During the Great Depression
in 1933 Indians, Whites and Chinese in Durban, South Africa, suffered
hunger like everyone else. The kids then discovered that the cheapest
curry they could buy (for a quarter penny or half a penny) was made by a
vegetarian Indian caste known in Durban slang as the Bania. It was made
from dried sugarbeans (no meat). The children didn't have plates, and
one kid got the bright idea to hollow out a quarter bread, asked the
seller to put the bean curry in the hollowed-out bread, and then used
the broken bread he's taken out as a sort of eating utensil. Chinese
food was called "chow". Somehow the two words came together: Bania Chow.
In time it simply became known as Bunny Chow. Bunny Chow was what the
Indian sugar plantation workers took as their day's food to the lands:
curry in hollowed-out bread halves. Cheap and practical ... Today it
does not matter what your skin colour or station in life is: Durbanites
and people from the Kwa-Zulu-Natal province love their BUNNY CHOW ...
Courtesy research by my friend a Great Chef & Restaurateur Balraj Bhasin
Courtesy research by my friend a Great Chef & Restaurateur Balraj Bhasin
