SLICE OF LIFE: Transcribed Script
Episode Number:
3 of 13
Subtitle:
Evolution
Duration:
23:20
Episode Summary:
Gauteng is thought of as a very young province but actually it’s terribly old. Just outside Johannesburg is
the Cradle of Humankind region where there are hominid fossil finds dating back as far as 3 million years.
Crucially for this series, the Gauteng region has the first evidence of fire making and cooking in the world.
The first half of this episode will see palaeo-anthropologist Dr Christine Steiningher Wits University & Dr
Grant Hall of CSIR explaining human evolution, digging for indigenous roots using ancient stone tools,
‘catching’ fire as ancient hominids once did and cooking a meal using the ingredients that were available 2
million years ago. The second half of the episode will involve fine dining, multi-award winning Chef Alistair
Lawrence of Roots restaurant in the Cradle of Humankind using the same ingredients to create an übersophisticated modern meal.
Property of Red Pepper Pictures
Copyright: Sabido Productions 2010
1
ACT 1
Item Description
Duration Notes
1
Anna V/O:
In the cut and thrust of modern day Johannesburg, its easy
to loose sight of the area’s very ancient elementary past.
But more than a million years ago there were non-human
hominids, hunting cutting cooking, eating right here. So
what did they eat? And, how does it impact on the way we
cook today?
10:00:00
Pre-title tease: summary of what can be seen in the
show
2
3
Title Sequence
Anna link to camera:
“We tend to think of Gauteng as a very young province
and in lots of ways it is. Johannesburg, you can date it
from late 19th century discovery of gold, but you know
Gauteng is so much more than that, about 30 kilometers
from the center of Johannesburg is the Cradle of
Humankind. Now there are pre-human hominid ancestors
here that are over three million years old. So, children of
Gauteng have this amazing birth right that they can come
and see where human life first began. What I love most of
all is not only is there lots of fossil evidence of prehuman
hominids, but more than that there is evidence that they
were cooking. This is the site of the first braai. So theres
nothing so wonderful we can be at the site where the first
cooking happened and what I want to know today is, was it
yummy?”
10:01:00
Location: Landrover on her way to meet Dr
Christine Steininger in the heart of Maropeng –
World Heritage Site just outside of Johannesburg
5
Formal interview with Dr Christine Steininger &
Grant Hall from the University of Wits
Anna Link to camera:
“It’s difficult to believe that we are only 30 kilometers
from the Johannesburg CBD, but isn’t this fabulous. In on
my way to meet Dr Christine Steininger from the WITS
department of paleo-anthropology. She’s an expert on non
human hominid evolution in the Cradle of Humankind and
more importantly she knows how to look at fossils in order
to determine what is going on with diet, so she can look at
teeth and jaws and say that I know that this chap ate that,
and you know what I think is wonderful about that is that
we can really get a sense of what it is that our ancestors
were eating and then maybe we can copy them. Let’s have
10:01:57
Location: Exterior in veldt
Property of Red Pepper Pictures
Copyright: Sabido Productions 2010
2
caveman cuisine in the bush
Christine sync: Hey Anna
Anna sync: Hallo hallo….
Anna: “So Christine, what have we got here?”
Christine: “ Well, we have our early ancestors from
Southern Africa, from the youngest, all the way to us,
modern homo sapiens and we have a nice collection of
Australopithecines our earliest ancestor and then we move
into Paranthropus robustus ; Homo – Homo habilis which is
our earliest member of our genus Homo; and then, Homo
erectus”
Anna: “When do we start seeing fire as a controlled
method of processing food?”
Christine: “Well that only comes with Homo erectus. We
see an individual that is very tall and if you look at the
cranial capacity – the brain case is very large, but look at
the teeth, it looks very human, those teeth look very
human, once again worn very flat and straight across.
These individuals are associated with a very advanced tool
called Acheulean tools, they are beautiful hand axes and
these are the very first hominids that control fire. So they
were taking the fire from the outside, bringing the fire back
with them, perpetuating the fire and keeping it going.
