Cape Chefs Don Their Whites To Feed The Hungry During Lockdown

A Cape Town catering kitchen is creating smiles. Thanks to an energetic chef with a big heart, industry volunteers are making soup to feed the hungry masses.

“It’s very rarely a good career move to have a conscience.” In his book Medium Raw: a Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People who Cook, the witty American TV chef Anthony Bourdain summed up the dilemma facing many chefs with restaurants that cannot trade during the Covid-19 lockdown.

Bourdain had first-hand experience of operating restaurants, heading kitchen crews, working split shifts in cramped conditions, prepping and perfecting plates.

The show must go on. Most chefs wouldn’t have it any other way.

For chef Wynand du Plessis, owner of Extreem Kwizeen in Cape Town’s Mowbray, not being able to host private and corporate catering and events during lockdown left financial questions and too much time on his hands. His charitable nature and knack for inspiring others soon kicked in.

With 300 litres of spare soup in his freezer on day four of lockdown, Du Plessis decided to donate it to the needy. Driving past a camp in Observatory where homeless communities were being accommodated, he asked questions and was put in touch with the Observatory Improvement District (OBSID). A few referrals later, 45 cups of soup found willing recipients.

“That was where I saw the scale of the hunger problem,” says Du Plessis. “So I started making more soup myself.

Paying it forward

Wynand and Lizelle du Plessis. Photo: Supplied

Fast forward a couple of weeks and Du Plessis’s schedule involves long days that typically start at 5.30am with vegetable shopping at Cape Town Market in Epping. “I’m working nearly seven days a week but absolutely loving it. That’s what we do, we cook.

“The homeless and hungry in Observatory are now sorted. We live around the corner from Extreem Kwizeen so it’s easy. Every morning I get messaged to feed between 80 to 160 people. We warm up soup and hand out cups; a lady up the road makes sandwiches. I open our facility and they come to collect. Later they return the dirty pots.”

The next target was the Groote Schuur Community Improvement District (GSCID), feeding 100 to 300 people daily. The makeshift soup kitchen is also facilitating liquid meals for communities in Ocean View, out Kommetjie way. Salt River was added this week. Communities make contact daily.

It’s a simple yet effective system. Du Plessis communicates with ward councillors, who in turn work with City Improvement Districts (CIDs) and community organisations, who direct the CID vans that deliver frozen soup.

“They’ll try to find freezer space in the community, with the assistance of SAPS,” he says. “They’re warming up the soup in their houses, and doing their outreach using the Muslim or Christian church ladies or sports clubs.”

The initiative now prepares in excess of 11,200 cups of soup weekly. By Du Plessis’s calculations, approximately 1,000kg of raw vegetables – costing a little less than R2,200 – yields nearly 1,600 litres of thick soup.


more on dailymaverick.co.za