I am…more than a little excited to get into this topic. And the WAY I get into this topic is so deliciously circuitous that I’m even MORE happy, because few things please me more than semantic labyrinths. Oh, but first, I guess some ground work is in order: I’m Jon O’Guin, this is Kitchen Catastrophes, and today’s post is going to be pretty deeply tied to British slang, by way of South African chicken.

You can imagine how excited I am.

To explain: When I made the Gatsby for this Monday’s post, I found myself in need of Peri-Peri sauce. Also called “Piri-piri”, it’s a sauce with something of a fascinating history. See, piri-piri is the Swahili word for a specific pepper, also known as the African Bird’s Eye Chili. The Swahili traded it with the Portuguese, who then made the sauce out of it, which they then traded with…everyone. Literally everyone. The first place I encountered the sauce was as a topper for Hungarian Goulash, in a restaurant built on German, Dutch, and Danish breakfast goods.

However, when I went looking for the sauce, I found it tied to a name I had come to know with some familiarity. So I bought the bottle immediately, knowing I could talk to you all about it.

And here we all, me erect with hot sauce, you confused with pepper spray! We're so alike!

And while that image may not mean much, trust me, by the end of this, you’re going to know more than you ever wished you did.

Me ‘n the Archbishop of Banterbury

Now, when I think of Nando’s, I immediately think of England. This is because of my particular brand of nerdiness, as well as a facet of UK English that I think is tragically underused in American English: the appreciation of implication, and the resulting permeability of slang.

The first point is something I run into a lot when teaching people how to read Shakespeare. See, there’s a reason that everyone talks so much in Shakespeare’s plays. Well, there are actually several, but one of them was the Elizabethan approach to conversation.

Jaunty with blatant condescension?

See, literacy still wasn’t an assumed fact of Elizabethans. Sure, many could read, especially in the higher classes, but among many skilled tradesmen and business dealers, you still found that as many as half the men couldn’t read. And, since this was centuries before video, that meant your average Elizabethan had only one reliable source of intellectual stimulation: conversation. As such, the use of puns, allusions, references and so forth was MUCH more appreciated.

This has lead, of course, to some notably risible TYPES of language developing, such as Cockney Rhyming slang, a speech pattern that sounds like a joke when first explained: a series of references and word substitutions based on taking word pairs that rhyme with something, and replacing it with the part that DOESN’T rhyme. For instance, for a long while, a syrup of figs was a home remedy for constipation, and was kept in English homes like Pepto-Bismal is today. Because people knew the phrase “syrup of figs”, and because “fig” rhymes with “wig”, “Syrup” is cockney Rhyming slang for “a wig”. Again, this is a REAL example. And before you laugh, as a quick note, there’s at least two words you might know in English that only exist because of this ridiculous system: A “Berk” is an idiot, a fool. This is because Cockney rhyming slang used “Berkeley Hunt” to rhyme with…well, it’s a word more offensive in America than England, so let’s rely on our good friend William Shakespeare to cover for us.

If you don't get it, Pronounce "And" like the letter N.
Her Cs-Us-N Ts

And yes, so we’re clear, that’s Shakespeare literally spelling out the word Cunt, (Technically, he was spelling out "Cut" which was the term used at the time, and we're just lucky "Cut" evolved like it did.) and then mistakenly thinking women pee from their vaginas. In case you miss it, the next line is literally another character, an idiot, repeating it and saying "I don't get it." LITERATURE.

The other word we use from the slang, by the way, is raspberry. You know, when you make a farting noise with your mouth, it’s called blowing a raspberry? That’s because it was “blowing a raspberry TART” in Cockney. Seriously, English slang is FASCINATING.

Wasn’t I going to get something to eat?

Anywho, all of that tied into a recent bit of English slang, “The Cheeky Nando’s”. Now, Nando’s is a South African-based international chicken restaurant, that specializes in Peri Peri chicken. Peri Peri is another name for the piri-piri pepper, as well as the sauce. It’s also used to describe any food covered in the sauce, like how the sauce from Buffalo Wings, put on basically anything, makes them “Buffalo X” Buffalo Nachos, Buffalo Pierogi, Buffalo Burgers (Though, that last one could mean something else.)

And, as I've mentioned before, Buffalo semantics are great!
"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo." is a grammatically correct sentence!
And this is exactly the kind of Buffalo buffalo the Buffalo buffalo would buffalo. Booger-eating nerd

Let's ignore Caption Jon's growing madness, and push on: South Africa has a big thing with Peri-Peri and the braai, a cooking convention I mentioned in the Chakalaka post, and I will likely bring up next Monday, because I’m honestly just knee-deep in South Africa right now, for no real reason. Braai, which is a form of outdoor grilling analogous in cultural weight to the American term Barbecue, often consists of grilled sausages, chakalaka, a sandwich called braaibroodije, and Peri-Peri…whatever. Chicken, Shrimp, Squid. 30 years ago, in South Africa, a Portuguese (Oh shit, we’ve gone full circle) Sound Engineer brought a friend and entrepreneur to a local chicken place that made peri-peri chicken. They bought it, and franchised it, and within 2 years had 4 locations in Johannesburg. Now, they have over 1,000 franchises, in 35 countries.

They reached England in the early 90’s (around 5 years after the first one opened, notably) and crept into the vernacular there as the oft-quoted “cheeky nando’s.” This phrase has led to a lot of questions from Americans attempting to understand it, which is typically met, with typical British low-humor fashion, in an elaborate explanation that, while ostensibly intelligible, is deliberately obtuse and cryptic, typically by absolutely choking it with more slang and joking parody of slang. An explanation that is only useful to people who wouldn’t have needed the explanation.

"Who's that?"

"Oh, that's ol Jenny Walters. Yeah, she's the the cousin of Mr Incredible himself, Loosey Brucey. She's a first flight chick, BFFs with Cap Marvel. The Marvel's Marvel, so Danvers, not Batson. This ain't no second-rate Detective Case."

If you know comics, that was full of actual information, and a joke about how stupid hero names are. I think there are roughly 10 references in 5 sentences there.

Jesus, he is really going hog-wild today. In any case it’s not a complicated phrase: “Cheeky” in English slang is basically the same as “playfully sassy” in American. As such, any form of playful rules- or convention-breaking, as well as well-executed jokes or insults, are cheeky. It’s fun, in a not entirely safe way. So of course, showing up with your friends to be noisy and eat spicy food, sits in a similar niche. It’s like “having a few” with your friends: it’s understood you don’t just sit and calmly sip your beers, staring at each other in slowly growing oppressive silence. No, you joke and laugh, you have some food that’s probably not super healthy for you, and overall, have a good time.

So when I saw that I could have genuine Nando’s Peri-Peri sauce, I immediately grabbed it. After all, guv, I may be an arse from time to time, but I’m no berk. Nossir, if I’d been a prat like that, I’d deserve a kick in the cobblers, for failing to use me loaf. And If that doesn’t mean South African, then I don’t know what does.