Saturday 11 September, 2010

On Saturday 11th September our sister convivium, Slow Food Cape Town, will be visiting Solms Delta wine estate outside Franschhoek to tour their culinary veldkos (indigenous food) garden project. They have kindly invited us to come along. You can view their invitation here.

Now, here’s the complicated part.

They have also arranged a delicious two-course lunch at Fyndraai, the Solms Delta restaurant, as part of the outing. However, as we try to offer affordable events, we have arranged with them so that members can choose to either attend both the veldkos garden tour and the restaurant meal for R230 for members and R250 for guests, OR they can attend only the vegetable garden tour for R40.

If you wish to attend both the vegetable garden tour AND the restaurant meal, please book through Slow Food Cape Town, by emailing Adrian at: adrad@mweb.co.za. Please note booking closes on Monday 6 September.

If you wish only to attend the vegetable garden tour and then make your own plans for lunch, please book through Slow Food Mother City, by filling in our online booking form.

Members who choose not to attend the lunch at Fyndraai restaurant are welcome to make their own plans for lunch in the area. The Slow Food Mother City committee will be picnicking and viewing the plum blossoms at a neighbouring private farm, and you are also welcome to join us on our picnic for no extra cost (aside from your own food and drink!).

If you are confused or just wish to ask a question, please contact Kate at kate@slowfoodmothercity.co.za.

View the full gallery.

Slow Food Mother City is celebrating the last cozy days of winter with a visit to Lelieblom Farm just outside the West Coast town of Darling to sample waterblommetjies, an indigenous winter delicacy.

Waterblommetjies are the flowers of the Cape Hawthorn (Aponogeton distachyos), which grows wild in vleis and on riverbanks in the Cape.

They are historically linked to Afrikaans cuisine, but were probably first consumed by local hunter-gatherers. The buds are used in bredies (stews), soups and curries, and taste a little like green beans. The flowers can be added to salads. This is a true heritage food, and we are thrilled to be eating and learning more about them before their winter season ends.

Lelieblom is a working family farm, owned by Karen and Michael Basson, and shared with sheep, horses and other animals. They welcome visitors for a traditional farm feast in their farmhouse. Karen describes it best in her own words:

“YES!!!!! The waterblommetjies are still growing in August and we do sell.

The waterblommetjies grow in our dams on the farm and they come up every winter and sleep the whole summer and when the rains come again they wake up and fill the dams all by themselves, we don’t do anything to them, they look after themselves! We will gladly take you to tour the dams on the farm, the dams also only have water in winter, and it is great fun wading into the freezing cold water to pick the flowers. My husband is the brave one!

Lelieblom is really a true farm, we have no window dressing here for tourists or visitors, Children are welcome and we have lots of lovely tame hand reared farm animals! They are always a treat for the children.

Lelieblom is what you see is what you get and cooking is home cooking! We do things naturally and somewhat old fashioned. I am a home cook, nothing fancy, as far as possible I cook in the old ways. Waterblommetjies to me calls for a bredie, and I hope that is fine with you!

A menu for you could include the waterblommetjies obviously, curried tripe (delicious!!!!) which I would recommend as it is very traditional round here, served with soetpatat always!, rice, vegetables and dessert. I would really like to do tripe for you…dis lekker! Malva pudding with hot custard is my favourite dessert. We bake our own bread, served from the farm kitchen.

We use our home for functions so the experience is coming to a farm home and sharing the day with a farm family, that is the Lelieblom ethos.”

So join us and the Lelieblom family on Saturday, 21 August. We will walk around the farm for an hour and then sit down to a traditional home-cooked farm meal.

If waterblommetjies are still available, you are welcome to wade in the dam and pick your own, for which Lelieblom will charge you per bag picked. To learn more about Lelieblom, visit www.lelieblom.blogspot.com.

