Gwatamatic 10th Anniversary

The first commercial gwatamatic rig had its maiden run on 13 December 1997. This week we celebrate the tenth anniversary of that momentous occasion.


EXTRACTS FROM PRESS RELEASE ON THE OCCASION OF THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GWATAMATIC


The gwatamatic 2000 is a revolutionary automatic machine that I invented in 1997 for cooking large quantities of sadza to a professional standard consistently. Sadza is the maize-based staple food of Central, East and Southern Africa, and is also known as isitshwala, ugali, pap, nsima, and kenke.

THE ROAD TO THE GWATAMATIC

In the words of the late Paul Webb, arguably the most humorous Zimbabwean Toastmaster of all time, if you look around the room where you are everything you see started off as an idea in a human mind somewhere. If it were not for ideas, we would all be standing in virgin African bush with no clothes on!

Likewise, the gwatamatic started as an idea. That was in the summer of 1985. I was a student at the University of Surrey, UK on professional training attachment at the Frimley Park Hospital laboratory in Camberley. At university we were trained in a manual chemistry laboratory where we fiddled around with test tubes a lot. In contrast, at the hospital laboratory there was no test tube in sight. All the samples were loaded into automated analysers which worked away by themselves and ultimately printed the results. Apart from labour saving, the automated analyser machines (particularly the Roche Cobas Bio) were impressive in another way, namely reproducibility. For example if we measured the calcium level of one sample repeatedly, the machine gave the same result consistently for as long as the sample had not deteriorated.

Reproducibility was very important to a student bent on passing exams. So I delved deeper to investigate the basis of such impressive reproducibility. The secret turned out to be electronic discipline. The instructions which ran the machine were stored in its computer memory. So the process always ran exactly the same each time regardless of who pressed the start button.

At that time I was already aware that cooking is a form of chemistry. Moreover reproducibility is a problem in cookery too. The quality of sadza in particular often varies with the mood of the cook.

Every neighborhood has at least some outstanding cook. Yet all those neighborhoods are also bound to have some cooks using exactly the same materials who are in trouble with their husbands every night over the quality of meals. So I embarked on a mission to bring electronic discipline to the kitchen in order to save marriages. If the recipe followed by the ace cook could be reduced to digital code and made available to others, then there could be hope for mankind.

As they say, “Mwana anofanira kurerwa namai vake.” So I felt a responsibility to implement this idea. However I was aware that many businesses fail due to poor financial management. As a pre-emptive move, I joined a firm of accountants and enrolled for an accountancy degree by distance education. After graduation I stayed on in accountancy for another six years. The money was good and I was comfortable. My time in accountancy at National Foods Limited represents some of the best years of my working life. For a while there was a real danger of staying on in the transit lounge and forgetting about the destination. Then in the mid-nineties the finance director retired and was replaced by a pharaoh that knew not Joseph. That is when my problems started. The silver lining was that my insecurity gave much impetus to the development of the gwatamatic prototype. To cut a long story short, the new pharaoh effectively drove me out of formal employment. Then I proceeded to go and cook sadza full time.

I started spending significant time and money on the gwatamatic prototype in 1996.
In July 1997 the first pot of sadza came out. After patenting the apparatus, I resigned from National Foods Limited in October 1997. The first commercial gwatamatic rig was installed in the National Foods Stirling Road canteen and had a successful maiden run on 13 December 1997.

BRINGING SADZA NEARER TO THE CONSUMER

A hundred years ago in Europe, housewives used to bake bread for their families day in day out. That was the way to do things in those days. Then one day bakeries came in with the capacity to make bread faster, cheaper and better than most housewives. The rest is history.

Before the gwatamatic, sadza cooked in bulk had a bad reputation. “Sadza rebhodho,” was the utility contemptuous reference to it. There is very good reason for that. Sadza cooking is an arduous task. No matter how skilled a chef is, beyond ten litres the sadza starts to overpower the human biceps. Without thorough mixing, a chef’s skills are bound to come to naught. The gwatamatic solved this limitation with a two-horsepower impeller.
Today gwatamatic rigs are still largely restricted to institutional restaurants. The challenge is to bring the benefits of the gwatamatic to ordinary people who are not associated with institutions. To go back to the bread analogy, the benefits of bakery technology are brought into households through two main avenues: household bread making machines and sliced bread in a plastic bag. The former is largely a novelty while the latter is the more practical mass market route.

Accordingly, vacuum packed sadza in a plastic bag is now a technical reality. There is still some work to do on the promotion and distribution side before it can enter the realms of mainstream commercial reality.

The inconvenience and waste associated with home cooking should eventually become a thing of the past.



AMAZING MAIZE

Maize is now so ingrained in our culture that it is difficult to envisage as an exotic grain.

