The Nats failed. Before I turned 20, I’d read Michel Foucault’s tour de force thesis on the birth of the prison. Ever since, I’ve been firmly opposed to the behemoth Western carceral system. I hold such deeply unpopular beliefs as being in favour of prisoners exercising their constitutional right to vote. Otherwise, why would they reform or abide by laws in which they have no say or representation when released into a society that excludes them? We never want a society split into a ruling class and a vast, disenfranchised, recidivist prison class, as is steadily growing in the United States, no more than we want the Eastern European scenario of a criminal plutocracy.

Sadly, I do concede (with Charles Dickens) that some people are irredeemably wicked and there is no choice but to separate them from us. Yet they are the exception that should not prove the rule. When people call into radio shows and scream about how prisoners languish in luxury in secure buildings with electricity, sanitation, doctors and three meals a day watching television, I see red. If it is so gemütlich, why do these same people phone in to scream about how incompetent the government is because some kid they know was hauled in overnight for a minor offence and ended up gang raped and now has an incurable disease?

Fortunately for South Africa, many of our leaders have experienced injustice that placed them on the wrong side of the bars; for the most part, it has made them more humane, less judgemental.

Which brings me back to lunch, at what must be one of the most unusual restaurants in the world, Pollsmoor maximum-security correctional facility located in the heart of one of the wealthiest areas in Cape Town, on the border of Constantia. As part of its rehabilitation programme, the prison has a public restaurant. It caters mostly for the wardens and their families, but it also attracts some locals and even foreign tourists.

Most visitors to our country hope and pray they will never meet our criminal elements. But Munchkin has some peculiar friends. In February, an eccentric British couple decided to celebrate Valentine’s Day by doing something different; a breakfast for 60 of their closest friends; eggs scrambled, tomatoes grilled, bacon crisped by inmates, and served with croissants by murderers.

I was told only petty offenders qualified, but Munchkin insists the waiter admitted he was in for homicide. A few months later, he was parking cars in Muizenberg having served his time and told his story. Munchkin was glad they had given him his teeth back on release. (These days, unless you eat the victim too, perhaps murder is a petty offence.)

Several people at the Valentine’s party had some sort of banditory done to them in the past, so it was impressively good-spirited of them to be guinea-pigs for offenders. What if they suddenly came face to face with one of the men that had tied them up and held them at gunpoint in their home? wondered Munchkin. Ask correctional services to add on a few months for getting the eggs wrong? Now there’s a way to incentivize good table service.

On arrival, the guard checks our car boot at the gate. Then it is a bleak drive past the crowds of demoralized visitors waiting at the entrance, along a road of high security fences, face-brick bunkers, barred windows, razor wire, and an enormous guard tower (probably built in the 1970s) strong enough to withstand rocket attacks by one of our youth leagues.

The restaurant is as one expects – a public works canteen, tiled floors, utilitarian tables, and a few stabs at softness with those rattan, ceiling fans and faux nouveau lightshades. The radio is playing. Several wardens in their drab brown coats are watching the floor.

We’ve come for lunch. Our waiter, Waleed, is a friendly, well-spoken convict. Couldn’t hurt a fly, I think.

No alcohol is served; we order ginger beers.

“Suppose we can’t ask him what he’s in for,” whispers Munchkin. Neither of us can bring ourselves to be impolite in the face of his genteel manners; besides, there are actual metal knives and forks on the table.

The menu is an A4 page of yellow cartridge paper. It lists chicken schnitzel (R32), chicken cordon bleu (R24), chicken wings (R33); for beef: schnitzel (R42), Lady’s T-bone (R42), sirloin (R38), rump (R40), burger (R23). Pork spare ribs “large” is R60. There are “kiddies” choices too, such as two Russians for R18. Under a section of daily specials are tripe, lungs and hearts, vetkoek and ox head. Today’s special is a “Gatsby”, a Cape Flats sandwich consisting of a two-foot-long bread roll with various fillings. The classic version is stuffed with steak, salad, chips and spicy relish. It’s a truculent Cape take on Durban’s better-known, laid-back bunny chow.

Waleed recommends the calamari (200g, R32) and the deep-fried, crumbed hake (R33). It comes with “tossed”, which I discover means salad. Snoek ‘depending on availability’ is R25.

