People ask me why I spend Christmas in South Africa. Why don’t I remain in England and have a proper British Christmas? Or, why don’t I go to Hungary, where I used to go, for the snow and the River Danube, which, when partly iced over, resembles shattered crystals?
I’m not sure myself. In England, Christmas seems to last too long (no one in the rest of the world, for example, seems to understand the idea of Boxing Day). And, much as I love Hungary, there is simply a surfeit of fish. Not on the streets, that is, but on the dining table. Hungarian Catholics, who include the maternal side of my family, eat nothing but fish for their Christmas meal. Because the country once had an admiral as regent (Horthy), there are a few imbeciles who assume Hungary has a sea. Not true. Horthy had been made an admiral when the Austro-Hungarian Empire still existed. Hungary itself is landlocked. There is, admittedly, Lake Balaton, but the fish that comes out of that, a creature called fogas, tastes like mud mixed with piss.
In any case, contrary to received wisdom, South Africa is a very convenient place to spend Christmas — at least for me. This is primarily because my brother lives in Johannesburg; secondarily because he does all the cooking. Property remains so cheap that he succeeded in building himself a small palace. Much of the ground floor is taken up by a state-of-the-art kitchen that could house three families. You know, one of those things with huge granite counters, blenders the size of Ming vases, and seven sinks.
I never met a man who liked to cook as much as my brother. This may be because food in South Africa is about a tenth of the price of what it is in Europe.
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