The Greatest Veggie Burger in Cape Town or Maybe the Whole World
By: Ishay Govender-Ypma
Tags: Vegan, South Africa, Food, Business, World

“My people think that being a vegan is for thin, white people. Some think it’s a cult, a religion or worry they will go hungry if they visit me. I tell them, look what this government has done with the seeds. Don’t do it for the earth or the animals or to save the world. Do it for your health first and foremost.”

When I first chat with Madzivadondo, he’s suffered a burglary at this home in Pinelands — not the first time, he says. Mapfumo is still distraught. He shoots his wife a worried glance. But it is a reality of life in South Africa, in rich and poor neighborhoods.

Reconciling diet and health with the socio-economic struggles is fraught, even on the best of days. “My people think that being a vegan is for thin, white people. Some think it’s a cult, a religion or worry they will go hungry if they visit me,” he says. “I tell them, look what this government has done with the seeds. Don’t do it for the earth or the animals or to save the world. Do it for your health first and foremost.” For those contemplating veganism and in a liminal space, he suggests flexitarianism — something Mapfumo and his son Theo have adopted.

A market vendor (he still frequents four major markets across the city — with no help), Madzivadondo’s sprouting caught the attention of community-based practitioners, Dr. Elisabeth Parker and her husband. Parker noted feeling energized after eating the burgers topped with microgreens. “We all know that good health starts in the gut,” she says on a phone call, referring to the adage “you are what you eat.” The Parkers were determined to assist Madzivadondo with a stable space so they converted their surgery space, making room for the café that he rents for a nominal amount each month. Many of their patients have become loyal customers.

Madzivadondo would spend the next decade working as a gardener, handyman, and eventually a butler in a plush ocean-front suburb nearby. Managing an upmarket private guesthouse, he trained as a chef and served guests lavish salad bowls with his kitchen counter sprouts on the days they didn’t request steak or chicken.

Madzivadondo’s journey winds back to 2003 when he arrived in South Africa hoping to farm mushrooms. “We learned that colonization in southern Africa started in Cape Town, so I came, not for the mountains and the ocean, but to connect with this history,” he says. He soon realized there was no government-subsidized land available. Madzivadondo would spend the next decade working as a gardener, handyman, and eventually a butler in a plush ocean-front suburb nearby. Managing an upmarket private guesthouse, he trained as a chef and served guests lavish salad bowls with his kitchen counter sprouts on the days they didn’t request steak or chicken.

A vegan since the age of 15 — he tells me: “I didn’t know the term [vegan]. I come from a very rural area, so I only learned this later in life” — in 2013, he started cultivating microgreens on a tiny plot at Oude Molen Eco Village in Pinelands, 10 miles away. Madzivadondo shows me his aging copy of Sprouts — Elixir of Life by John H. Tobe, the source of his education in the art of sprouting which began back in 1990. Shedding his butler role, Madzivadondo rented a market stall, offering vegan burgers to a suburban clientele. He sold microgreens to curious market goers on condition they return his soil, which he tends to with the utmost care.

“Don’t bother sprouting if you can’t commit to watering on time. It’s like the love you give your teeth. Treat them with that kind of dedication.”

“The medium is more important than anything. My microgreens rest on trestles, they don’t touch the ground I rent. I make the compost from cuttings and the peels I use in the restaurant,” he explains. All the fruit and vegetables are from organic farmers, he says, save for apples that are tough to certify locally. “You can buy all the expensive vegan food in the supermarket, but you have no idea what’s in it,” he says.