The food takes a while to arrive. It is over-salted, but not bad. I have had worse and paid more. Coffee is a sachet of Ricoffy with a pot of lukewarm water. Lunch for two comes to under R100. Does he get the tip? Waleed says not; it goes into a general fund. But, would we please sign the visitors’ book?

I hope habitually rude restaurant patrons will keep this story in mind. One day, they may meet their match, and come up against a waiter trained at Pollsmoor!

Pollsmoor Restaurant, Steenberg Road, Tokai. Tel: 021 700 1128.

Published in the Mail & Guardian, August 23

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sardines at the Codfather

This year’s sardine run was much later than usual. In the past 10 years, with one exception, the sardines start to amass off the south coast in June swimming north; on exceptional years, they reach Durban. By mid-July this year, newspaper headlines were crying, ‘Where are the sardines?’ The waves finally turned silver with fish off Umhlanga on July 21. Roadside vendors flogged crates of the little fish for R300 (the price had dropped from R500 at the hesitant start to the run). The bounty continued into the first weeks of August up to Ballito Bay.

The sardine run is an underwater version of the wildebeest migration on the Serengeti and undoes it on a biomass scale. It attracts not only hundreds of whales, thousands of sharks, tens of thousands of dolphins, and a hundred thousand seabirds, but it is also good bait for tourists. There are several festivals centred around Port Edward and Margate beach. The annual feast brings bird- and whale watchers. Spotter planes track the giant shoal, which can be a staggering 7km long, and direct avid scuba divers to where they can see a feeding frenzy of predators, among them the mysterious Bryde’s (after a Norwegian surname pronounced broo-dah’s) whale, bottle-nosed dolphin, copper and hammerhead shark.

Our local sardine (sardinops sagax ocellata) populations rise and fall dramatically, by the billions, due to a host of slenderly understood environmental factors.

Monterey, California, the underclass setting for John Steinbeck’s novel Cannery Row, went from three million cases of cans to next to nothing by the 1950s; the abundant Celtic sardines off Brittany suddenly disappeared in the 1960s. Estimating allowable catches is clearly tricky. Currently, the national annual South African quota is 90 000 tonnes for its hundred-odd license holders.

Most of these little fish, the sexually mature bigger ones called pilchards, are beheaded and canned in brine, tomato sauce or ‘vegetable oil’. Olive oil is best, and some people swear the sardines mature in the can and should be left in a cupboard for three years.

Lucky Star (in the flat, ring-pull can) and Saldanha (in small cylindrical cans) are two popular brands of South African sardines. We also import a lot. John West offers Scottish sild sardines, while their regular sardines are products of Morocco or Portugal. The Cape Point brand is actually from Morocco. King Oscar oak-smoked sardines are packed in Poland. Woolworth’s brisling sardines (called sprats) are also packed in Poland and fished in the North Sea and the fjords of Norway. To my taste, the best of the canned are these tiny brisling with lots of pepper on a buttered, lightly-toasted baguette. But nothing compares to fresh sardines.

Increasingly, restaurants are advertising themselves as ‘sustainable seafood’ establishments, but you can eat sardines in good conscience anywhere, scientists tell us. That is, if you can find them on the menu.

The upmarket Bahia in the V&A Waterfront used to do stunning sardines years ago, but have dropped the dish. Mariner’s Wharf doesn’t bother with sardines anymore either. Your best chance will be at those restaurants that offer a variety of fish for their catch of the day, such as the Cape Town Fish Market.

The day I called around, I found only one place with fresh sardines, The Codfather in Camps Bay. Among the first to offer sushi on a conveyor belt, this casual eatery was unusual in its day for Cape Town. At a deli-style counter, laid out on crushed iced was fresh fish – yellowtail, butterfish, kingklip, kabeljou, sole. You order by weight, as many species as you like. You have to ask if you want to know the price, something that puts many locals off, and has tourists spending far more than they expect.

I ordered a 100g calamari (R36.30) and two glistening sardines (R37.72). The manner of their display made them look like decoration for the other fish. The waiter hid his disappointment well, but it was as if I had ordered the plastic lobster. They still had healthy staring eyes. Sardines go bad quickly; apparently, it’s the downside to their being so rich in omega-3 fatty acids. I’ve had rancid ones in a pricey restaurant that subsequently went bankrupt.

