South African cooks join forces to make 67,000 liters of soup to fight hunger on Mandela Day
First officially recognized by the United Nations in 2009, International Nelson Mandela Day encourages people to commemorate the birthday and legacy of South Africa's first Black president by volunteering for 67 minutes, which is equivalent to his 67 years of public service.
To mark the birthday of South Africa's former head of state, who was born in 1918, cooks all over the country made soup in their own kitchens to contribute toward reaching the target.
At the Johannesburg-based HTA School of Culinary Arts, cooks chopped vegetables, added legumes and sprinkled in a kaleidoscope of seasonings to make hearty soups. They braised their broths from early morning until 5:30 p.m., when the final soup tally began.
'The 67,000 liters, it's our take on 67 minutes,' said executive chef and chairman of NGO Chefs with Compassion, James Khoza. 'I did a lentil soup with vegetables and a bit of chicken pieces inside. It's not your normal kind of soup where you boil everything, then you make the soup out of it. For me, I look at flavor and is it quality as well.
'I know the guys are on the streets sometimes, or the beneficiaries, people tend to just give them whatever they feel like giving, but .... guys like us who come from hotel business, we understand that what we must feed people must be of that level, highest quality, that they feel like they are worthy because indeed they are worthy, " he added.
Every year, South Africans volunteer their time on July 18, cleaning up public spaces, helping at schools or hospitals, or performing humanitarian work and making donations.
For Chefs with Compassion, a non-profit organization that works to combat hunger and food waste, the food drive is 'a war against throwing away food and wasteful cooking,' Khoza says.
This year marks the sixth consecutive year that they've rescued excess food from farmers and shops that would otherwise have been thrown out. Instead, the chefs use it to make large quantities of soup to offer to the thousands of Johannesburg residents who are food insecure.
As part of her school's effort to add 300 liters of soup to the 67,000 liters that the collective aims for, Tyra Nyakudya, an 18-year-old college student, spent most of the day cutting vegetables and monitoring the soup pots.
Although she was only six years old when the statesman passed away in 2013, she said his legacy of compassion and service remain in the memory because 'he did everything in his power to give back to the community, which is why we're doing this today.'
South Africa is among Africa's leading food producers, but the 2024 National Food and Nutrition Security Survey (NFNSS) report found that 63.5% of South African households were food insecure, which translates to over 20 million people going without food every day and about 10.3 million tons of food being wasted annually.
This is primarily driven by poverty, unemployment, and rising food prices, which are exacerbated by factors such as climate change and inequality.
Hanneke Van Linge, head of Nosh Food Rescue, said the figures illustrated that food waste and food surplus is a huge problem, which should concern citizens every day.
'There's a lot of beautiful energy around Mandela Day specifically," she said. 'But we would like to implore people, don't just let your involvement stay on Mandela Day.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
Margret Carey obituary
My mother, Margret Carey, who has died aged 95, had a successful career as an ethnographer and bead expert, including being the first permanent female staff member of the British Museum's ethnography department, when she was appointed assistant keeper in 1954. Margret had a particular interest in the beadwork of sub-Saharan Africa, and wrote two books and several articles related to those subjects and the region. She also spoke at numerous international bead conferences. Born in Dublin, to Constance (nee Haythornthwaite) and Thomas Bennet-Clark, a botany professor then teaching at Trinity College, Margret was deaf from birth. However, her mother ensured she could lip-read with sufficient skill to attend mainstream schools while moving for her father's academic posts, including Broadgate high school, Nottingham, then Guildford high school for sixth form. In 1950 she gained a degree in ancient history from University College London, followed by a diploma from the Institute of Archaeology, and began working on digs before being hired by the British Museum. In 1953, while Margret was working as director of excavations at a Roman house in Winchester, the Hampshire Chronicle ran a piece with the headline, 'Led by a girl'. It continued: 'A toiling team of archaeologists … are uncovering the ruined remains of a Roman building. They are led by a woman, Miss Margaret [sic] Bennet-Clark, who is dark, slim and 24, [and] wears corduroys and sweaters as she supervises the three-month task which is nearly completed.' Margret married Michael Carey, a solicitor, in 1958, and they settled in Dulwich, south London. Three years later, on the birth of her first child, she resigned from her staff position at the British Museum. However, she continued to work as a consultant, including for her former employer, contributing to the Encyclopedia Britannica on African Art, and writing Myths & Legends of Africa (1970). From 1972 to the early 1980s she carried out fieldwork among the Bemba people in Zambia, culminating in a 1983 exhibition of their material culture at the Museum of Mankind in central London, which then housed the British Museum's ethnography collection. Margret was one of the founding members of the Museum Ethnographers Group (MEG), which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. One member recalled: 'On one of my first MEG trips she immediately noticed my glass bead and fish vertebrae necklace from Gambia even before introducing herself.' She published Beads and Beadwork of East and South Africa (1986) followed by another book on the beadwork of West and Central Africa (1991), and lectured at bead conferences internationally, including Washington DC (1995), New Mexico (2000 and 2002) and Istanbul (2007). A founder trustee of the Bead Study Trust, Margret was also a long-time member and supporter of the Society of Bead Researchers and the Bead Society of Great Britain. In later life she volunteered at the Horniman Museum in south London, and enjoyed many other pursuits including reading, dressmaking, knitting and crafts. Michael died in 2020. She is survived by two daughters, Emily and me, and four grandchildren, Charlie, Edmund, Eva and Bobby.
