Slow Food MOTHER CITY

Celebrating Slow Food in Cape Town

Autumn 2010

newsletter nr

01

Hello Slow Fooders

There's a nip in the air, and at Slow Food Mother City we're moving from salads to soups, from strawberries to citrus, from chenin to shiraz.

Welcome to our first newsletter, where we recap on some glorious events from the last months of summer and look forward to what we'll be doing in autumn (hint: it involves mushrooms).

We've also included some interesting bits and pieces: a new resources website for avid food gardeners and some of the more intriguing links off our Twitter stream. And, perfect for autumn, is Slow Food Mother City committee member Michelle Matthews' recipe for traditional Cape bobotie, passed down from her two grannies.

Grab yourself a bowl (or glass) of something comforting, and enjoy the newsletter.

Keep well and keep warm,
The Slow Food Mother City team

GOOD TIMES ROUNDUP

Sunny side up!

Remember that old Farmer Brown ad: 'They taste so good, 'cause they eat so good'? It turns out that a diet of grubs, grass, grain, fresh air and sunshine makes the tastiest chickens of all.

On 6 March 2010 a group of Slow Fooders visited Spier to learn more about their biodynamic farming methods. Spier farm manager, Christo, led us out into the pastures to meet the chickens and cows, who live in a fascinating symbiosis on the pastures. read more

Salt and vinegar

Preserving is an ancient culinary technique that has recently been experiencing a revival.

On Saturday 10 April, Oded Schwartz gave a fascinated group of Slow Fooders a 'potted history' of preserving, from why the root of 'salt' and of 'war' are so similar in Hebrew to why the origin of marmalade has more to do with quinces than oranges. read more

Backsberg Biodiversity Walk

Saturday the 27th of March dawned drizzly and overcast, which was a relief after a cooking hot week.

A group of us set off for Backsberg, hoping the rain would clear so we could enjoy the planned biodiversity walk with Simon Back. read more

The unexpected splendiferousness of artisan beer

Last night I discovered something I suppose I ought to have known. Something I should have guessed at, but never thought to question... All beer is not equal. All beer is not flung together in the space of a few days to pump out to the masses. All beer is not crafted with care, using only natural ingredients and no added preservatives, colourants or any other 'funny' stuff.

Some beer is special. Some beer takes 12 weeks to create and should be savoured just as respectfully. Some beer can blow a girl's mind. read more

OUT AND ABOUT IN THE MOTHER CITY

Great Taste

Slow Food Mother City loved Taste of Cape Town, a five-day celebration of cuisine in a festive atmosphere on the Rhodes High School fields in Mowbray in late March. read more

Honeysuckle

I always imagined mead as a rough kind of beer, something dark, brewed from hay and potatoes (or something like that), that would go well with a haunch of wild boar. So the mead tasting at Touch of Madness on Friday 23 April was a revelation. read more

TWITTER

• Curious about sustainable food? Take @change's 5-week crash course! http://bit.ly/9uekYK (PS. Food, Inc. is on at Cinema Nouveau)

  
  

• South African farmers increasingly suspicious of GM seeds: http://ow.ly/1AL2d (via @foodfirstorg)

  
  

• Does local always have the better carbon footprint? http://ow.ly/1ywWe Or is carbon not what motivates you to buy local?

  
  

• Michael Pollan's 2009 @PopTech talk on feeding ourselves through the sun: http://bit.ly/9K6l3P

  
  

• RT @HuffPostGreen: PHOTOS: 9 Things you didn't know about fish farming http://huff.to/b94dI6

  
  

Tip: The funny-looking website addresses (starting with http://) have been created by a URL-shortener so as to fit the Twitter format. Click on them and they'll take you to the website that the tweet refers to.

RESOURCES

My Garden SA www.mygardensa.co.za

The MyGardenSA.co.za website is growing a community around gardening. Showcase your garden (whether it's a pot of lettuce or an award-winning landscaped Eden) and swap produce with other members through a nifty tool called the Garden Trader.

MyGardenSA.co.za allows you to create a unique profile, enabling members to share skills and ideas, upload photos and videos, create personal blogs, interact in forum discussions, and even add and search an index of recipes specific to home-grown produce.

SLOW FOOD RECIPE

Two Grannies Bobotie

by Michelle Matthews

Both my grannies used to say that the best thing to do with leftover roast lamb is make a traditional Cape Malay bobotie (in fact, they claimed that bobotie should never be made with anything but leftover cooked lamb, and definitely not beef mince). I took some notes from my mom and dad and merged them in this recipe. (Like many traditional recipes, there are as many interpretations as there are families – so feel free to adapt!)

350g roast lamb
2 thin slices white bread, crusts cut off
150ml milk
1 medium onion
1 garlic clove (or more, if you don’t have a garlic-hating fiancé)
1 tsp ground ginger (or fresh if you have)
1 tsp tumeric
½ tsp cumin
½ tsp coriander seeds
4 cloves (or pinch ground cloves)
2 tsp curry powder
1 Granny Smith apple, grated
6 dried prunes (or small handfull raisins)
2 tblsp apricot chutney (or 8 soft dried apricots)
2 tblsp yoghurt
1 extra large egg
2 bay leaves


1. Soak the prunes (or raisins and apricots) in some water and the white bread in some of the milk.
2. Crush the cumin, coriander seeds and cloves in a morter. Cut the onion finely and gently fry in some oil until soft, then add the garlic, ginger, tumeric, crushed spices and curry powder and stir around until fragrant.
3. While the onions are softening, put the lamb in a food processor and whiz until it’s well chopped up.
4. Add the cooked onions, the apple, the prunes and the apricot chutney and process until the mixture has the consistency of slightly chunky pate.
5. Squeeze the milk out of the bread and keep the milk aside. Add the bread to the meat mixture and process well. Season with a little salt and white pepper if you like.
6. Use a spatula to transfer the bobotie paste into a buttered oven dish. Cook the bobotie at 160º for about 25mins, which will slightly brown the top.
7. Whisk together all the milk, the yoghurt and the egg to form a thick custard. Pour this onto the meat mixture, top with the bay leaves, and put back into the oven, turned up to 180º, for about 40mins to set the custard. The bobotie should be golden on top, brown around the edges.
8. Serve with rice (made yellow with tumeric if you like), Mrs Balls chutney and sambals (sambal No.1: yoghurt mixed with dessicated coconut and sliced bananas; sambal No.2: finely chopped tomato, onion and mild green chili with a bit of vinegar and sugar, and salt and pepper).

What should we do next?

23 May: Preserving workshop with Oded Schwartz

An introduction to preserving that will go into more technical detail than the talk we had in April, which was more the history of preserving. Each participant will get actively involved in the cooking of the three different preserves. At this stage, Oded is planning a marmalade, a salsa and a pickle (orange/pineapple marmalade, 3 tomato salsa and Tannie Zelda’s pickled gherkins). You'll also each take home three jars of preserves – one of each.

Date: Sunday 23 May
Time: 11am to 3pm
Venue: Oded's Kitchen, The Old Biscuit Mill, Albert Road, Salt River

The cost is normally R400 for the course, which includes ingredients and recipes. But Oded is offering us a 10% discount, so the four-hour class will be R360. A good deal for skills that will last a lifetime!
Space is limited, so contact us soon if you'd like to attend.

20 June: Mushroom picking forest ramble

In June, Slow Food Mother City will be foraging for mushrooms with local mushroom expert, Dr Nicky Alsop, in Tokai Forest.

Dr Alsop will identify any mushrooms we find, and tell us more about these delicious and famous fungi. More details and booking information to follow next month.