My table at the Codfather, shaded by a loquat tree in bud growing outside, had a glimpse of the sea and the windows opened to the air. Rap music played in the background. Four sauces arrived in glass ramekins: garlic butter, apricot, lemon butter and a lethal chili sauce.

The fish is gutted and cooked whole (as it should be), and served in an oblong, cast-iron skillet. I start by slicing the head open from underneath. The gill filaments tumble out and release a smell of the sea I find appetizing. Some people eat the unpleasantly bitter, black, pulpy meat inside the head.

The backbone is easily removed together with the main skeleton. You don’t have to be too careful about this; most people can eat the bones safely, but always have some fresh bread on hand to help down the occasional stubborn one, though even these are less trouble than a popcorn husk.

Sardines have always been with me, from impecunious student days to my first poem in primary school, which I was required to illustrate, Spike Milligan’s wonderful nonsense verse:

A baby sardine saw her first submarine,
She was scared and watched through a peephole.
“Oh come, come, come”, said the sardine’s mum,
“It’s only a tin full of people!”

The Natal Sharks Board offers a Sardine Run hotline annually (around June to August) on 082 284 9495.
The Codfather, 37 The Drive, Camps Bay. Tel: 021 438 0783.

Published in the Mail & Guardian, August 13, 2010

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From China, tea spread across the world, engendering a variety of traditions. The Arabs, like the Russians, drink it from glasses and prefer black tea with lots of sugar. The Indians boil it with spices to make masala chai. Tibetans mix it with rancid yak butter to form a paste. The English add milk to reduce its astringency.

Thanks to the British passion for tea, we are as much a tea drinking as a coffee-drinking nation. Apparently, we consume 23 million kilograms of tea per annum, most of which is imported. Ceylon tea consumption has surged amongst the rising middle class, yet overall, recent market research suggests that coffee is taking away market share.

An awareness of the huge variety of teas that exist and an appreciation for quality and the finer points of preparation is a recent phenomenon. You still see guests at the Westcliff and the Mount Nelson hotels looking slightly bemused when a glass teapot arrives with a separate filter and an egg timer. The tea for these Orient Express establishments is specially blended by Ming Wei, tea master of the Nigiro tea company.

Partitioned off by a glass wall inside the Origin coffee shop, is the tranquil, softly lit, Nigiro tearoom, where they offer a Taiwanese tea ceremony. A wall of clay pots is a showcase for the nearly 100 hundred varieties of tea they sell.

Seated at a black marble table, which has a slight depression in the stone to serve as a basin, Wei’s assistant, Nehemia Simons explains that the tea ceremony is about “sharing each other’s experience”.

First, all the vessels are warmed by filling them with boiling water (filtered) from a large and handsome earthen pot.

In this ceremony, oolong tea is chosen, as it is has a complex structure, somewhere between black and green tea, able to unfold over multiple infusions.

With a bamboo spoon, Nehemia gently places a layer of Ali High Mountain tealeaves in a tiny, clay pot. Ali is one of five mountains on Taiwan. The tea is grown at 2000 feet above sea level where the slow growth produces more intense flavour in the leaf.

After pouring the hot water over the leaves, Nehemia seals the clay pot by pouring over its lid the water used to warm the receptacles.

For this first infusion, the tea is left to steep for one minute, before it is decanted into a medium-sized, glass pot called ‘the sea of tea’. If poured directly from the clay brewing pot, each cup would be weaker. The sea ensures everyone enjoys equal strength.

The tea, a beautiful golden colour, is now poured into small, ornate, cylindrical, porcelain cups – the fragrance cups. These are capped with equally small, matching, porcelain, bowl-shaped drinking cups. With thumbs on top of the inverted drinking cup and fingertips holding the fragrance cup, one flips them over.

An air bubble is left trapped in the fragrance cup. You slowly release the fragrance cup, feeling the tug of the air pressure. Then you channel the empty cup to the nose. I can taste the tea just from the smell, the tannins at my sternum.

We now enjoy our first sip of the tea. Nehemia holds his drinking cup delicately on his fingertips with his thumbs up in the air. There is a buttery scent that becomes floral.

For the second and all the subsequent infusions, the tea brews for only 45 seconds. The clay pot is sealed with the remaining tea from the previous infusion. The aromas are very similar to the first, perhaps more subtle, and feel ‘warmer’. Nehemia finds it less milky now.