There’s a lot of social dynamics associated with fire –
cooking food to make it more palatable, keeping yourself
warm, keeping predators away. Also there is the social
dynamics of who is going to perpetuate that fire, if
somebody’s going to perpetuate that fire, somebody needs
to make sure that the individual that is watching over the
fire is getting fed, and then what is also associated with
homo erectus Swartkrans member 3 is that we have burnt
bone associated with charcoal, so we have lots of burnt
bone within our deposit. Because, when you cook bone,
what happens to the bone? It becomes very brittle and it’s
easy to{accidentally hits the fossil on the head), Oops,
sorry, {laughs} very easy to break into the long bones
and get at the marrow.”
Anna: “Okay, and is marrow very good to eat, I mean I
know it tastes nice, but does it have an evolutionary
purpose?”
Christine: “ Well definitely marrow has a lot of protein in it
and protein is very important for brain development”
Property of Red Pepper Pictures
Copyright: Sabido Productions 2010
3
6
Formal Interview: Dr Grant Hall from CSIR – Stone
tool expert
Anna link to camera: “This is Dr Grant Hall from the CSIR
and he’s got some real live Acheulean tools, and these are
the tools that Homo erectus was using to do his first
cooking, can I see?
Grant: “Certainly, what we’ve got here – these are two
examples of hand axes, these are very typical of the
Acheulean..
Anna: “these are real ones…”
Grant: “… these are the real makoi…
Anna: “… so Homo erectus had that in his hand?
Grant: “ Yes, pretty much used as a multi-purpose tool,
you can use it for chopping, slicing ,dicing, digging, cutting,
things like that
Anna: “So, can you show me how to make one of these?
Grant: “I can do, it’s sharp, I’ve bled a lot … (hits twos
tones against each other) here’s I’ve now made what is
called a bi-face, so we’ve taken flakes from this side and
have taken flakes from that side.
Anna: “That’s quite a sophisticated tool; the single faces
ones come early, don’t they?
Grant: “That’s right”
Anna V/O: This is too good an opportunity to miss, so
Grant and I are going to make like Homo erectus and go
and gather our lunch using the stone tool, we’re hoping for
an African potato
Anna: “Right, so, now for caveman cuisine, what are our
basic ingredients, Grant, what have we got here?”
Grant: “well, first we’re got our bulb that we dug up, this
is the hypoxis bulb and we’re just going to do that in the
coals like you would do a jacket potato without the jacket.
Springbok shin, we’re going to slice a bit of meat off here,
and then we’ve got some marrow bones – these goes over
here, and I think we’ll also throw them straight onto the
coal
Anna: “Okay, shall we start with that.. we put the bones
onto the coles
Grant: “I think so… Yip
Anna: “And we think in terms of the kinds of meat they
were eating would it have been kinds of buck, would it
have been Gemsbok***, Springbok***, those kinds of
animals.
Property of Red Pepper Pictures
10:04:47
Copyright: Sabido Productions 2010
Location: Exterior in veldt
***Antelope found in Southern Africa
4
7
Christine: “If you look at any fossil assemblage, most
fossil assemblages have mostly antelopes, so any
assemblage will have 80% antelopes
Anna: “So this is kind of what they would have been
having for lunch?”
Christine: “Absolutely”
Anna: “Shall we cut a small piece of the little beast?”
Grant: “…the first carving board {takes a bite} mmm tasty
That’s actually not too bad {hands it to Christine}
Anna: “Can we open a bone and see?”
Grant: “mmm {opens the bone with stone tool}”
Christine: “Yeah, look at that see that’s nice…”
Anna: “You’ve got some?”
Grant: “Yeah, I think I overcooked this one”
Anna: “{laughs} what does it taste like?
Grant: Ummm it’s actually not bad
Anna: “It’s actually delicious, this is seriously yummy
Grant: “Shall we see how the potato is doing?
