Biltong

A year ago, we returned home, laden with stuff: touristy salad scoopers carved into wild animal shapes, beaded keychains, cheap batiks that looked like a million bucks, shopping bags printed with animal hide or ecological messages, jewelry made from ostrich egg shells. And biltong. 

Biltong, that luscious game jerky explicitly banned from import into the United States, for fear of what? Contamination of the game market here? Addicts questing for more, more different, more exotic, whatever? It hardly gets more exotic than kudu or crocodille biltong.

Biltong is: shape, texture, aroma, taste. So different from our jerky. I'm rarely at a loss for words, but since the day the lions made me give up vegetarianism, I've loved biltong so much I can call it heavenly and leave it at that.  

But I can't leave it, just like that, so I prepare to smuggle, er, import it to the States. I triple-wrap it in plastic and mine my luggage with it. I'm not confident the plastic will stay the biltong-sniffing dogs at the airport on the US side, so I leave a few unmentionable garments discreetly unwashed, hoping to throw the dogs off.  

At the Johannesburg airport, a huge sign, in red capital letters, declares, "DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CARRY BILTONG INTO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA." 

I turn my chin down and pretend not to see it.  Art doesn't know I'm carrying biltong. If I go down for the crime, I didn't want him to take a rap. (hahah and too many cop shows for me.) He doesn't love biltong the fanatical way I do and would declare this entire mission a bust long before I got busted.

I lug my suitcase to the counter and hoist it onto the scale.

"One kilo over," says the official smuggly. 

"What?" panic rises in my throat.

"One kilo over. You must remove one kilo."

"Uh. What will I do with it?"

"I do not care. One kilo must be removed."

Up until that very instant, I believed that "African time" was a racist tag. How quickly we change our values.

I pull my suitcase off the scale, step aside and slowly proceed to undo the latches. That's when a man, someone I don't know, approaches the official. Just loud enough for the official and me to hear, he purrs, "This is a tourist in our country, an influential one. Leave the kilo." And he presses a bill--a surprisingly small denomination--into the official's hands.

Next thing I know, I'm clutching my boarding pass. My rescuer disappears into the crowd and I never see him again.

During the longest commercial flight  in the world, 18 hours to New York, I almost forget about the biltong and the ferocious rottweilers that would be my fate. Even coach aboard South African Airlines seems plushy. The food is amazingly continental and the attendants are exactly that. They prowl the cabin while you sleep and will cover your feet with one of those fleecy blankets if your toes stick out. They're prompt to answer the bell if you get thirsty in the night.

One thing they do just might save me from slavering dog jaws. They give you biltong as a midnight snack. It comes in a little vacuum-sealed packet, about an ounce of it. Art's not interested and neither is the woman across the aisle. But I am. Score three ounces of biltong for me. 

As we approach New York, I rip open the packets and stuff them into the outer pocket of my carry-on bag. As soon as we collect our luggage and step into that big room where the cops saunter through with the dogs, my panic is nearly palpable. All this for a couple pounds of biltong? Am I crazy? Maybe that'll be my defense...

I'm trying oh so hard to be casual, that I nearly jump out of my skin when I feel a damp, cold nose against my leg. I look down into the sweet wet eyes of a little white dog, the cross between a dust mop and a wig. I cannot help it, I start to laugh. So does the cop. For a moment. The little dog goes nuts, sniffing and pawing my carry-on.

"Whatcha got there," he asks. "Airplane biltong?"

I pull a packet out, apologize, "Oh gosh, I forgot. Want it?"  Try to hand it to him. 

He refuses, shakes his head, "Thanks. I don't care for it."

And smiling down at his pretty little dog, he moves off. 

I'm so pale Art notices.

"You OK?

 

"Yes," I lie.  "Just tired," and that's the truth.