He opens the pot and takes out a few leaves with a pair of bamboo forceps. You can see the leaves have unfurled. Oolong always has three leaves, the first, second and third of the plant. Each leaf has a specific purpose. The first is the newest and most tender, used for white or green tea. Larger and more matured leaves are used for black tea. The floor sweepings and tea dust, politely called fannings, are used in Ceylon tea bags.

By the third infusion, we are picking up jasmine and sweetness. The water in the earthen pot has gradually cooled to about 80 degrees. It is not advisable to use boiling water on leaves that have already opened.

The fourth infusion Nehemia says is usually his favourite. The tea is now noticeably smoother, but we notice a grassy zest has mysteriously recurred that wasn’t present in the second and third tastings.

The tea is sweeter by the sixth infusion, and by the final seventh infusion we are relaxed and enjoying cup after cup of delicious smooth tea.

The second part of the ceremony is a demonstration of show flower tea. Dan gui piao xiang is a tea ball made of sweet-scented osmanthus, lily flowers and Yin Hao (silver needle white tea). The tea leaves are moulded into a tight ball (it takes up to 45 minutes to make one) and tied with almost imperceptible string. Placed in a glass pot of water at 80 degrees, the acorn-sized tea ball steadily unfolds, opening up like a flower.

One is now offered a pot of tea of your choice together with a delicious vegetable filled dumpling and sticky rice wrapped in a bamboo leaf from a bamboo steamer that has been cooking away during the ceremony. It is accompanied with a delicious, syrupy oyster sauce and a chilli sauce on the side.

The tea ceremony with the show flower, a pot of your choice, and the meal costs R125 per person. Gift tags are available, and this relaxing, novel ritual makes a superb present indeed.

Nigiro Tea Room, inside Origin, 28 Hudson Street, De Waterkant, Cape Town. Open Monday to Friday, 9am–5pm; Saturdays, 9am–2pm. Tel: 021 421 1000.

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Perhaps those bags of coloured popcorn we pelted each other with as kids led me to forget it is a food. Then again, some of the popcorn served at one of the big movie chains nearby, especially if it is the morning screening, really isn’t edible; it’s not even warm; I think they use the leftovers that stood out all night. Unlike me, Munchkin is someone who goes to the movies in order to eat popcorn. Fortunately, Munchkin will indelicately hoover through a tub before the trailers are over.

Popcorn is a food, a good one nutritionally speaking, and it has been eaten for thousands of years. We certainly like the smell. I wonder what that first Native American who heard and saw how with a resounding pop a little seed magically transformed into a white puff thought. There is evidence of early man popping corn in heated sand. The conquistadors found it among the Aztecs and the Peruvian Indians, where it was also used in sacred ceremonies and for decoration. Some people still thread garlands of popcorn and even use it as Christmas decor. The American colonists had popcorn with milk for breakfast.

Popcorn received its big boost during the Great Depression when mobile steam and gas-powered poppers first appeared. At between 5 and 10 cents a bag, it was one of the few affordable treats. Consumption trebled during the Second World War, with the scarcity of candy; sugar being reserved for the military maw. Then, in the 1980s, microwave popcorn was born offering an assortment of flavours and a fool-proof method of popping. Heating from the inside produces larger and tenderer flakes, and Munchkin enjoys standing with an ear to the microwave listening to the comestible fireworks inside.

The biggest consumers remain North Americans who annually consume about 200 cups for every man, woman and child, only a third of it at cinemas and stadiums. The Midwest produces a staggering 400 000 tonnes; consider that 30g makes 4 cups when popped. The fastest growing markets are Mexico, South Korea, Japan and China.

Remember when ready-to-eat popcorn (with flavours such as white cheddar or green onion) packaged like crisps became a brief craze in the 1990s? Today, on limited shelf space in our supermarkets, local brands retail at about R100 per kilogram; imports at R200 per kg; weigh that up against unpopped which is only R13, and for my money none compare to home-made.

Popcorn is currently outperformed by sales of corn chips and many other snacks, so sellers are turning to its health properties: high fibre, low calorie, carbohydrate rich, sodium and sugar-free. Yet the calories can be deceptive. Air-popped popcorn has only 31 calories per cup; oil-popped has 55; most microwave brands more. However, when lightly buttered the calories can rise up to 133. Some movie theatres in the United States use coconut oil to pop the corn and add margarine; one of these supersized buckets can have far more calories than a double burger. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, popcorn is the one corn product that is least likely to have any genetic engineered modifications, although plans are in the pipeline.