Anna: “I love the way that we’ve fallen into such classic
gender roles that we just completely opted out of the
cooking, haven’t we?”
Christine: “Break it with your teeth”
Anna: “What does it taste like? I want some, I’m going to
come cut some”
Grant: “ mmm that’s bitter”
Anna: “ See I’m really good at this, look at this
Anna: “I think this one would have been eaten by a
predator, {to Christine} you would have been a crap Homo
erectus, while Grant and I could have lived happily in our
veldt {laughs} we’re all rubbish at being Homo erectus
aren’t we? We would all have died of starvation.”
Anna link to camera:
“Our meal today, it was the ultimate example of you are
what you eat. Not just we – Christine, Grant and me, I
mean we – Humanity, everything that we are that we’ve
become is a result of food that was eaten here nearly 2
million years ago, that first fire that came crashing down
with lighting through the trees that was caught and
maintained that changed our brains, our social lives and
everything about us, the way that everyone in the world
eats is because of the way that Homo erectus ate in the
Cradle of Humankind right here on our doorstep and we are
just so lucky that Gauteng is the center of the foodie
Property of Red Pepper Pictures
10:10:14
Copyright: Sabido Productions 2010
Location: Exterior in veldt
5
world.”
COMMERCIAL BREAK 1
ACT 2
8
Anna link to camera:
“Roots Restaurant is a 5 star fine dining restaurant within
the Cradle of Humankind Nature Conservancy, so we’re
about 5 kilometers from where we were yesterday. And
we’re still within that iconic evolutionary space at the heart
of where the first cooking happened. Now, Roots, they win
international prizes, they’re consistently in the Top 10 local
restaurant awards and I think that the chef, Alistair
Lawrence is certainly one of the best young South African
chefs, if not one of the best grown up chefs in South Africa.
What I think is very interesting is for a man who’s work is
quite modern and funky for him to be in a space that is so
ancient and so primal, I’m interested in what that does to
the way he cooks to both his personall evolution as a chef
but also just the broader evolution to cooking as a whole
10:10:11
9
Formal Interview with Alistair Lawrence
Anna: “So Alistair tell me about your personal evolution as
a chef how that happened why did you want to be in a
kitchen?”
Alistair: “I grew up on the Cape Flats***and cooking has
always been a big part of family life, my mother used to
cook, my grandmother used to cook, my aunt used to cook
and through my experience with them and eating different
foods, I slowly got into liking food. It used to be all about
the eating, I loved the flavors, then it started getting more
physical, I wanted to try and do that. If my mother made
macaroni and cheese, I would try and make it a bit better”
Anna: “And do you think that the way you cook now, is
very influenced by that early….”
Alistair: “Most definitely, my favorite style of cooking is
slow cooking, instead of slow cooking at 140 degrees for 4
hours you’d slow cook at 80 degrees for 12 hours, that sort
of thing, again, concentrating on basic flavors, making sure
the meat is seasoned properly before you start the cooking
process, at the end you end up with a good product.
Anna: “The other thing you do quite a lot of here is kind of
molecular gastronomy – deconstructed stuff, in a way while
10:11:15
Property of Red Pepper Pictures
Copyright: Sabido Productions 2010
Location: Roots fine dining Restaurant in the Cradle
of Humankind. Chef Alistair Lawrence runs the
restaurant.
*** An area in Cape Town that is mostly populated
by colored people.
6
10
it feels very modern, is it simply about breaking things
down into their component parts and putting them back
together again, it’s like playing God isn’t it? Do you like the
contrast of the very ancient and the very modern in this
space?
Alistair: “I think because we are where we are it’s
amazing to take the ingredients at it’s most basic and
understand what it’s all about before you take it and you
change it.
Anna: “So can we go to the kitchen?”
Alistair: “Let’s do it”
Cooking Demo: Root vegetables and marrow bone
Anna: “Right, so Alistair, what have we got here?”
