Anna-Karien's Books, Cooks and Curiosities
A collection of my writings
I first made frangipane tart on the day before Valentine’s Day. I was 19 years old and had fled the nest a mere month before, to live in a shabbily charming Victorian house. To celebrate my new life, I had been collating some new recipes in an exercise book with a red spine. And this was the first one: frangipane tart with apricots. It was a sunny day Continue reading “If almonds be the food of love”
If there was one thing that my mother taught me how to do, it was how to make salad dressing. Just like me, she is super controlling in the kitchen – she never taught me how to cook. It was all instinctive, all I learned was from eating and observing, and discovering things for myself. Of course, there was always that niggling obsession with food that made itself known from very early on.
I love how some books take a long time to find you. Ever since seeing the Peter Greenaway film The Pillow Book in 1996 it has remained as entrancing as the first time I saw it. Then, as you watch the credits roll right till the end, you discover that it’s inspired by an actual text- The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon.
Sei was a courtesan living in 15th century Japan and her journal (which she kept in a hidden inside her wooden neck rest, or pillow) is one of only two texts that survive from this era. I recently found the Penguin edition in my favourite charity bookshop and it felt like something had come full circle.
With all the recent focus on fermented foods it is all too easy to ignore the oldest of these: vinegar. It is my favourite fermented foodstuff, which I naturally gravitate towards using to add a sour note to savoury dishes. It was only after giving it some thought that I realised the reason: all great dishes contain a balance between sweet, salty, fragrant and sour – with the added magical note of umami. The latter is of course enhanced when the right balance is struck.
The tradition of making pâté is as old as the hills. Throughout Europe, pâtés, terrines and potted meats are still widely eaten today. Potted shrimp is such an easy favourite, you gently fry and season the shrimp before sealing it in a delicate blanket of melted butter so that it can be kept in a cold larder or still room for a lot longer than if left untended.
As acerbic journalist Lin Sampson once wrote, snoek is the most underrated fish in South Africa. And it certainly is the king of fishes, if you take a little trouble to track it down. A long, thin species of snake mackerel, snoek can be purchased fresh from the docks along all along the coast of the Western Cape of South Africa, as coloured people have been fishing and eating snoek for generations.
It has been raining solidly for days and after a difficult year of water restrictions here in the Western Cape of South Africa, we are reveling in an abundance of water.
The almost four year-long drought hasn’t broken yet, but as I write this our dams are just a hair’s breadth away from being filled to 50% capacity so we are whooping with joy and relief. This means that because we managed to adequately save water, and must keep doing so, the pall of Day Zero is no longer an impending reality.
Continue reading “Don’t be shellfish, this soup is for sharing”
According to ancient custom, poppy seeds have been used as a remedy to aid sleeping, promote fertility and increase wealth, and were even believed to impart magical powers of invisibility.
Poppy seeds are largely overlooked in South Africa (apart from the cloyingly commercial lemon and poppy seed muffins) but they have long been a favourite of mine.
Anna-Karien's Books, Cooks and Curiosities 