Origin
On the basis of archeological and ethnic evidence, the geographic point of origin of maize is generally conceded to be tropical Latin America. The most likely ancestor of maize is a Mexican grass called teosinte. Apart from mere morphological resemblance, teosinte can be crossed readily with maize to produce fertile progeny. It is also susceptible to common maize diseases such as corn rust.
Legend: 1. The teosinte spike ear has two rows of spikelets.
2. Early corn, as reconstructed from its oldest remains from Tehuacan, Mexico. It has four ranks of paired spikelets.
3. The modern ear of maize has many ranks of paired kernels, with the result that the number of rows on any cob is always even (check this next time you have a green mealie)

Dispersal
Maize was introduced to Europe by Middle Ages travelers such as Christopher Columbus.

There is documentary evidence that maize first appeared in Southern Africa as a Carribean-type brought in from Holland. Holland must have served only as a clearing point for the corn brought in from the New World. We can assume too that the Portuguese actively brought in other maize types.

Triumph
Ironically, maize owes much of its success to its plain taste. An overwhelming prerequisite for any successful staple is that it should be bland, e.g. potatoes, rice, cassava and, of course, maize. The stronger flavoured a food is the more quickly people will get tired of it.

The ultimate bland food is water, nobody ever gets tired of it. An infinite variety of drinks can be made simply by adding different flavourings to water. In the same way an unlimited variety of meals can be made simply by varying the relish one puts with the sadza.

Yellow maize is a less popular staple largely because the yellow pigment (carotene) has a characteristic flavour of its own, strong enough to come through most relish. Also its gluten content tends to be lower than white maizes, so yellow sadza tends to fall apart. In other words gluten is an essential natural binding agent in sadza.

Other virtues behind maize’s success are high yields, ease of storage and the fact that it is easily improved by mass selection. These converged to help maize displace the indigenous small grains.

Apart from the Americas and Africa maize has also been established as a basic food in South East Asia. It is also grown extensively in some parts of Southern Europe, particularly the Balkans. The United States of America, however, still produces more than half of the world’s total production.

Sundry Uses
In addition to sadza a whole myriad of other applications of maize has been developed. These include breakfast foods, snacks, custard powder, samp, imitation rice, tortillas, edible maize oils, brewers’ inputs, industrial starches and stockfeeds.

This article was originally researched and written by William Gwata for the Red Seal Review, the house magazine of National Foods Limited, Fourth Quarter 1992. It is reproduced here with permission.

THE CHEMISTRY OF SADZA COOKING

Maize meal
There are three primary grades of maize meal, namely super refined, roller meal and straight run. The prime difference among them is cellulose(bran) content. During the milling process leading to roller meal, if 100kg of raw maize is fed into the mill, only 85kg of roller meal come out. This is referred to as an 85% extraction rate. The 15% lost is recovered as a by-product called maize bran.
The extraction rate of milling processes leading to super refined meal is typically 65%.
With straight run maize meal, nothing is taken out so the extraction rate is 100%.


Surface chemistry
Dry maize meal is not readily wettable. In chemical terms, it is said to have a high interfacial free energy with water. This applies to both cold and hot water. That is why it forms lumps, in an attempt to minimize the interfacial area, and hence interfacial free energy consumption. For any matter, a spherical configuration offers the minimum surface area to volume ratio possible. That is why sadza lumps approximate to little spheres.

Hot water seals and stabilizes lumps making them difficult to disperse. In contrast, lumps in cold water are less stable and easy to disperse. That is why cold water is generally used to start the porridge (kupambira) in manual cooking scenarios. This is not necessary in the gwatamatic because it has a very powerful impeller that can disperse even sealed lumps.


Starch chemistry
Starch is a polymer of glucose. That means its building blocks are glucose molecules linked together. In nature starch usually arises as a blend of two basic forms namely amylose and amylopectin. Amylose is a long chain form in a spiral configuration like a spring. It contributes to sadza’s elastic texture. Amylopectin is a repeatedly branching form. It gives sadza its taste.


Key stages
The key stages of sadza cooking are first simmering (kukwata), final thickening and final simmering. The first simmering is the most critical stage for physical reasons. Sadza is a very bad conductor of heat. So heat is transferred into the cooking mixture mainly through convection currents. Convection currents are only possible when the mixture is still runny. Therefore most of the cooking happens at this stage. Thereafter the mixture is too thick for convection.
If this stage is compromised for any reason, you get ungelatinized (uncooked) sadza called mbodza which happens to be the cause of many divorces. Conversely, if you have got time, try holding it at this stage for an hour and you will see the amazing difference it makes.
Maize meal added in the final thickening stage gives the sadza its body. Like scones, sadza is typically made up of both thoroughly cooked and partially cooked starch.

Final simmering is nice to have but it is not essential for life. If you are under time pressure you can get away without it.

CONSUMERS’ QUOTATIONS


“Taidya dikita mhani pano apa!”


“Sadza rinodyika risina kana usavika iri.”


“My wife cannot match the gwatamatic standard of sadza. So she is in trouble with me now. I tell her, sadza harina kuibva iri!”

MANUAL SADZA RECIPE

For those who still do not have access to gwatamatic standard sadza, here is a manual recipe. We should stress that this is only nyama yeasina imbwa (consolation award) compared to the gwatamatic real thing.