MENU
Waterblommetjie Bredie
Curried Tripe
Sweet Potatoes, Rice & Vegetables
Bread from the Farm Kitchen
Malva Pudding with Hot Custard
Tea and Coffee

Space is limited, so to reserve your place, please fill in our online booking form or email kate@slowfoodmothercity.co.za

EVENT DETAILS

Date, time and venue:

Saturday 21 August
Lelieblom Farm, Darling
11.00am (lunch will be served at 1pm)

Cost:
R135.00 for Members, R155.00 for Guests. Children 4-12 yrs R65.00 (parents are wholly responsible for their children during the outing).
Please bring your own wine and nonalcoholic beverages; only water and tea and coffee will be supplied by Lelieblom.

Bookings:
Given the popularity of this outing, we suggest you book and pay quickly. We have limited space! If you would like to come, please fill in our online booking form or email kate@slowfoodmothercity.co.za

First come, first served (members do get advance warning). If you have not made the deposit within 4 days of booking, and there are others waiting, we will make your space/s available to the next person in line. Please book before the 6th of August 2010.

REMEMBER TO BRING
For the farm tour: appropriate shoes and rain protection (Wellies if you plan to do some wading!)
For your meal: your own wine and nonalcoholic beverages.

Event feedback

We’d love your feedback on our events! If you’ve attended a Slow Food Mother City event, please let us know what you thought by emailing events@slowfoodmothercity.co.za. All comments and suggestions are welcomed.

Upcoming events:

If you can’t make it, but are keen for future outings, here’s a taster of the events and projects we’re organising for the months to come.

• Port & Chocolate truffle tasting (September, date TBC)
• Slow Food Film Evening (September/October, date TBC)
• Organic plum picking (November, date TBC)

If you would like to become a member of Slow Food Mother City (only R70 per annum), sign up here.

Photo credits: Chapman’s Photo Odyssey/Flickr and BigBlackBox/Flickr.

Executive Chef Garth Almazan explains the concept, which is about more than simply using free-range meat: “The creation of the ‘Free Range Fridays’ menu was inspired by the concept of ‘Nose to Tail Eating’ trend, which celebrates the tradition of making a delicious virtue of using every part of the animal. Although many people who have savoured organ meat, advocate its intense flavours and tastes, it is also very much in line with the trend for healthier eating, with organ meats boasting an impressive range of health benefits.”

Pan-fried calves liver, on the Catherina's menue for Free-range Fridays

This a chance to try delicacies ranging from pan-fried bone marrow with bulgar wheat stuffing, and poached lamb’s tongue with parsley puree and truffle dressing; to confit of miso sake pork belly and riz de veau (pan-fried sweetbreads) with oxtail rillette. Local producers providing the humanely raised meat include Steve Jeffery, who has long been supplying Catharina’s with fine charcuterie.

Slow Food Mother City loves the idea of nose-to-tail eating. No part of an animal should be wasted. This, along with the nutritional benefits of eating vitamin and mineral-rich organ meat, is why offal is a part of most traditional cuisines. It’s not a “trend”, it’s just something we’ve forgotten how to do!

Bookings essential. Contact 021 713 2222 or visit www.steenberghotel.com.

Dr Nicky Allsopp tells us that pretty much all of these mushrooms are inedible...

Exciting finds for kids of all ages!

Look sharp - it can be easy to miss perfect specimens

White gills - be afraid...

Rainbow fungi nation!

Yum! Yes, you can eat pine rings.

Mushroom soup - hot from the boot!

Mushrooming meets high fashion

If you’d like Dr Nicky Allsopp to help you identify a mushroom you’ve found, e-mail a photo of it to her.

Mushroom soup recipe

Serves 4

25g butter
1 large leek, white part only, sliced
400g brown and/or Portobello mushrooms, chopped
2 tbls flour (or brown lentils)
100ml red wine, sherry or brandy
Squeeze of lemon juice (about ¼ of a lemon)
½ tsp dried thyme and/or rosemary
10g dried porcini mushrooms, soaked in 250ml warm water
750ml vegetable stock
Salt and pepper
50ml sour cream (optional)

1. Soak the dried porcini mushrooms in 250ml warm water for about half an hour.
2. Fry the leek gently in the butter until soft, then add the mushrooms and allow to cook down for a few minutes.
3. Add the flour. You can also use brown lentils to thicken the soup, and they’ll enhance the mushrooms’ nutty flavor.
4. Add the booze and cook for a few minutes to evaporate the alcohol.
5. Add a large squeeze of lemon and the herbs, and stir for a minute or two, then add the porcini mushrooms with their liquid.
6. Add the stock, bring soup to the boil, turn the heat down, and then simmer for 20 minutes.
7. Take the soup off the heat, puree until smooth and season with salt and pepper.
8. Stir in the cream, if using (you can also substitute milk for some of the stock if you want a creamier soup). Gently reheat the soup. Serve with buttered seed bread.