The maize used for popcorn is zea mays everta. The kernel can be red and even black (I’ve seen these ears in Peru), but only white and yellow are in commercial use. Sweet and field corn do not pop, and neither does popcorn straight after harvesting. It needs to dry out a bit, ideally says the science to a moisture content of 13.5%. It keeps well, apparently they have even managed to pop 3000-year-old corn; but don’t store yours in a refrigerator as it may dehydrate the kernels.

This brings us to what the industry calls popability. Water inside the kernel heats up and turns to steam; at 180°C it reaches a pressure of about 930 kPa expanding the endosperm until it explodes through the hull to form that familiar little white cloud of starch and protein polymers, blossoming to up to 40 times its original size. But overheated popcorn forms hard balls. The unpopped kernels (in good popcorn this should be under 2%), those deadly bits that threaten to break your teeth in the darkness of the movie house, are known (stupidly) as “old maids” by the industry. There are tricks to resurrect them after a few days.

The flakes are categorized as either the large, fluffy, irregular “butterfly” or the ball-shaped, denser “mushroom”. To my mouth, the butterfly flakes are much more satisfying, but the hardier mushroom shape is usually what you’ll find in packets of ready-popped corn as they survive better in packaging.

If you search “Chinese making popcorn” on You Tube you’ll see how roadside vendors in Beijing heat the kernels in a cast-iron cylinder rotated over an open brazier. When hammered open the corn all pops at once with a spectacular explosion flying into a large canvas sack.

In South Africa we have amakiepkiep, the multicoloured sweet township popcorn. It comes from kiep-kiep, the onomatopoetic expression for calling chickens, itself derived from the Dutch “kip” meaning fowl.

To make amakiepkiep, pop 500grams of popcorn; heat butter (4 tablespoons), sugar (600grams) and water (125ml) until the sugar is dissolved; divide this mixture into several batches and colour each with blue, red, green, yellow or orange or whatever food colourant takes your fancy. Pour over the popcorn in separate bowls, coating it and stirring; too much butter though and it will go soggy.

For the more adventurous, there are even recipes (I haven’t tried any of them) where popcorn is ground finely in a food blender and used to make popcorn bread (with mielie meal), or muffins (with sugar and flour and almonds)or even used in meatloaf. Popcorn can be made into a crust for macaroni and cheese, or with peanuts to encrust deep fried Thai chicken.

If those recipes aren’t funny enough, let me conclude with the use of popcorn in humour. Archbishop Fulton J Sheen is quoted as having said, “Hearing nuns’ confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn.”

To visit the heartland of popcorn you could visit the Popcorn Festival, next month, August 12 to 15, 2010, in Van Buren, Indiana, USA (it has been going since 1973) or join the many activities at the 30th anniversary of the Marion Popcorn Festival, September 9 to 11, 2010 in Marion, Ohio.

Published in the Mail & Guardian, 16 July 2010.

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The last decade has proved him right. Grapes used to be sent to the local farmers’ co-operatives for bulk production wine, but now, small private estates are popping up like daisies. The latest to move from garagiste to label are Oudepost and Franki’s Vineyards (bottling Mourvèdre since 2007). The Spice Route (spearheaded by Charles Back of Fairview) led the charge in 1998; their pricey, high quality wines changed perceptions of the district.

Declaring Darling as a wine region in its own right has encouraged local producers to set up a wine route and open facilities on their estates. Tastings are still free, and prices close to wholesale. Combine this with the spectacular wild flower season, coming into bloom as I write, and you have a magical winelands trip.

Ormonde Vineyards has the advantage of being right in the town of Darling. The estate offers several wine ranges, something of a recent trend among South African producers. Their Alexanderfontein wines are easy drinkers made from vines grown in ribbons of terra rouge clay soil. The sauvignon blanc (2009) stands out, and at only R38 a bottle it trumps Groote Post’s flagship sauvignon going for R62.

The Ormonde range is presented as their finer wine with good ageing potential, up to 15 years for the Theodore Ecksteen red blend (2007, R180) of 65% shiraz and 35% Grenache; a new world wine with an old-red South African architecture to it. The cabernets franc and sauvignon blend Vernon Basson (2007, R170) is a ruby fruited juicy red, but with respectable dimension.

