Virginia’s Lobola – It’s All About Food

Some time back -- I refuse to admit how long ago -- I began the story of my friend Virginia Dlamini Akintola's lobola (wedding dowry) event, which was held last June. Unfortunately, I only managed to post a description of some of the pre-day preparations before I got busy/lazy then the Internet connection on campus failed. So here's some more of the rest of the story. These sections will describe the food preparations, as Sharon, her friend Phindi and I were asked to help with the catering.

The next several groups of photos illustrate the intensive efforts made by many friends and family members to prepare for this event. Some of the cooking started the day before, but the bulk of the preparations were done on the actual day. We started early in the morning, and you can see from the hat and jacket I'm wearing that it was chilly at first. The kitchen warmed up, though, once the stove got going. I think we were finished cooking and ready to serve the meal by around 2:00 p.m.

We made food for approximately 300 people, about half of them invited guests and the rest locals who stopped by for a meal. In fact, Virginia had been forewarned by the community feeding center that it would advise the locals to visit her lobola for their daily meal. (Most poor areas have a community facility at which volunteers cook and serve donated food to the many orphans, un or under-employed, and otherwise disadvantaged people.) So we had to plan to feed as many folks as showed up.

We were given an empty outbuilding to use as a kitchen; it was outfitted with a propane range and a couple work tables. Other prep work (endless chopping for stews and salads) went on outside, as did additional cooking.

Virginia's Lobola -- food preparation, outside

The traditional way to cook large-crowd staples such as stews, rice, pap (cornmeal mush) and samp (cracked corn, which is usually mixed with sugar beans) at big events is in giant 3-legged cast-iron pots over a wood fire. Such cooking is not easy, as one must start and tend the fires, plus monitor and stir the pots. Then, once the food is cooked, one has to somehow wash those monstrously heavy pots, usually without the aid of hot running water. I wasn't involved with the outside pots at this event (Virginia requested that I prepare beef stroganoff inside the make-shift kitchen). However, I helped to cater a wedding at a later date, and ended up in charge of finding kindling for the fire and stirring the samp as I sunburned in the summer sun.

Other meat is grilled on the braai (barbecued); as in the U.S., that task seems the only cooking activity engaged in by men. Virginia and her husband Abiola purchased a whole cow for the lobola. There may also have been some chicken and I know there was goat stew(a tasty Nigerian delicacy). There was so much meat that many people ate their fill then carried home enough for the next day or two -- a sure sign of a successful event. Unfortunately, I don't think the eager crowd left much, if anything, for Virginia and her immediate family.

Virginia's Lobola -- food service, continued

As the various salads, vegetables, side dishes and stews were finished, they were transferred from the giant pots to bowls and metal pans, which were then carried into the main house to await the dinner service. The food was served two ways – a buffet line featuring all the different dishes was set up for the lobola’s official guests, while a more basic meal of pap or rice, vegetables and stew (maybe some braai as well) was served into styrofoam take-away containers for the long line of hungry locals who dropped by.