Food evangelist Errieda du Toit revives South African heritage dishes, inspiring generations of food lovers.
Food expert Errieda du Toit, who has written many books on South African cuisine, calls herself a food evangelist. And that she most certainly is. For decades, she has been bringing many cherished heritage dishes to life for successive generations of foodies. And all that, while she celebrates local culinary talent through her involvement in local food TV shows like In Die Sop, Kokkedoor and MasterChef South Africa.
Recently at the estate, she began reminiscing about food traditions at the Cape and in Stellenbosch in particular. She reminded us of a letter written by Governor Simon van der Stel (after whom Stellenbosch is named) to his employers, the Dutch East India Company. He governed the Cape from 1679 to 1699, thus overlapping with the time that Pieter de Vos established our farm here, in 1696.
The Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia) had already been occupied by The Netherlands for 50 years by the time Jan van Riebeeck landed at the Cape in 1652. His brief was to establish a trading post where ships could replenish food and drink for voyages to and from the East.
But back to Simon van der Stel: reporting to the Lords XVII in Amsterdam on the abundance at the Cape, he noted in his letter to them: “there’s plenty to drink… enough wheat… and no shortage of meat nor fish.”
We know that from the mid-17th century and well into the 18th, the settlers would have brought many food traditions of their own to the Cape from their native Europe (The Netherlands, Flanders, France and Germany) and later England. But we tend to think of the Dutch East Indies, headquartered at Batavia (Jakarta) as having the most marked influence on our culinary traditions.
C Louis Leipoldt (1880 – 1947), a poet, dramatist, medical doctor and food expert, was amongst the earliest to formally document Cape culinary history. In his Leipoldt’s Cape Cookery, writing about the beginnings of Cape cuisine, he acknowledged that from the mid-17th century, the settlers here were eating hashed meat, curried sauces and stews that owed their origins to a wide variety of sources, including Italian and Greek traditions. Many will be surprised to discover that our beloved bredies (stews) were not locally conceived. They owe their origin to Greek cooks of centuries’ earlier. But he stresses: “Undoubtedly the most potent influence on Cape cookery has been the methods, tastes and culinary customs of the Malay cooks brought directly from Java in the early part of the 18th century.”
Think ginger, garlic, chili, cumin and coriander. Initially these ingredients were brought to the Cape by ships en route from Batavia to Europe but later the locals began planting some of their own. They still had to import cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, saffron, tamarind, turmeric and pepper but soon all these flavours had become absorbed into the vocabulary of local cooks and their household dishes.
Taking all this into account, Errieda tries to imagine what the residents of Vergenoegd, as we were called then, might have been savouring back in the day. Crossing from our 1773 Cape Dutch gabled homestead to restaurant Clara’s Barn (a much older building thought to be the oldest remaining barn at the Cape), she conjures up some possibilities. She envisages frikkadellen (meat balls) generously spiced with nutmeg, cloves and mace and wrapped in young vine leaves, lavishly coated in butter or fat, cooked in the hearth.
The minced meat, probably lamb, would have been inspired by German settlers. She muses about oyster and marrowbone pies and andoelie brought by the French Huguenots. The latter was likely based on Andouille, made from pig chitterlings, tripe, onions, wine, and seasoning.
Other foods to reach the 18th century table might have included mosbolletjies, a sweet bun or bread made from grape must and flavoured with aniseed, a tradition established by the French Huguenots and made during the harvest when must was readily available. Often the buns or bread were dried into the hard biscuits or rusks just as we eat today, typically with morning coffee.
And what about melktert? The famous custard tart is believed to have been developed from the Dutch mattentaart, a cheesecake-like dessert, and locally, sprinkled with cinnamon.
The 18th century keuken (kitchen) would have been filled with jars of dried naartjie (clementine) peel and peach leaves used to infuse dishes with flavour, in the absence of vanilla that reached the Cape far later. There also would have been fruit preserves, pickles and blatjang (chutneys). Not to mention blancmange made with seaweed!
By then, dried and seasoned meat strips (biltong) were a feature of many homes, and dried fish (bokkoms) too.
Lady Anne Barnard, a Scottish socialite who lived at the Cape from 1797 to 1802, when the British were ruling the Cape Colony, was another major influence on local food traditions. It’s claimed that she introduced to the Cape the fashion of late dining. Before then, locals would more commonly have a light breakfast and then their main meal in the early afternoon. Supper, eaten at sundown or even later, was her glamorous contribution, while the British, Errieda tells us, were responsible for bringing potatoes, golden syrup and chocolate to our kitchens.
Errieda also tells us that in past centuries, cooking with wine was very commonplace. And even though many South Africans claim to have no love for vegetables, they were a routine and regular feature of menus in earlier times.
Of course, in the 20th century, electric ovens and refrigerators changed the way people prepared and cooked many dishes. What we, our parents and grandparents eat today, has evolved with greater health awareness (using less sugar and less animal fat, for example), access to new cooking equipment and the wider availability of ingredients. And this century, those trends have escalated.
Yet, here on the farm, chefs Bertus Basson and Drikus Brink have reimagined many marvellous traditional dishes. They have reprised forgotten flavours, fused them in exciting new ways, and cultivated heirloom produce as they re-interpret our local food heritage for today’s diners. Some tastes come from 300 years ago. Others are more recent, like the Cape seed loaf, made famous by the late Huberte Rupert, wife of the industrialist Anton Rupert. During the 1960s, she shared her favourite bread recipe with the culinary staff at the famous Lanzerac Hotel in Stellenbosch. And let’s just say that from there, it went viral.
At Clara’s Barn, you can sample a five-course menu that changes with the seasons. Refined, elegant and sophisticated, the dishes on the menu carry their Cape heritage proudly, recalling the foods of the people who lived here hundreds of years ago. At Geuwels, (meaning gables) in a building featuring two of the original 18th century Cape Dutch gables on the farm, visitors can opt for smaller plates of re-invented classical Cape dishes for sharing.
Naturally, our estate-grown and -made wines are available to pair with these delicious dishes.
