Hi! Thanks for this awesome reply, and sorry for only responding now. What a crazy week with uni starting again.
The millet story is interesting cause it essentially isn't available in the stores (at least not here in the cape). The only store I know that sells millet seeds is in cape town, atlas trading co (a Cape Malay spice shop). Maybe the connotation of pap and poverty (in my eyes) comes from the idea that it was food for the poor and the "workers". I grew up in the early 2000's so my reference is not from the past as in your case, but few of my friends in the Cape knew pap.
I would love to hear more of your stories! So please share them or the links.
I hope that you're settled into varsity. Which one? And you're escaping all the stuff that's going on.
Pap is so not a Western Cape thing. I grew up in the Eastern Cape and my husband in Zim and the folk, here in McGregor that love pap either grew up and/or lived in either the Eastern Cape, Zim and/or Gauteng. You can check out my Instagram (I often publish those posts her via @dapplr or my wordpress blog where I use @exxp to publish to the blockchain and where you'll find photos and stories of some of the food I make. I'm about to do the pickled fish thing because Easter's coming.... I'm a little busy in my day job at the moment to write long, researched posts about the food I make, but I'll resume it again.
Food, what we eat and what it says about our respective heritages and generations is so interesting. I look forward to more of your posts.
All the best with your studies!!
Sorry again for the delayed response. I also teach some minor classes and the admin surrounding that is crazy. I am a PhD student hahah so most of my research is conducted from home, and my classes I give are also online, so not problems regarding the protests.
I am looking forward to your future food posts! It is amazing how we can get closer to each other via food. I want to try and get people from different cultures here where I live to cook some of their culture's traditional food for me and others and write some Hive blog posts as well.
Thanks, and all the best for your research as well!
Oh yes, and I saw you are in McGregor! We should totally meet up one or other time. I see so many people close by on hive!