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buns never tasted better

sun's out, buns out? Random streams of thought on eggs and peanuts

By Mingling with the Moon Published 2 years ago Updated about a year ago 4 min read
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buns never tasted better
Photo by Artyom Kabajev on Unsplash

When you come visit from Mozambique, which most all my family do, you bring peanuts. And they always get split up accordingly, between whoever is around. It’s really not the thought that counts here, it’s the peanuts. It must be a gift for the monkeys. Because I always find myself eating them most enjoyably out of a reused plastic packet when they've been in the cupboard since Christmas and its finally their time to shine as the reliable snack that they are. And I always reluctantly pull them out of my pants to share with the friends I’ve just made in front of a bonfire with the best egg bun you’ve ever tasted. Sometimes it is you and your cousin you just forgot the name of, or that new friend from the bus, whose name you’ve also forgotten, but when the peanuts go around, you can be assured smiles of satisfaction are due too. And in my best memories, with the best eggs you’ve ever tasted.

Let me tell you how we got here. Probably a frantic morning of things I forgot to pack and so accordingly, did so at the last minute. On the way out, the peanuts would be tossed into my hands last minute; 'you forgot this', as though it was a mistake. Even writing about, bar understanding that maybe that's not the coolest thing in the world, I still can't understand why I would feel so embarrassed. As though my identity would be blown if I don't like all the familiar camp food that white families eat and the snacks in cool packets like my white friends would pack. And it wasn't that we didn't have money, it was that it was from Mozambique. Anyway, beyond my existential dilemmas, let me tell you about why peanuts were part of my favourite food moments. They would almost always came in handy on those long walks, to those places that are so fulfilling when you arrive, but that make you really hungry along the way and there is nowhere else to look but at the peanuts in the packet. They came out at two occassions, summer camp, and the family gatherings you hoped wouldn't happen.

Back then, in the wilderness of summer camps, which was really just a very well-made lapa there's something about eggs. It’s not even the peanuts, it’s just that they got you your friends.And you know what I love about those peanuts, I swear I have taken a packet with me to every summer camp, asking everyone to share them so I wouldn't have to return with them, begrudgingly carrying them around like a nuisance, until a new friend gets snacky - and then all of a sudden the peanuts are my ancestors and they’re telling me ‘hey did you bring the cashews too? This one likes them too?” Okay perhaps the sand dunes got to you. But you know what I mean, those confidence boosting, friend-making snack moments. And they almost always are followed up by a truly great moment from the egg buns. Egg rolls, bacon and egg, if we were lucky. I don’t eat bacone anymore but man the thought of a breakfast bun eaten over a dinner bonfire and then again in the morning with strangers from ‘Gecko House’ became your lifelong friends with immediacy.

I used to think the best memories would come out of night drinking with friends. But they actually came in my most sober and curious one; those innocent and open minded moments. Those campout nights you were waiting for, oh and ain't nothing like a breakfast bun. And breakfast buns for dinner. When all of a sudden you love eggs, and you never usually eat them. But you walked 50km up the most beautiful sand dune of your life and the sun was warm before it turned into stars and you are hungry and the only thing available were eggs and buns. Fried, scrambled, eggs in the bun, heck eggs on the floor and then in the bun again, but you are assured these are the best eggs of your life. And people are sharing their cacao and only a few people are drinking coffee because you’re a kid so simple things are still simple things and milky tea isn’t a flavour in Japan, it’s actually a very intentional ‘mistake’, the same kind the sweet toothed kid makes when he puts 4 heaped teaspoons instead of two like 1 and a half like everyone else (who surely isn’t enjoying their bitter tea?). And when you see a monkey you are not endangered and afraid for your food. No, then you want to invite him over stick your hand out foolishly and say 'for you!' The land of no fears. For me, it was always in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa.

These simple memories are where my poetry came from. Seriously, simple little breakfast buns. Because it was never about the buns. or the eggs or the peanuts, though that is my favourite summer camp go-to, it was really about those silly absurdities that kind of gently defy the odds.

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Mingling with the Moon

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