Alistair: “Okay, what we’ve got here is Springbok Loin and
we’ve got Springbok Marrow
Anna: “Was this from the shin?”
Alistair: “Obviously the bones I took , I made a stock from
that and we’re going to use the stock as part of the sauce,
so that will be your three textures on the Springbok, the
carrots I’m serving whole as “baby” just to show where the
carrots start – the beginning phase – then what I’ve done
is I’ve made a carrot essence, so I’ve taken carrot juice,
I’ve reduced it all the way down and I’ve added some
zantan gum to it and it’s basically thickened.
Anna: “Okay, right”
Alistair: “The Beetroot, I’ve cooked the beetroot, then I’ve
taken all the off cuts and all the liquid and I basically
blended it together, I’ve reduced it and I’ve made a jelly
with it so that you will get two different kind of textures,
you’ll get the crunchy and the soft with the beetroot.
Anna: “Right, so what’s the first thing we do?”
Alistair: “Okay the first thing we do is we need to season
the Springbok”
Anna V/O: So toss the venison in salt, pepper, olive oil and
herbs and now it’s ready for the suvee
Alistair: “Suvee is basically the French term for cooking
under pressure and what you do is you put a piece of meat
in a vacuum bag, you remove all the air from it and you
cook it under pressure and you cook it in a water bath at a
constant temperature of… whatever the temperature is for
the certain ingredient for a certain amount of time.
Anna: “And now for the worlds slowest slow cooking…”
Alistair: “Now that I’ve vacuum packed it, we’re going to
Property of Red Pepper Pictures
10:13:00
Copyright: Sabido Productions 2010
Interior: Roots Restaurant Kitchen
7
11
pop it into the water for an hour at 50degree Celsius while
that’s busy cooking away I’ll go on with the rest of the
ingredients.
Anna V/O: “So season and crumb the bone marrow and
send it off to be sizzled in the deep fat fryer. Now for the
parsnip slivers, deep-fried for that root vegetable crunch
until it’s all golden and ready.
Anna: “…well the deep-fried bone marrow looks glorious, it
almost looks a bit like duchess potatoes doesn’t it?
Alistair: “ Exactly
Anna: “So what happens now?”
Alistair: “Okay now we’re basically just going to heat up
the warm ingredients for the dish, we’re going to take the
Springbok out, we’re going to seal it, give it nice color and
then we’re going to put the dish together.
Anna V/O: Alistair likes to play with texture; he’s pureed
some of the parsnip to contrast with the deep-fried texture
and crunch. Olive Oil a selection of delicious root
vegetables, salt and of course honey to remind us of the
sweetness of life. Well the hour’s up so the meat comes
out of the suvee machine, is sealed in a very hot pan to
add color and a crust.
Alistair: “Even though you’re eating the plate of food you
still want visual flavor. The plate of food needs to jump out
at you.
Anna V/O: … and jump out it really does it’s a symphony of
taste and texture. Alistair likes playing God, so each
element exists as a liquid a jelly and a crackling crunch
Anna: “Right, well the moment of truth, let’s tuck in, well
I’m so interested to try the deep-fried bone marrow. Wow,
that’s amazing, first of all you always feel that somehow
early humans there food must have been a lot less nice
than ours, but you know if they were eating Springbok
bone marrow, it’s a jolly nice way to live you know you can
do a lot worse. And I love the kind of space age beetroot. I
don’t know though that a Caveman would recognize that as
a root vegetable but it’s very delicious. Cheers
Anna link to camera:
“I loved what Alistair did, first of all just because – Good
Lord that man can cook it was completely delicious, but
more than that I loved that way that one could you know
you could reach out and touch the past you could reach out
and taste the past on that plate. Every mouth full – you
Property of Red Pepper Pictures
10:17:10
Copyright: Sabido Productions 2010
8
just knew that ancient hominids have been in this space
and would recognize those flavors, sure, the root
vegetables were different but in its core, the bone marrow,
the Springbok the taste and texture of the vegetables they
really had such a deliciously ancient quality to them that
one could say I can strech across history and share a meal
with these people that were so different from me but so the
same it really was the ultimate example of the more things
change the more they stay the same.”
