Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Bunny Chow


Bunny chow is an invention of the Indian population here in South Africa. It's any type of curry served in a bread bowl. But here's the cool part: it's Afrikaner bread. ("What's so cool about that?" you say. Let me tell you....)

Throughout the history of South Africa, Indians have been caught in the middle of the race wars, either "too white" for the black government, or "too black" for the white regime. The amazing thing is, they've survived. South Africa has the largest Indian population outside of India. But back to bunny chow...

Afrikaners are famous for their bread. Any time of day you can walk into a grocery store and buy a loaf of fresh baked bread (still warm). Indians are famous for their curries. You would think the two groups would have nothing to do with each other, given the history. But somewhere along the line, someone said, "Hey, you're good at baking bread", to which the reply was, "And you're good at making curry. What do you say we get together and...." Bunny chow was born!

I am not the sort to find spiritual analogies in everything, but I can't help thinking that maybe we ought to focus on what's good about each other - what each person does really well - instead of what drives us nuts about each other. If we did that, maybe we'd end up with a lot more bunny chow.

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