From across the world, traveling from Yeoville, South Africa, Sanza, a famous storyteller chef and musician, has visited Jackson to grace the Patton Art Gallery with his presence and cooking.
Sanza, the Storyteller, Musician, and Chef, currently living in Yeoville, Gauteng, South Africa, has been on a culinary and cooking tour at smaller events since August 8, 2025. The Crew began in Chattanooga and did three separate tour dates on August 9th and August 10th and August 11, at three venues in Atlanta, one per tour date. The next tour date after that was in Jackson, Mississippi on the 14th.
Northside Sun reporter John Emmerich was present at the request of the venue owner of the Patton Art Gallery, Garry Brown, and at the Invitation of Chef Sanza and his crew.
Brown welcomes the publicity, as his art gallery is located in Jackson and has several works of art displayed at his art gallery.
His gallery, formerly known as the Patton House, is now under Garry Brown's supervision since as late as 2022. He converted the Patton House to an art gallery in Jackson's Downtown area in the same year. The house, located at 512 State Street, is located in Downtown Jackson just south of High Street about half of a block southwest of the historic jewelry store Carter Jewelers in Downtown Jackson.
Brown features a variety of social art, African-American related forms of art, paintings and art works related to African-American history, and several African related art pieces and related to the Pan-African political movements in Africa and around the world.
Guateng, the province where Sanza originates, was the home of Nelson Mandela and other governmental and activism figures in South Africa.
Gauteng is home to one of the capitals of South Africa, the Executive-Branch capital, Pretoria, and Pretoria is also is home to all of the main South Africa government agencies and their Foreign Affairs government offices and has all of the embassies located in South Africa for political purposes.
Johannesburg, the largest city in the province, and home to the neighborhood of Yeoville, where Sanza currently lives, is the largest economic city and the most populated city in all of South Africa.
Yeoville is a neighborhood in Jonannesburg that was home to a large Jewish community between the years 1890 and 1999, and continues to have a contingent of Jewish neighbors. Many of the Jewish neighbors in the 1940s and later times to the present have been acquainted with civil rights leaders during the push to abolition of the apartheid policy of the South African government.
Early, in 1960, Neslon Mandela sought refuge from the police during his protests around the 1961 sabotage campaign led by the uMkhonto weSizwe or MK movement inside the ANC. MK, or the 'Spear of the Nation') was the paramilitary wing of the African National Congress (ANC). ANC was the main populist African left-wing party fighting for the end of Apartheid.
The ANC demanded sovereignty over the structure of government to end the racist, establishmentarian, and anti-democratic policies under a far-right government in South Africa. The populist movement in South Africa was taking a revolutionary turn against the authoritarian far-right government in South Africa in the year 1961 and all later years until the release of Mandela in 1993.
Mandela was pardoned and freed from prison time he served for involvement in the incidents related to the MK movement, which he founded and headed until the ANC and the MK movement within the ANC were pardoned and de-listed as a terrorist group according to police records by the South African government in 1994, in the first year of Mandela's tenure as President.
Debates about economic change are ongoing and heavily influenced by debates on the role money in politics. The role of the money donated by business cartels into the South African politicians is viewed negatively by the majority of South Africans, but are still debated by white land owners in 2025 as they try to consolidate power in the recent elections in a negative mood against government entities being influenced by corporate power. Rich white land owners try to influence politics, but poorer and older white South Africans retain opposition to the corruption going on in the same manner the other major cultural groups oppose the influence of corporate power in South African politics and politicians.
These things all are on the mind of Sanza. Sanza lived through the end of Apartheid in South Africa, which ended in 1993, a mere 32 years ago, and has lived continuously through 2025 in South Africa. He has traveled for work, often, but he returns for home to Gauteng province in South Africa, as he has for years. He knows the power of people, and he knows every effort to freedom counts.
Sanza, alongside tour crew from Greensboro in North Carolina and two local chefs, graced the gallery with two course meals, including two meats, chicken and fish, cooked with careful detail with herbs, oil, spices, and seasonings including soy sauce. he also created several creative dishes with vegetarian and vegan options. His vegetable dishes, alongside his vegetable stew served with yoghurt, were inspired directly from the cuisine of South Africa and various other regional varieties of food across Africa.
There was a variety of African foods served, including South African Vegan Gumbo, Sweet Potato Stew with Beets and other vegetables, and including a desert dish made from fried rice and yoghurt and baked peaches and fresh blueberries.
The chickpeas dish was designated by the chef Sanza to be dedicated to the State of Palestine. Sanza highlighted the need for food and the scarecity of chickpeas, a Palestian food staple, facing the people in Palestine, especially in the Gaza Strip.
Thanks for the event to art gallery owner Garry Brown of the Patton Art Gallery, Sanza, his crew of Alexei Mejouev and Maggie McCullough, living in Greensboro in North Carolina, local host chef Greg Glass from Jackson, Chef Enrika from Jackson, all other hosts and guests in attendence.