But it is the Ondine range, billed as their experimental wines, that caught my tongue. Named after the ballet that Sir Frederick Ashton choreographed as a vehicle for Margot Fonteyn, a pair of ballet slippers, a silver statuette and a photo of the prima ballerina are on display in the tasting room (where you can also buy pineapple flavoured olives!). The label was originally developed for a chain of restaurants.

Rather cleverly, and especially useful to visiting foreigners, a tag on the label can be peeled off to remember the wine by.

The 2008 shiraz is spicier and truer to the cultivar than the Alexanderfontein bottling; the 2007 cabernet sauvignon has an unusual nose, a bit like wet cement, and an earthy taste of tubers and beets; the 2008 cabernet franc has proved very popular and is the most easy drinking of this flight, and as a varietal bottling the only one in the region. The 2007 merlot is only available from the farm; I’ve used it to stunning effect both in and to accompany a French beef stew; at R59 it isn’t too expensive for the pot.

All the Ormonde wines exhibit a certain homogeneity, a slightly sweet, but pleasing, fruity finish. A winemaker I spoke to speculated that this was due to a fructophilic yeast that distorts the proportion of glucose and fructose conversion.

From Ormonde one heads out past fields of arum lilies to the Darling Cellars. Renamed in 1999, it was formerly the Mamre Co-operative (founded in 1948). It has that charming, old co-op feel: flat, functional buildings; walls covered by certificates and award diplomas in the pleasant little tasting area with practical, small round tables.

A big capital expansion and modernisation project in recent years is paying dividends. They have numerous ranges and a huge variety of cultivars, from the cheap and cheerful Flamingo Bay range (R23 to R25), and the low alcohol (9%) Zantsi sweet wines to their premium Onyx range grown on the best parcels of land with deep granite soils.

This unpretentious cellar concentrates on honest, easy drinking, good value wines. I found them rather shy on the nose, but the Onyx cabernet sauvignon (2007, R79) has that true Swartland style to it; the shiraz (2007, R79) is seriously oaked (22 months); the DC “six tonner” merlot (2009, R43) is exceptional value. They also do an unusual easy drinking 100% petit verdot.

From here, it is a five-minute drive past marvellous birdlife, a pelican colony, flamingos and flocks of herons, to Cloof. They’re a hip, slightly eccentric crowd. Many estates could learn a bit from them as far as marketing goes, as their informative, snazzy website attests.

Interestingly and contrary to brand orthodoxy, wines here are not in a range, but each given a clear identity and their own label, such as Lynchpin and Happy Dragon. A stylish Inkspot vin noir (2008, R45)); Dark Side Caberent/Shiraz (2007, R45), a rich and robust but smooth wine; Very Sexy Shiraz (2008, R75), a chic, integrated, full-bodied wine with a gentle nose. The whole region is gaining a shiraz reputation, though the Cloof Crucible shiraz (2006) at R450 a bottle is not offered for tasting. Probably just as well, as it is at a whopping 15.5% alcohol.

I am not a fan of pinotage, but the Cloof Pinotage 2005 (R75) is a gorgeous wine, and not to be confused with their rather musty Cloof Dusty Road Pinotage (2005, R35).

Also noteworthy is the Kalumpie & Co, made by the assistant winemaker, Frederik “Bolle” Kalumpie. Previously limited in his duties to farm labourer under the old SA, this was his first wine. All proceeds go to the farm school (2005, R45 a bottle).

Light lunches are served for around R35 to R50. Four little Jack Russells see you to your car.

Taking the R307 out of Darling through the wild flower reserves, freckled herds of Nguni cows, and if you’re lucky you’ll see blue cranes courting in the fields, you turn off to Groote Post.

In the ten years since their first release, they are a efficiently run, established and dependable brand.

Their salmon-pink, Old Man’s sparkle is the only méthode cap classique (Brut, R75) in the ward, and most unusual for its 59% merlot base (as opposed to the classic pinot noir). I predict this new wine is going to go places. They do have pinot noir growing on their south facing slopes, and they have the only bottling of this savoury wine in the region (2008, R112).

The Old Man’s red blend, sold also in magnums for R90, is a very quaffable, cabernet-based, red ‘cool drink’ with minimal consequences the next day.

