Township Born & Bread
Sasko Soweto Kota Festival
The traditional quarter loaf of bread with a tasty filling is a favourite on the streets
Your hands hold a kota together while you eat it. Your palms and fingers feel the soft white bread that has been made warm by chips and other steaming deep-fried ingredients. The kota, a quintessential street food in Gauteng’s townships, is usually packaged in a clear plastic sandwich bag. The combination of flavours and textures inside the hollowed-out quarter ("kota") loaf is a matter of personal preference. Ordering a kota is an exercise in curating a meal to one’s taste, and is dependent on the fillings on offer. Over time, the meal has adopted multifarious ingredients, depending on what the owner of the take-away that is selling it has had the inclination to make available. Soweto’s first-ever celebration of kota, the Sasko Soweto Kota Festival, has struck chords that are affirming for some and nostalgic for others. Sidwell Tshingilane (39), the entrepreneur and mastermind behind the festival, stumbled across the idea much the same as one would encounter a chip of stubbornly ha...
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