A ruffled mushroom (not poisonous!) popping up from the leaf litter

Oded Schwartz and a selection of his preserves

Oded is an expert in just about every preserve you can think of, whipping up huge batches of everything from old-fashioned sweet-and-sour gherkins to strawberry and vodka jam. He’s always experimenting with new techniques and ingredients, as evidenced by his onion konfyt (prepared like South African figs traditionally are) and bayonnaise (a creamy condiment made from oil and flesh from the baobab fruit).

(PS. Note the Jack Black beer on the counter – thanks to our artisinal brewers for keeping us refreshed during the talk.)

Mixed vegetable pickle, pickled eggs and delicious preserves

Oded shared some of his own secret ingredients and methods with us. For example, he finds Khoi San salt the best for brining. A Slow Food favourite too, this flaky pure sea salt is hand-harvested up the West Coast. Since most of his preserves and dishes have a Mediterranean flavour, Oded imports some of his ingredients, like his tahini. But you’ll understand why when you taste his amazing baba ganoush!

Dozens of strong, fresh flavours - washed down with Jack Black

Saturday’s little taster left us wanting more, so Slow Food Mother City will be arranging a full four-hour course with Oded in a few months’ time. If you have ideas of what you’d like to learn, or want to be notified of when the course is running, please e-mail info@slowfoodmothercity.co.za.

Quite a few of these chefs used local ingredients and techniques. A highlight was Grande Provence’s warm ballontine of Elgin free range chicken with white onion risotto (see moody photo below). Another winner was from Signal (at Cape Grace) – cumin-crusted springbok loin with a smoked potato and goat’s cheese samoosa, elegantly combining the soft, smoky venison with a glammed-up local favourite. Their dessert – a pistachio pavlova served with rooibos and honey ice-cream – was also divine.

Elgin free range chicken on compostable plates

World-renowned Margot Janse of Le Quartier Français complemented her braised lamb breast with white bean and buchu puree and apricot blatjang (chutney). Neil Jewel impressed as usual with his homegrown charcuterie and once unpopular (but very French) cuts like pork knuckle, pig’s cheek and tongue were proudly served by various restaurants. GOLD restaurant went all out on the local with Cape Malay curry, morog (traditional greens) and smoked snoek (as sustainable as it gets) on the menu. Even Nobu avoided the Japanese-traditional tuna for yellowtail sashimi.

All of these were beautifully plated on compostable crockery made from sugar cane bagasse – really outstanding, guys.

This year the zjooshy restaurants were complimented by small producers including Blue Sky Organics, with their various olive products; Willow Creek, with top-notch local olive oil; ever popular Pesto Princess; La Petite France and their true’s-bob camembert; By Nature, which stocks the best pistachios in South Africa, from the Northern Cape; and Get Stuffed with all their locally sourced cheeses. Also there was Oded’s Kitchen, with a wide range of preserves. Oded Schwartz will be hosting a preserving course for Slow Food Mother City on 10 April – why not sign up?

Lewis manning Oded's preserves stand

Oh, and we didn’t even mention the wine! With about 30 local estates represented, we can only marvel that we live in Cape Town, with so many great wines, red and white, grown and produced within 200kms of our homes. After all that, it was impossible to go home without a cappucino made from African Fair Trade beans from the Bean There stand – the perfect ending to a tasty evening.

Slow Food Mother City will be hosting an introduction to the pleasures of preserving with Oded Schwartz on 10 April.

Oded is South Africa’s leading expert on preserving (seriously, he wrote the book: Preserving, published by Dorling Kindersley in 1996, and translated into thirteen languages). He’s friendly and knowledgeable, and he’ll give you enough confidence to finally attempt a jam, or at least a chutney!

