Niknaks

When I lived in the States, I dreamed of rooibos tea and South African wine. Yes, I missed the mountain, the sun, the fruit that tasted like fruit, but rooibos, shoh, I dreamed of rooibos. For Bottles, when she was studying in Paris last year, every update was accompanied by a soliloquy on just how much she craved a packet of Niknaks. Having now returned to the land of the MSG Queen, she recently sent an equally crazed friend in the UK a care-package of those crackly-orange maize snacks. It was like Christmas had come early.

Strangely enough, they aren't the only ones with a passion for such things. Last time I was in Mitchell's Plain I had a conversation with a German volunteer who was soon leaving. She'd been in a homestay, and had asked her host mother to go to the Makro and buy her a bulk bag of some Niknak equivalent. She was munching on a few as we chatted. They looked like mini red clouds. I tried one. Salty, a little spicey, somehow also sweet, with a very satisfying crunchy then melty texture. "I'm taking them home," she explained, rubbing the tops of her red-stained fingers together to loosen the last crumbs into the bag, "we don't get these in Germany." She tilted her head back and poured the microscopic remnants into her mouth. Her relish neared something close to addiction.

When I was in Makhaza with my students a couple of weeks back, they insisted we go to the Shoprite to buy cheap and dubiously flavoured chips. They stood in the aisle for ages, perusing the options and debating the merits of a maize-based chip. I stood there with my superglue and Stoney and watched them, bemused.

Apparently cheap snacks is our claim to fame here in the south.