Stuffem, (fictitious name, real company) are caterers - of sorts. They provide meals to residents of an old age home (presumably among other projects and contracts).
They are to be congratulated. Their menus show a degree of innovation and imagination found only in Marvel Comics and the like. Who could resist a breakfast of sweet corn, cold as the proverbial witch's tit, served on bread? I do not think that anyone, anywhere on this planet has ever conceived of as marvelous a concoction as this for breakfast. Why, I doubt that even were there life elsewhere in the cosmos, would such inventiveness be found. Some unkind folk maintain that this is merely an extremely lazy way to deal with breakfast for the elderly folk, who are not expected to raise a protest. Others aver that this is typical of an attitude in South Africa towards older folk, who are viewed as irrelevant, not very smart and powerless. I must emphasize that not all meals attain these Kilimanjaro - like heights of imagination, creativity and innovation. Some meals are quite ordinary and quite palatable. But Stuffem manage to pull one out of the bag with commendable regularity. Not so long ago a pattern emerged where the Friday fish was smaller than your average potato chip (I exaggerate only slightly). The fish looked as if had been cruelly snatched from an incubator for the prematurely born.
The argument has been proffered that residents ought to be grateful to receive three meals a day at low cost. There are probably more cynical, illogical excuses for poor performance and neglect of services paid for, but they are extremely hard to find.
Stuffem's cost saving exercise often went to ludicrous, laughable lengths. Bizarrely, the upper level of lunchtime juice fell lower week by week until several residents refused to take half a glass of juice. I don't know whether the change to the use of cups was an equally bizarre attempt to circumvent the problem. Efforts veered between pathetic and comical. Nobs of butter were cut in half, merely resulting in diners taking two servings of butter instead of one.
Another bold innovation from Stuffem is the serving of cold food. After all, why waste energy keeping food warm, when you can put before an uncomplaining, elderly person a nice plate of cold food. There is, after all, a microwave oven. The oven's opening and closing mechanism has not worked all that well for about a month. So, to add entertainment to enjoyment of the meal, residents have the pleasure of trying to figure out how to rescue their meals, locked into a microwave oven that stubbornly refuses to give them up. Which other caterer in the land, indeed anywhere in the world, has come up with such a quaint, novel meal time game?
A welcome innovation was the substitution of fruit for some of the dull, stodgy desserts proffered previously. William pears were a Stuffem favourite for a time. These resembled World War II Wehrmacht grenades, particularly in texture. While they would almost certainly not explode, if hurled with sufficient force, the devastation wreaked would probably be of a similar order.
Some of the staff at Stuffem are very good at putting residents in their place. Said place being that of a supplicant before the high priests of meal time service. A resident once complained that the beetroot had seen better days - probably back in 2025. One of the servers stoutly maintained that the beetroot was from that very day, adding as an aside in isiZulu to her colleagues that other people were eating the beetroot. A supervisor then spoiled it all by pointing out that the beetroot was indeed less than fresh or even edible. (What do supervisors know?)
There seems to be an attitude prevalent in our beloved country where service providers confuse their roles with that of boss or high priest, before whom supplicants humbly kneel, begging for services. One sees this at hospitals and probably most, if not all. state departments. Of course it's most evident in government where many of the public representatives would probably be outraged at the notion that they serve at the pleasure of the people. I suppose that is likely to happen when your legislative classes wearing watches worth a million or two are elected by people who barely get by on a very, very small fraction of the amount paid for those watches.
One thing that commends Stuffem is their reliability and predictability. One knows that they will inevitably stuff something up several times a week. We older folk like stability and predictability, so well done Stuffem. Stuff on. On second thoughts, it would probably be a whole lot better if you stuffed off.
It is very difficult to stuff up some dishes, regardless of how clueless one is. French toast is the sort of thing that my primary school grandchildren can knock together without raising a sweat. The Stuffem version is essentially a slice of bread that has been threatened with egg but that threat has not been carried out. It is like much of Stuffem food, bland.
I foolishly thought that a sandwich required both slices to be buttered. I am wiser now, thanks to Stuffem. Why butter two slices when you can do one and perhaps even in some cases none? More kudos to Stuffem for groundbreaking leaps in the culinary arts and science.
There is much, much more that one could tell of the remarkable saga of Stuffem, caterers extraordinaire. However, dear reader, I believe that you have enough to go on; something that a number of residents, after sampling Stuffem's unique offerings, may feel that they don't have.
