Cape Town - Eskom is turning into the Grinch who stole Christmas as families try to plan their menus around load shedding for the holiday weekend.
The power utility and Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan are keeping mum on the expected level of load shedding, with both refusing to answer questions.
Eskom, whose power generation capabilities have dwindled, on Tuesday issued a power alert for Stage 4 from Wednesday “until further notice”.
Queries were sent early in the morning to Eskom about whether they had plans to, and how they would, mitigate the higher stages of load shedding during the Christmas period. The power utility didn’t respond.
Minister Gordhan, whose department is responsible for Eskom, was sent queries about plans to mitigate load shedding on Christmas Day.
Gordhan picked up the phone, listened to some of the questions, refused to speak and passed his phone to chief of staff Nthabiseng Borotho, who asked that queries be emailed to her.
Called back later, Borotho said she and Gordhan were in a meeting, but was unsure if they would be able to respond by 5pm because the query was sent at 10.18am on Thursday.
She had not responded at the time of writing.
At the mercy of Eskom’s unpredictable outage schedules, residents shared how they would be working around the load shedding clock to get their meals prepared in time, some foregoing classic dishes.
Capetonians gave tips on how they will combat this unique Christmas challenge this year.
Plumstead residents Hyram Scheepers and Michelle Adams said: “Load shedding has become a complete drag and now Christmas lights are something of the past, but we have to make the most of it. The weather is set be good on Christmas, so we will probably braai or picnic, but food is going to suffer this year.”
Southfield resident Tarcia Eiman and her family were planning their entire Christmas around the load shedding schedule and were patiently waiting for the app to update before they made any other pans.
“Should there be load shedding on Christmas afternoon, we’ll have, for the very first time ever, a Christmas supper. Should there be load shedding late afternoon, we’ll have Christmas brunch in the morning. All of this very much breaking tradition! To keep foods cool, we’ve filled 2l cooldrink bottles with water and frozen these.
“When load shedding hits, we put the frozen bottles in the fridge alongside the foods to keep cool,” she said.
Eiman said they had to cancel her mother’s famous paella dish this year because seafood plus load shedding would surely result in quite a few upset tummies.
Fairways resident Eric Walington said: “We are definitely braaing this year and not taking any chances with any oven-related cooking.”
Speaking to the Cape Argus, South African celebrity chefs Siba Mtongana and Reuben Riffel said the burden of load shedding was definitely changing the typical menu options this Christmas, and had made many rethink their much-anticipated Christmas lunch menu.
Riffel said people should be sure to be well stocked up with ice and predicted a little ice shortage with people already rushing to the stores to buy large quantities of 5-litre water bottles for their freezers ahead of time and keep all their drinks and meats frozen.
Riffel added that people should try adding some more sherry to their trifle this year as alcohol was a great preservative (and good for some extra festive cheer).
Mtongana said just because electricity would be unreliable on Christmas Day did not necessarily mean people were foregoing their favourite festive dishes. People were getting creative with braais, gas stoves, even dabbling in spit braais and open fires for cooking.
Mtongana added that if people wanted less stress this year, they could visit local restaurants to try their delicious Christmas specialities. She encouraged people to try the special Christmas menu at the SIBA - The Restaurant at the Table Bay Hotel.
