Missing ingredients at World Cup - pap, pigs' heads and zol (Feature)

By Clare Byrne Jun 13, 2010, 16:05 GMT

Johannesburg - Africa's first World Cup is well underway and local and foreign fans are coming to the party.

But there are some key ingredients missing at the games for a truly South African football experience.

Following is a list of some of the elements that characterize a local football game but which have been axed from the menu at World Cup stadium for reasons of decorum or because of FIFA sponsorship deals.

-- Pap 'n vleis (pronounced flies) - the staple dish of black townships, available from 'cooking mamas' inside and outside stadiums. Pap is a rib-sticking porridge made from maize and is usually served with a tasty meat (vleis) stew.

Hot food at World Cup games consists of hot-dogs, pies or boerewors (sausage) rolls.

Pap and fleece, as one foreign FIFA official pronounced it, is however, available at fan parks and public viewing areas.

--- Kota - a quarter of a loaf of bread cut in half and served with polony (tinned ham), relish and chips. Good soakage for beer. Another variant is the 'bunny chow' - a scooped-out half loaf filled with curry.

--- 'Cellphones' - not the communication device but small rectangular brandy bottles that fans slip into stadiums and sip from surreptiously.

-- Dagga (marijuana) - the smell of dagga smoke is another staple of football games in South Africa, particularly among the superfans who sit behind the goals. Zol, as marijuana is also nicknamed, is strictly prohibited at World Cup games.

-- Ricoffy - cheap, chicory-based coffee, which Nestle South Africa, the producers, claim is the 'most loved coffee brand in our country'. No hot drinks are served at the stadiums. Coca-Cola is it.

-- Cabbages and pigs heads - used as fetishes by supporters to bring good luck on your team or bad luck on your opponents.

'I take a cabbage to every match, to use as muti [charm) and standing behind the goal I can stop goals,' a supporter at a game between Soweto-based premier league sides Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs told the BBC last year.

Beside him was a man holding a roasted pig - a symbol for the 'roasting' he hopes the opposing team would receive.

Vegetables and animal parts are, not surprisingly, on the list of banned sustances at World Cup stadiums. Although some French supporters did manage to sneak a rooster into Cape Town stadium when France played Uruguay on Friday.

'On a World Cup game and a premier league game, there is a big big difference,' says Wilson 'Njebe' Tshabalala, a well-known Kaizer Chiefs fan, who attended the opening game between South Africa and Mexico.

'If you stand up and sing and do your thing they tell you to sit down,' says Njebe. 'Here, we have to play by FIFA's rules.'