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Food, glorious food

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My mother passed away ten years ago and for the past decade all of us (her family) have been unhappy about the fact that her beat-up old recipe book has disappeared somewhere along the line. Her recipe book was falling apart then already, with a combination of typed-up recipes, cuttings, and hand-written recipes that had been passed down the line of generations of women. Now that’s gone and the unique dishes she used to cook have taken on mythical proportions in our household, mostly because we won’t ever have that exact bobotie or chocolate cake or marmite tart again. I’ve learn that no matter how hard I try to recreate it from another recipe, it’s not the same, so rather let it be and remember the magical tastes. What I can do though it to add to our family’s cooking legacy. As with most cultures, food is an integral part of an Afrikaans family’s cultural identity. Also, as with most cultures, this heritage is not static, it is constantly evolving. I’m not sure you can create a general, non-clichéd menu of Afrikaans food that reflects the entire cultural grouping. Yes, a braai is always a good starting point, but there is much more to it. So, while I can’t speak for everyone, I can certainly look at how my own familyinteracts with food and how it is linked to our culture and heritage. Sunday lunch When, at one stage, I lived in North West, I was told men there consider mince to be in the same category as chicken, namely a vegetable. True to tradition therefore, our Sunday lunch treat is my dad’s oxtail stew. Marinated in wine overnight, it’s cooked to perfection (i.e. falling of the bone), and hardly ever lasts for the next day’s dinner as well, as it is supposed to. My dad refuses to give away all the tricks of his signature dish, but key points include frying the onions first by itself, then setting it aside. You then brown the meat well – it should be about 70% cooked – before adding it to the onions. You add vegetables, and the rest is a mystery involving all kinds of different cooking temperatures for different lengths of time. The beauty of oxtail is that you are allowed to eat messily with your hands and don’t have to keep up any pretence of table-manners. It goes best with good company, samp, and a good red wine.

As with most cultures, food is an integral part of an Afrikaans family’s cultural identity. Also as with most cultures, this heritage is not static, it is constantly evolving.

Change is a constantI fear my dad will never give away all the secrets of his cooking, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve as well.Culture is dynamic, and my vegetarian lasagne has become legendary – yes, even in a family where meat is supreme! I’ve also introduced things like low-fat baked cheesecake that gets gobbled up in no time. I’ll be a bit more generous with my tricks than my dad: you can find a great cheesecake recipehere, but you need to use Nutticrust biscuits for the crust (nothing else is quite the same) and use fat-free yogurt and cottage cheese. The beauty of this recipe is that you can use any kind of yogurt with the same kind of berries and have an almost limitless range of variations.With regards to the vegetarian lasagne… well, it has eggplant, onion, tomato, and mushroom in, but the intricacies of it all remains my secret.CelebrationsThe most marked celebrations in my family that has specific food associated with it, are birthdays. Yes, cake for later is important, as are flowers to put on the table, but these are still negotiable – breakfast is not.The breakfast itself is pretty straight-forward, albeit huge: eggs, toast, bacon, fried banana, fried onions and mushrooms, viennas or cheese sausages (or both), cheese, jam. The traditions around the breakfast are however not standard: the birthday-boy or –girl gets flowers from the garden placed around their plate (a challenge in winter!), there is a specific Psalm that is read (although controversy rages as to which one), and then the song that my great -grandfather penned, also based on a Psalm, which always makes me giggle when I sing it due to the random scale changes.It is therefore, clearly, not so much what we eat in our family that binds us, and not even how we prepare food (although that is important). At the heart of any culture, and ours too, lies your ties to those around you and what we use to bring us closer to one another, including food.

– By Christelle du Toit

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