Monkey Glands

Monkey gland steak or steak with monkey gland sauce is a very South African thing. I was quite hesitant to try it out the first time, as the name itself did not appeal to my palate. I could think of many species, from gorillas, baboons to the small thieves in my in-laws’ neighborhood. Human like creatures, it’s like having the missing link on the menu – semi cannibalistic! Then glands. Not the most mouth watering part of any animal. Which glands? Armpits or groins, the menu will never tell you. With all these associations your once ravenous appetite vanishes as soon as you identify the dish on the menu. My wife convinced me to try it out though and that it had nothing to do with any monkey parts. So by now I’ve dug in a few times…

Reading a piece on the origin of the dish almost made me choke. The story starts with a scientist, Dr. Serge Abrahamovitch Vornoff (1866-1951). He caused sensation for his technique of grafting monkey testicle tissue into the testicles of men. Not just any glands in other words, but testicles! I felt seriously sick now, but still bewildered as to how the testicles could end up in a dish and become a hit?! Could "gland" be just a less repulsive cover up for a Viagra dish?

The first transplantation was so successful that Dr. Vornoff could not cope with the demand from the wealthy to arrest their advancing senility and retain former virility. Vornoff was hailed by 700 of the most leading surgeons at a congress in London for his "Revolutionary discovery of reversing the ageing process!" Quite an accomplishment and world news even today!

Vornoff set up his own monkey farm in Italy to get access to sufficient monkey balls. He occupied the entire first floor of an expensive hotel in Paris to serve as living quarters for himself, secretaries, chauffeurs and two mistresses. Vornoff injected himself on a regular basis in the hope of hard proof, fortune and fame. This must have caused swollen testicles, expectations and a pressure that must have been hard to handle! The mistresses must have been just as good for marketing as for blowing off some steam.

Dr. Vornoff was a regular visitor to the Savoy Hotel in London, and it was there that his medical experiments led to the naming of the dish Monkey Glands! It was a steak flamed with brandy in the restaurant. One of the waiters there (Bagatta), later brought the dish to Cape Town where it became popular. It is said that it had to be prepared in the restaurant to prove that there was no actual monkey glands in the dish… or testicles I assume!

Although relieved by the happy ending (of the story), I can’t help but associate this dish with monkey testicles now! Especially a type of blue balled monkeys that are quite common in Southern Africa.

Salsa

We went to this Grill house in Melville on Saturday, Sevika and me, and another couple, Dharini and Henk. We had a lovely meal with oysters, sirloin steak, wine and drinks. It's a nice couples evening! Then as we are enjoying the drinks people start rushing into the place. It was a set up, and very nicely camouflaged as well. Soon the whole place is changed into a salsa club. Very clever girls I must say. I never saw that coming.

Salsa for me is best on a burrito, tortilla or taco meal! Tex Mex! Although I have been to salsa clubs a few times before, it is doubtful that I would volunteer to a place like that or go without an argument. The girls obviously knew this. This gives you an idea about how I feel about salsa… or going to a salsa club. Not that I didn’t ever want to dance like that. If it was a short way to the dance level of the people on the dance floor… then I would jump to it very quickly. It’s just that in my life, there are so many other things where I could reach that level so much faster or at least enjoy it... Throw in a football or any kind of ball and I would be game for it any second. No ball there though…

The girls are naturally very excited about the salsa dancing. It’s interesting to see the hunks that can dance really well of course. I can understand this with only a slight level of jealousy. I’m sitting there with Henk. Unlike me, Henk actually took some salsa classes some time back, but dropped out… well that’s not completely true either. He was just touring Africa in his job so that he could never attend the classes. So when he came back from the bundus all the other guys had exceeded his level… Well, now I’m just assuming stuff here again, but something along those lines. He did some of the basic stuff… but nevertheless hasn’t got the same enthusiasm any more. That makes him a buddy. We are on the same wave length about what’s going on, and I can sense that we have a deep mutual understanding as we are sitting there.

You can watch people dance and enjoy it for only so long. After that it becomes tiring, at least through my goggles! Henk turns to me and tells me that it’s beyond that point now. I can only confirm and agree… but still sit there and watch. Poor Henk is the designated driver for the evening and drinking coke. I’ve kept myself to beers… to avoid getting too drunk too early. It’s my way of sympathizing with him… But to cope with this, I need something stronger soon. I make this clear to Henk. He has no objections… only nods in acceptance and basically telling me that: “… if I were you, I would too! I understand bru!”.

Henk is smoking though, and compensating in the same way as I do with my escalated drinking. A pack of cigarettes doesn’t last long, and I see him folding the cigarette packet. It’s one of these things that you do when you are truly bored. The way he folds the packet makes me think about the Norwegian milk carton. To grasp the Norwegian milk carton concept you must know that Norway is very good on recycling, and everybody recycles without exception! The milk carton is returned for recycling and this is an environmentally good thing. In the farming area where I come from though, people have their own recycling approach. Into one opened milk carton, you can fold and fit 7-8 other cartons with no problem. This makes a very compact carton that is used as firewood! This may sound ridiculous for a South African, but people do this in big scale, and it was actually one thing that used to drive Sevika completely bonkers when we lived in Norway. They accumulate and take space, and you want to get rid of the cartons of course. It’s just one of these things we do to gather fire material to keep the warmth up there in the cold. To motivate people they’ve made a lottery out of it, and you can actually win a million bucks if you put at least six cartons into the seventh, and add your name and address on the carton before you submit it to the recycling station. Then you are in the draw! A local guy though even made it into the Guinnes book of records as he managed to fit more cartons than anybody else. The guy was actually hammering the bottom part, as that’s the bottle neck that decides how many you can fit in… and he was doing this in his garage in order to make them really thin. You must have been damn bored to resort to something like that… just like Henk now as he is working his cigarette packet!!

Body language can tell you when the dancing and the cigarette packet are no longer entertaining… and you’re desperate to find something else to fiddle with. I see Henk twisting and turning in his chair, yawning and looking around. Very much like me I must say, and amusing to observe for me. I look at Henk’s facial expressions and general body language… and burst out laughing! Henk starts laughing too now… We are so bored we don’t know what to do with ourselves… and feel totally out of place, but laughing?! How do you explain how that can happen to sane people?? I’ve sobered up now, but unable to explain this…

I can see that Salsa dancing can be a good workout the way some of these people carry on. Much like in a gym and to my astonishment I see people carrying towels to wipe the sweat. I observe them wiping the forehead and neck… and I’m getting used to this… but still a bit amused as this is not people rehearsing for Broadway or anything. A woman finishes off drying her armpits thoroughly in a very manly manner. But that was after she tried to rape half the men on the dance floor… and doing a number of vulgar movements that are more fitting in the bedroom… at home at least!

I have never heard so much of Spanish music during one night before. I probably wouldn’t have remembered the music even, if I was having a blast of a time. Never mind my Spanish skills… I couldn’t take it any more. All my future thoughts about ever going to Spain were instantly discarded. This night completely ruined Spain for me… a whole country! It actually reminded me about a time when my mother used to listen to Modern Talking. She had her walkman on and singing whilst she was vacuuming the house. Those false falsetto tunes was the ultimate turn off for me. Because Modern Talking was German, I got sick even thinking about going there. Now I did eventually go to Germany, but that was many years later…. And now I suspect it will be many years before I see the matadors or the bulls in Pamplona.