The Sun
3 days ago
- The Sun
Make your homemade soup thicker and creamier with very odd ingredient – just chop it up and blend
A CHEF has revealed the incredibly unusual ingredient that will make your soup "creamier", "thicker" and "taste better". With the heavens finally opening this week, and flooding the UK with a barrage of rain, many Brits are likely looking to make some comfort food to make them feel nice and cosy. 2 There's nothing better than getting home soaking wet after being caught in a thunderstorm, and tucking in to a nice bowl of soup to warm you up. And chefs from Allrecipes have revealed the unlikely ingredient that will turn your soup into a "luxurious bowl". Unlikely ingredient If you've ever come home from a night out with an order of Mcdonald's and immediately fallen asleep before getting the chance to eat it, you'll know the feeling of waking up next morning unsure what to do with it. Soggy, cold fries famously don't taste great, but they can be blended up and turned into a soup thickener. Potatoes are a great soup thickener, as they release starch as they cook, thickening the broth. How to use leftover chips to thicken soup To use your leftover chips to thicken your soup, simply chop them up into small pieces, add them to your broth, and then use a blender to smooth the mixture. Since the fries are already cooked, you don't need to add them until your soup is nearly done. Placing them in the pan just a minute or two before turning off the heat will make sure the soup remains piping hot. If you put the chips in any earlier, the fridge-cold temperature will temper the soup. You can either use a handheld immersion blender to blitz the soup, or transfer it to a blender. M&S shoppers go wild for an 85p hot treat - it's super tasty and will save on your dinner As takeaway chips are often very salty, you might want to add less salt to your soup, so that you aren't overloaded with salty flavour. Other ways to thicken soup If you don't have any leftover chips on hand, there are a multitude of other simple tricks you can use to thicken soup. For example, pureeing it with cannellini beans or lentils is a great budget friendly way to thicken soup. You can also puree vegetables such as squash, sweet potato and carrot. Finally, for a more decadent meal, you can add double cream to make your soup thick and extra tasty.
BBC News
7 days ago
- BBC News
Rare African okapi born at Chester Zoo
A rare okapi has been caught taking its first steps on camera at Chester Miloli was born to mum Ada and dad Stomp after a 14-month are an African mammal, endangered in the calf was named Miloli which means 'joy' in Bantu, a group of languages spoken across central Africa. Miloli was born 6 May, but spent the few weeks of his life in a quiet nest area of the now CCTV footage of Miloli shows him taking his very first, wobbly Howe, Lead Keeper at Chester Zoo, said: "The footage we've captured offers a special insight into one of nature's most elusive and secretive species." Okapi are uniquely patterned animals, but Fiona explains that these patterns have two really useful purposes."Though Miloli appears to be wearing black-and-white striped socks, these patterns play important roles - acting as camouflage and assisting young okapi in following their mothers in the forest," she said."Now that he's developed confidence, Miloli has just started to follow the stripes on his mother's hind legs as she leads him out of the nest to explore together for the first time."Okapi are the national symbol of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and protected under Congolese their numbers are falling in the wild because of habitat loss from mining and poaching for their Zoo say they are working with wider international conservation breeding programmes to help grow okapi numbers.
