Tradition meets convenience

TimesLIVE

5 days ago

I grew up eating tripe and onions, a traditional Yorkshire dish that my mother mastered for my British father. Tripe, the lining of the cow's stomach, is something you either love or hate. We loved it. Mom's version was made using clean tripe — I later learnt it was soaked in bleach to make it clean and snowy white — and it was cooked slowly in onions and milk till tender. It was one of my favourite dishes, so my interest was piqued when invited to lunch at Tasty Nation eatery, located in a suburban shopping centre in Sunninghill, Gauteng and fast growing in popularity.
Here you will find items such as peri-peri chicken, pork ribs and lamb chops among traditional foods like maotwana (chicken feet), mogodu (beef tripe and intestines), thlakwana (slow-cooked cow heels), skopo, sheep head, nhloko (beef head meat), pap, dombolo (steamed bread), samp and beans and even hot-cooked chips — a celebration of a range of dishes that truly reflect South African food culture.
At Tasty Nation you can sit down and enjoy the feast, order a takeout or pick up ready-made meals from the well-stocked freezer section. I came home with a doypack of delicious samp and beans and some tender yet chewy ready-prepared chicken feet.
I chatted to Kelly Lewis, CEO of Tasty Nation, and asked her where it all started, what was it about offal that she so enjoyed and why the company had chosen to open their first eatery in the northern suburbs of Joburg.
Image: Supplied
Offal kind of found me, actually. While working on other convenience foods, my partners and I realised there was an entire market of people who loved traditional offal dishes but had little to no access to them in a convenient, ready-made format. Despite its beloved status, offal was largely absent from mainstream food service.
I wasn't a chef, but I had a background in sales and a drive to make things happen. So, I took that insight, built a team, and set out to bring these cherished meals to the people who wanted them. And that's been our mission for the past decade — getting offal into as many hot food counters as possible.
A year ago, our convenience offering expanded to include a range of frozen meals, now available in Pick n Pay stores nationwide. And most recently, we launched our very first Tasty Nation outlet in Sunninghill, a big step in bringing offal into the everyday food conversation.
It will probably surprise you to learn that I didn't grow up eating offal. My mother occasionally cooked dishes like liver and kidney, but I never enjoyed the flavours, or the textures for that matter. I've come to enjoy and respect them more over time, though. Head meat is my offal of choice at the moment.
Tasty Nation, in a Sunninghill shopping centre, offers traditional dishes.
Image: Supplied
Tasty Nation.
Image: Supplied
We at Hodari Foods have been cooking hundreds of tonnes of offal each month for over a decade, supplying hot food counters across the country. Our move into the quick service restaurant space was a natural extension, which gives our customers the opportunity to enjoy our meals in a comfortable sit-down setting or delivered from our store to their door via their favourite food delivery app. And that's how we came to open our very first restaurant in Sunninghill, where busy people live and their need for traditional foods was a gap in the market.
The response to access of traditional foods available on demand — especially in a suburban area — has been overwhelmingly positive. There's a strong appreciation for the convenience of enjoying familiar, culturally rooted meals close to home. It shows that even in our fast-paced, modern lifestyles, people value staying connected to their heritage.
In South African traditional food culture offal is a huge favourite, yet many offal dishes still carry a negative stigma. How does your company go about changing this perception? Offal holds a special place in South Africa's culinary heritage and that's why we prepare every dish using trusted recipes and time-honoured cooking methods to deliver the authentic flavours. In celebrating these foods our aim is to bring it to everyone and there's more Tasty Nation restaurants to come, where we serve these beloved dishes in a clean, warm, inviting urban space with a modern design.
Cleaning and preparing offal is time consuming; how is this done in the relatively small restaurant kitchen at Tasty Nation? It's very time-consuming, which is what puts a lot of people off cooking offal themselves. Our restaurant kitchen is small, but that's by design. All the cleaning, preparation and cooking is done in our central kitchens, which allows us to offer every meal on our menu all day, every day. More importantly, it ensures consistency — our customers can count on the same great taste at any Tasty Nation location, whether in Sunninghill or beyond — watch this space.
'Low and slow' is the key to cooking offal — using low temperatures and extended cooking times helps break down its tough fibres, resulting in tender meat and richly flavoured broths. We don't marinate offal, as our cooking method itself achieves the flavour infusion and tenderness that marinating does for prime cuts.
Spice additions vary greatly from one offal to another. Tripe, for example, is traditionally cooked in its own juices with very little additions, while ingredients such as bay leaves, curry powder and chillies play an important role in transforming other forms of offal into flavourful and aromatic dishes.
Pap, steamed bread and samp and beans are popular starch sides enjoyed with an offal stew, and the plate is then completed with cooked vegetables like spinach or cabbage and salads such as tomato salsa, coleslaw or beetroot.
Mogodu (tripe) is by far our best-selling dish at Tasty Nation. Other favourites include nhloko (head meat), mutton curry, Gatsby, and braaied meats like beef short rib and brisket, typically served with pap and tomato relish.
Which drinks pair well with a steaming bowl of offal? Lagers are a popular pairing with dishes like tripe or head meat. A bold red wine or strong ginger beer is a good option for the same reason, to cut through the richness of the dish.
When can we expect more Tasty Nation restaurants opening about Gauteng and the country? The wheels are already in motion for expansion in Gauteng this year.
Tasty Nation, Shop 12 Chilli Lane Shopping Centre, Sunninghill, Sandton
Open: Monday — Saturday 10am-8pm; Sunday and Public Holidays 10am-8pm