Join us for two hours of preserving history, theory, skills and tips, shared in a convivial atmosphere in Oded’s own kitchen. We’ll be tasting Oded’s preserves and pickles, and washing them down with Jack Black beer.

At this event, Oded will explain pickling techniques and science, give some history of pickling, offer samples for tasting, and answer your questions. No pickling will be DEMONSTRATED; we hope to offer a hands-on course with Oded in the near future, guided by participant feedback from this workshop.

EVENT DETAILS:

Date and time:
Saturday 10 April 2010. 3pm-5pm

Venue:
Oded’s Kitchen, The Old Biscuit Mill, 375 Albert Road, Salt River (why not stop by the Neighbourgoods Market beforehand?)

Cost:
R70 for members, R90 for guests

Bookings:
Space is limited (20pax), so if you would like to come, please email us at: events@slowfoodmothercity.co.za and let us know how many people you are bringing (and whether you are members or guests). We will then send you banking information to make your deposit and confirm your place/s.

First come, first served. If you have not made the deposit within 2 days of booking, we will make your space/s available to the next person in line. Please book before Thursday 7 March 2010.

On 6 March 2010 a group of Slow Fooders visited Spier to learn more about their biodynamic farming methods. In particular, we wanted to know about their egg-laying and broiler chickens – we’d heard they lead happy lives, by chicken standards.

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.

Into the yonder... to the chicken coop! - Pia Taylor

This piece of land was almost destroyed by conventional farming methods, but is now being rehabilitated using biodynamic principles: the cows graze the grass, trampling some of it flat and churning the earth. They leave behind pats, where larvae grow. A few days’ later the chickens are moved onto the same piece of land, where they disperse the pats by scratching for grubs and further fertilise the soil with their own droppings. After a few rounds of this, the srubby pasture starts to look green and lush – it’s revitalised.

Cows doing their good work on the Spier pastures - Liz Metcalfe

Spier’s egg-laying chickens are completely free to run around at will (though Christo has specifically chosen ones that don’t like to range TOO far) and spend their evenings roosting a large coop (decorated by local kids), where they’re free to lay their eggs as and when they feel like it.

Egg-layers' mobile coop painted by local children - Liz Metcalfe

They’re also free to indulge in all sorts of poultry peccadillos, including chickens’ absolute favourite past-time: a feather-fluffing dust bath. These chickens will be good layers for up to five years (compared to less than two years for exhausted commercial hens).

Spier chickens taking a very enjoyable dust bath - Liz Metcalfe

The broiler chickens – the one omnivorous humans eat – are moved through the pastures in large cages, partly covered in shade-cloth. While they don’t run free – predators are too much of a danger – they’re still chirpy, as The Littlest Slow Fooder found out when she was introduced.

Toddler meeting her first real-life happy chicken - Pia Taylor

These broiler chicks come from the same place that commercial chickens are bred, and are ‘saved’ at one day old. “I see the crates of chicks being loaded onto the big trucks, and look at our couple of hundred chicks, and I think ‘this is your lucky day, guys’,” says Christo.

The chicks spend their first three weeks in this roomy shed, before going ‘out to pasture’ for another three weeks. During this time, they grow up to twice as big as conventional chickens – as much as 2.6kgs – eating bugs, seeds, some special feed, and getting strong scratching around in the dirt. Right now, the chickens are slaughtered at a site about 90 minutes away that has the requisite humane approach, but Spier has nearly finished their own slaughterhouse on the farm, which will mean chickens will be far less stressed at the end.

Reverent poem on the wall of the in-progress slaughter house - Liz Metcalfe

The poem on the wall, by Kahlil Gibran, reads in part:
By the same power that slays you, I to am slain; and I too shall be consumed.
For the law that delivered you into my hand shall deliver me into a mightier hand.
Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds the tree of heaven.

In the biodynamic tradition of ‘closing the circle’ on a farm, all inedible by-products of the slaughter will go into the Spier organic veggie garden compost heap. It will feed the soil that fed the chickens that fed us.

Strains of Mozart waft out over Spier's organic veggie garden... - Pia Taylor