aunt” columns to the phenomenon of adolescent humiliation.

Whether you spent an entire school week hiding out in the IT lab because your hair was too disastrous to be seen, or were ashamed of the food in the dubious container that was absolutely not designed to contain lunch (me, I lost a lot of lunchboxes), school was generally a minefield of mortifying situations.

Things were rough. Mistakes were immortalised and the joke would be on me sometimes, as it would be on anyone who dared to do anything remotely disruptive. Like bringing umngqusho for lunch in a used spice container with the sticker unsuccessfully scrubbed off.

I spent a lot of time at my maternal grandmother’s home. My gran, like most grannies, used to hold out on buying things until it was unavoidable. uNcinci would prepare our lunches with her eye firmly on the family’s finances. Little did she know she was preparing some of the bleakest lunches our adolescent eyes had ever seen: boiled eggs and mayonnaise on brown bread; weakly mixed non-brand cooldrink that was an immovable block of ice with a few drops of drinkable liquid surrounding it or, my personal favourite, Marie biscuits limp from extensive contact with polony and cheese.

Muffins, crackers piled high with cheese and gypsy ham and carefully cut fruit sealed in clear bags was the fare of prefects and teachers’ pets. I was bitter. Was there some sort of correlation between eating well and doing well? I believed there was and cursed my lack of autonomy around what I ate at school.

In high school, I got a part-time job cooking at one of Port Elizabeth’s oldest hotels. I was home free! I purchased fresh muffins and cheese from Woolies and ate any fruit my heart desired. I bought a fancy cooler to put the stamp on my status as the new lunchtime kingpin and friends would peer in enviously as I slowly unzipped my culinary stash.

I scoffed at juniors who were living my old life - until I had to resign because exams were coming up. The moment of reckoning had arrived. I was broke again. I went back to the lunches that could only be opened in abandoned classrooms, or the cloakrooms, where the other “bad” kids sat and scribbled overdue homework minutes before class began.

To be fair, the lunches my grandmother packed for me were nutritious, even if they weren’t always what I wanted. And, somewhere beyond my disdain for Ncinci’s sandwich-making skills, was an appreciation for the person who, unprompted, woke up at the crack of dawn to make sure our bathwater was hot and that we were sent off to school with a belly full of breakfast.

On Fridays, uNcinci would cut a Lunch Bar in half for my cousin’s and my lunchboxes. I began to realise I was not being fair to the hard-working women in my life who always made sure we were fed and did all they could for us. I also realised that I had someone making my lunch, even in high school, which took the power out of my hands, because it was convenient. From that year on, I vowed to always be in control of what I ate, as far as I could, and participated in preparing more inspired meals for us all. I basically saved the city.

Now, to save your day, here is a new take on my childhood egg mayo sarmie - but way more delicious. With a cheeky and un-traditional take on classic Greek skordalia, it’s honestly the first cheeseless sandwich I’ve ever liked. You’ll want to eat this at home, so you don’t need to share.

EGG AND SWEET POTATO SKORDALIA SARMIE

Serves: 2

Ingredients:

4 slices of your favourite bread

4 soft-boiled eggs, peeled and halved

1 gherkin, diced

A few shavings of cucumber

A handful of capers, deep fried until crispy

A few celery leaves, roughly chopped

Sweet potato skordalia: 

½ cup mayonnaise

½ cup sweet potato, peeled, cubed and cooked

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2 tbsp white wine vinegar

1 tsp green peppercorns (or regular black pepper)

Salt, to taste

Method:

1. To make the sweet potato skordalia, place the mayonnaise, sweet potato, garlic, white wine vinegar, salt and green peppercorns in a blender and blitz until smooth. Check your seasoning.
2. Slather generously onto slices of bread and top with halved boiled eggs, cucumber ribbons, diced gherkins and deep-fried capers. Scatter with fresh, chopped celery leaves.

• Chef and food stylist Khanya Mzongwana is one of the brightest rising stars on the local food scene. Check out her incredible work on her brand, Undignified, here.