COMMERCIAL BREAK 2
ACT 3
12
Anna cooking demo:
Anna link to camera:
Anna: “I felt so privileged in the Cradle of Humankind that,
really what one had was the sense of the very spring time
of humanity, the very earliest essence of who we are was
wrapped up in both what Christine did with her skeletons
but also I felt with Alistair there was a real sense of youth
and energy and the beginnings of what makes us humans.
So I wanted to take that kind of spring time feeling and
translate that onto a plate. And it seemed to me that the
obvious thing to do would be to make a primavera dish.”
Anna V/O: Primavera is simply a classic springtime recipe,
so here’s to the springtime of humanity, olive oil onion and
butter.
Anna: “You don’t want it to color but you do want it to
take on a nice glossy sheen and get soft and start releasing
their natural sugars.”
Anna V/O: Now for an exclusive taste of Gauteng
Anna: “I’m just chopping up a little bit of the wild spinach
because I’m going to add some of it at this stage most of it
I’m going to add right at the end and make a kind of al
dente crunch”
Anna V/O: Classic primavera is usually made with Italian
spring fresh vegetables, but mine is a Gauteng indigenous
version, so in go wild asparagus fern, seedpods, wild garlic
and rice.
Anna: “All your doing now is just tossing the rice so that it
can get covered in the olive oil and the delicious garlicky
aromas”
Anna V/O: a sprinkle of salt a slosh of Ethiopian Arak
liqueur and a ladle of warm chicken stock
Anna: “I think that risotto should be served just on its
Property of Red Pepper Pictures
10:18:16
Copyright: Sabido Productions 2010
Location: Anna’s house
9
13
14
own. I hate it when you go into a restaurant and they
serve you risotto with a whole lump of fillet steak on top or
something. It seems to me that risotto needs to be the
star it is a legend in its own lunchtime.”
Anna V/O: Season with delele*** wild spinach, a herbal
taste that our ancestors might have recognized.
Anna: “This is the curds from Amasi***, so if you take
that fermented sour milk and you drain it so that the weigh
is drained off, what you’re left with is the most delicious
cream cheese effectively”
Anna V/O: in it goes, then stir it up, close the lid and
wonder off for a glass of wine for about 5 minutes.
Anna: “Okay so, spring time in the Cradle of Humankind
Anna V/O: Last touch, a sprinkle of Moroccan preserved
lemons in honor of the north African Homo erectus finds.
The other very ancient Homo erectus site is in Ethiopia, so
I’m tossing in some Ethiopian Arak liqueur
Anna’s end of episode conclusion to camera:
“It’s just heavenly, now when you taste this risotto
primavera Gauteng style, you really can tell that Ethiopia
and South Africa share this great connection. You know the
flavors go so well together that the Anis flavor of the Arak,
blends so beautifully with the soured milk of the Amasi and
the wild asparagus seedpods, they pop in your mouth, so
it’s like having an exploding asparagus which goes pop pop
pop with little bursts of asparagus flavor. For me, this
risotto and everything that both Christine and Alistair have
done on the last couple of days, what it says to me, South
Africans spend such a lot of time thinking maybe London,
Tokyo, Paris are more sophisticated and stylish but without
the Cradle of Humankind, without Gauteng, without South
Africa there really is no cuisine anywhere in the world, we
catch the first fire we make the first stone tools for cutting
meat, we are doing the first cooking. It is absolutely the
spring of the very center of the culinary world. And I think
that is an experience we should just relish and enjoy.
END CREDITS
Property of Red Pepper Pictures
***delele – African word for wild spinach
***Amasi – African word for Sour Milk
10:20:58
Copyright: Sabido Productions 2010
10
Property of Red Pepper Pictures
Copyright: Sabido Productions 2010
11