To make 2 litres of sadza

REQUIREMENTS

Note: If you are not prepared to measure out ALL the ingredients carefully, this recipe will not be much help to you.

Equipment
Three-litre saucepan, mixing bowl, measuring jug, scale, mugoti(flat spoon).

Ingredients
2 litres water
500 grams maize meal
NO salt

PROCEDURES

1. Measure out 2 litres of cold water. Split it into two parts of 1.5 litres and 0.5 litres respectively.
2. Boil the 1.5 litres.
3. Weigh out 500 grams of maize meal. Split it into two portions of 200g and 300g respectively.
4. Mix the 200g maize meal and 0.5litre cold water in a mixing bowl to make a smooth paste.
5. Add the paste to 1.5 litres boiling water in a saucepan stirring briskly to prevent lumps forming. These exact measurements ensure that you get the correct porridge viscosity first time every time without any need to fiddle around.
6. Continue stirring until the mixture starts bubbling.
7. Reduce heat and simmer for at least 15 minutes. This is the most critical stage of the entire process. If you have to cut corners do it elsewhere and NOT here.*
8. Turn up the heat and add the remaining 300grams maize meal gradually with vigorous mixing.
9. Reduce heat and simmer for at least 30 minutes.
10. Mix again thoroughly immediately prior to serving.

NOTES

Can be served with curries, any other savoury relish or soured milk.

German proverb: “If you don’t measure it, you can’t control it!”

"In physical science the first essential step in the direction of learning any subject is to find principles of numerical reckoning and practicable methods for measuring some quality connected with it. I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in your thoughts advanced to the state of Science, whatever the matter may be." Sir William Thompson (Lord Kelvin).

THE TRUTH – About Constraints Confronting Entrepreneurs

Contrary to popular belief, funding is hardly ever the biggest barrier that entrepreneurs have to surmount.

If a business idea is weak, no amount of funding can redeem it. Conversely if a business idea is good, its strength could help attract funding. Quality of the business idea is where it’s at. If you came up with a cure for AIDS do you think you would struggle to raise capital to commercialize it?

So if you are struggling to raise capital for your business idea, resist the temptation to blame external factors. Rather your first port of call should be honest introspection. Courting corporate finance partners is very much like courtship in the romantic sense. If you find you are not having any luck, do not blame the ladies. The gwatamatic business model required some significant internal refinement before it became sellable. It is possible to hone your business idea and still not have much success. In such a case communication may be the limiting factor. One powerful way to communicate an idea is to build a functional prototype. It worked for the gwatamatic.

Funding does not even come in second place on the league of constraints. The second most formidable barrier that would-be entrepreneurs often have to face is discouragement. Without enough fortitude on the part of the entrepreneur, discouragement could scupper an otherwise viable project. On the road to the gwatamatic, some seasoned engineers told me it could not be done!

Sure, funding remains a significant constraint in any project. However it is hardly ever the main constraint. It is more often a utility scapegoat where weaknesses actually lie elsewhere in the project.

THE FUTURE

The road to the gwatamatic was like an expedition up to a summit. Reaching the summit was the original destination. In practice, the destination was reduction of the entire sadza recipe to a mathematical model. Arrival at the destination uncovered even more interesting prospects.

Among other things, the journey to the summit highlighted the parlous state of the foundations of culinary engineering. There is a plethora of culinary recipes out there scattered all over the place without any logical basis for navigating them. They are lumped together in vague broad groupings such as Mexican, Thai, Italian, Chinese etc. It is a situation reminiscent of the state of chemistry before the periodic table was developed. Man has been to the moon and back, but he still can’t round up the chaos in his kitchen! Cookery remains a highly fragmented, speculative branch of chemistry. At last there appears to be some hope.

When we successfully digitized the sadza recipe, it was like reaching a summit and discovering much more interesting territory beyond. The new territory is the prospect of digitizing all culinary recipes known to man and more. All cookery recipes are probably related members of a single ordered system. Cracking this order should provide a rigorous foundation for cookery. It would eventually transform cookery from a haphazard hit-or-miss art into a precise logical science. That way when you go to a bookshop you won’t buy a recipe book but a CD. The protocols on the CD can then be run on a universal cooking apparatus which prepares any dish of your choice without need for human judgment or skill. The gwatamatic already does this but for sadza only.

If you think of the gwatamatic as the equivalent of a pocket calculator; which is designed to do only one thing, the universal cooking apparatus will be like a PC which is capable of performing an infinite variety of tasks as long as you supply the programs.

Digitizing culinary recipes promise to bring about some novel extra benefits. Object oriented cookery could become a reality. For example if on a particular day you are craving a tangy meat dish, you could type that in and hey presto, the database pulls out all recipes capable of satisfying the craving. Remember even if the recipe you settle on happens to be Mongolian, you won’t have to find a Mongolian chef.

As was the experience in the development of the periodic table, organizing all known recipes on a logical foundation is bound to reveal gaps which could lead to discovery of novel dishes. Better still, once digitized any new recipes could be tested and refined in the virtual mode without breaking a single egg.

Who said cookery was a mature industry?

WG