Food for the Road

Some of the beautiful scenery on our trip through Eastern Free State to Kwa-Zulu Natal
The sandstone cliffs rise majestically alongside the road

Our family (and a few dogs) enjoying padkos yesterday

Having spent five years of my childhood in Zimbabwe, (then Southern Rhodesia) I knew all about long car journeys. No matter where we travelled in that country, it was always a L O N G journey. Once a year, we crossed the border into South Africa on our annual holiday and then the long journey became a three-day-long journey.

In the sixties there were no fast-food outlets to relieve the distances or a traveller's hunger between towns. This was not a problem because my mum would pack “padkos”. Translated, this is “road food”. The night before we were due to leave, my mum would prepare the “padkos” . Traditionally this was a wicker basket packed with cake tins filled with meatballs, boerewors (Farmers Sausage), hardboiled eggs, cheese sandwiches and hot, sweet tea in a flask. She also packed a tin of homemade rusks and fruit in season.

We’d leave home in the early hours of the next morning. The car was always dark and quiet, everyone too sleepy to talk. I remember we’d always fall asleep again and wake up an hour or two later with the sun streaming in through the windows. My mum would hand us a fruit on a serviette. We'd eat this and afterwards we'd sit forward in our seats anticipating the time when my dad would stop for breakfast.

Not long and my dad would pull up at a concrete table and chairs under a copse of trees, with a deep concrete refuse bin to the one side. I always marvelled that my dad would find a spot exactly at the right time. We’d all stand around the table while my mum spread a snowy white linen table cloth on the concrete table. She'd unpack the basket which my dad brought from the boot/trunk of the car. First out was the tin of rusks and she'd offer them around. Then she set the meal out and we’d enjoy what was a feast to us. I still maintain to this day, that nothing tasted better than my mum’s cheese sandwich and hot sweet tea in a tin mug. Other early motorists driving by would hoot and wave just to show they also had the holiday spirit.

Once we'd finished eating, we'd all help tidy up. No paper or mess was left lying around. We'd even pick up litter that was left by others, in case, as my dad always said, "people thought it was us." (!!) To allow our food to settle, my parents would let us play outside around the car as long as they could still see us. My mum sat knitting in the car with her door open; my dad would tilt his seat back a little and catch forty winks. A few minutes later we’d all be back in our seats, my mum’s door closed and my dad would pull out onto the tarmac for the next part of our journey. Everyone replete, relaxed and happy.

As parents,my husband and I, whenever we travelled a significant distance with our children, always stopped along the way for “padkos”.

Yesterday we met John and Debbie (our older son and dil) in Kwa-Zulu Natal. He’d brought his grandmother and her husband to this point; we collected them there and brought them home for the Christmas holidays. Earlier this week John phoned and asked if I’d bring “padkos” along so that we could enjoy it together in the outdoors. (Like me, my son had not forgotten this enjoyable part of his childhood.)

I’m pleased that the tradition lives on...