It feels odd to be writing about food for the open road while sitting at an international airport between flights, but that seems to be a food writer’s life in these tentative post-Covid days. But no matter how far I fly away from home, the sweet, cool drive over the hot and dusty plains is always something I yearn for.

When the plane took off from Gqeberha for Joburg, from my cramped window seat I could see the tiny trails snaking up and down mountain passes 30,000 feet below. My body was up here, but my heart was still down there.

Along every road in every part of the land, there are picnic spots where we stop to refresh, stretch our legs, have cold drinks, open the flask for a cup of coffee, and take out the cold nibbles we packed for the drive. Sitting at Oliver Tambo Airport is exciting, the flight ahead to London is an exhilarating thought, especially as it’s my first flight out of the country since the pandemic struck; but nothing in the world is good enough for me any more now that I have tasted, smelt and savoured the massive, endless plains of the Karoo. Since it became home.

There were so many long months of enduring the viral menace way down there that we wondered if we’d ever get our international travel back again, yet here it is. Like Londoners during and after World War II, we know we have to get out there again, and what we went through was barely a fraction of what they endured during the Blitz.

Travel is a salve, a balm. The quiet of the country road soothes us; new sights and smells in foreign parts stimulate the parts of the mind that were dulled by Covid. We hid from a virus and were made to remove ourselves from friends and even family. But being deprived of something makes it all the more precious, more worthwhile; we see and feel its value doubly, like never before. The hug that we were denied, the touch on the shoulder that we missed and longed for.

It’s all back again, for those of us blessed enough still to be here, and for the ones who have those we love with us too.

There has to be food when the journey is long, whether the cabin nosh of the long haul flight or the padkos we take on the journey across the great country. I’m lucky in that taking the wheel for a drive all day through the Karoo is one of the great pleasures of my life. Weird; I waited 36 years before learning to drive, yet now I can’t imagine ever not having driven. And the little gravel track leading off the road every few kilometres to a shady patch beneath tall trees is a blessed sight. The green-painted tables, sometimes a reed boma, the concrete stools. The fresh Karoo air on your face. The whoosh of a fast car going past. The cry of a bird somewhere nearby. We feel a pang of regret for the occasional roadkill; cringe if ever we hit something ourselves.

Pity about the litter at too many picnic spots. I shake my head every time. I don’t think I’ve seen a single picnic spot on any roadside in South Africa that did not have a large bin of some kind. But often they’re almost empty, with all the litter just dumped alongside.

I suppose it will be argued that baboons might come along and lay waste to everything, or vervet monkeys perhaps; but I doubt that they’re responsible for all of it. I doubt it because I’ve driven through the Karoo long enough to know that too many people couldn’t care less about the mess they leave behind for somebody else to come along and clean up. But it’s pointless complaining I suppose because it’s just going to keep happening anyway.

Right now it’s time for me to go to my boarding gate. Foreign climes call, new stories await; but already I’m longing to be behind the wheel of my car again, pointing it towards the Karoo, the open road, and home. Soon. (This column pairs with this recipe.) DM/TGIFood

Tony Jackman is Galliova Food Champion 2021. His book, foodSTUFF, is available in the DM Shop or, if sold out, directly from him. Buy it here. 

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks. Share your versions of his recipes with him on Instagram and he’ll see them and respond.

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