Recommended among the whites are: the light, almost effete weisser riesling 2008 (R67) in a dry style, while the 2010 just released is sweeter; the award-winning chenin now back in stock (2010, R45) sheds a whole new light on this jug varietal; the reserve sauvignon (2009, R95) made only when the best grape quality is present (previously in 2005 and 2007);the unwooded chardonnay (2009, R62) is hugely welcome after so many bloated, over-wooded chardonnays of recent years.

All this tasting, entreats one for lunch, and Hilda’s Kitchen is the star restaurant in the district. Named after Hildegonda Duckitt (1840 – 1905), Groote Post manor house, now a national monument, was this grand dame of Cape recipe’s birthplace and home. Slaves liberated off the coast by the British squashing the trade were indentured as farm labourers. One of them was Duckitt’s cook. These days you’ll find cordon bleu chef Debbie McLaughlin at work in the kitchen.

You can dine in the homestead or al fresco. The staff offer the best Cape farm hospitality. Hung from the umbrellas are see-through plastic bags filled with water, apparently to keep the flies way.

The food is unfussy but not rustic and the portions large. If you ever come across Hildegonda’s original recipes you have to divide by four; they had large families and enormous appetites back then. The springbok carpaccio (R56) starter has sole-size slices (R56). In Duckitt’s day duiker was commonly used as springbok were rare in the Western Cape. Today, the 2000-hectare farm offers drives to see kudu, black wildebeest, red hartebeest, bontebok, springbok, eland and gemsbok.

For mains, the chicken (R90) cooked in wine with bacon, onions and button mushrooms (in which the drumsticks fare better than the thighs) is best eaten with its flowering basil garnish on top.

The tender lamb shank (R110) comes in a light gravy with tomato, carrot and green beans. The pork belly (R110) has a shy plum sauce, served with Asian noodles, sprouts and tatsoi, which seems to be more about having fun than creating fusion tastes.

Open in July for the first time, their special winter menu includes braised beef, lamb osso bucco and chicken tagine.

All of this is less than an hour from Cape Town.

Cloof Wine Estate, Mamreweg, Darling. Tel: 022 492 2839.
Darling Cellars, Mamreweg, Darling. Tel: 022 492 2276.
Hilda’s Kitchen, Groote Post, btwn Darling and Malmesburry. Booking essential. Tel: 022 492 2825.
Ormonde, Mount Pleasant Street, Darling. Tel: 022 492 3540.

An edited version published in the Mail and Guardian, 9 July 2010

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In response to innumerable requests and relentless pressure (thanks to the FIFA World Cup), I have finally given in and decided to publish my top restaurants in Cape Town. Let us accept from the outset that this is a deeply flawed exercise. But here are my top choices. The criteria is quite simple: when it is not an assignment, where do I keep returning time and again? These are the places I take my overseas friends when they visit; the places that when I just think about their food, I want to jump in my car and go there.

Note: The scope of this list did not include the many fine restaurant in the winelands and surrounds.

1. Bombay Brasserie, Taj Hotel, Wale Street, CBD. My current favourite. Exquisite Indian fine dining; food that you get pleasure thinking about for days afterwards.

2. Nobu, One and Only, Waterfront. The only reasonable excuse to go down to the V&A precinct. Sit at the sushi counter and watch the superb chefs prepare the highest quality.

3. Anatole, Napier Street, Green Point. This Turkish restaurant is my longest standing favourite dining place in Cape Town. I have been coming here since I was a schoolboy and the quality hasn’t flagged. The meze tray is better than you’ll find in Istanbul.

4. Cape Malay Kitchen, Cellars Hohenhort, Constantia. Chef Martha Williams is unrivalled in South Africa for Cape Malay food. She has taken traditional Cape cuisine to previously unknown heights.

5. Savoy Cabbage, Hout Street, CBD. Out of Cape Town’s fine dining classic restaurants, this is one of the best options. 6. Jardine (Bree Street) is ahead of them in terms of food, but hasn’t quite got the ambience. I still find myself coming here, though Jardine scores higher on food.

7. Haiku, Church Street, Cape Town. I love the food at this the best of our Asian fusion kitchens. I feel at home in the place and with the staff, but the noise levels get to me, which makes it only suitable for early dinners (6:30pm) and for a table of four maximum.

8. Bhukara, Church Street, Cape Town. Nothing like the Bomabay Brasserie (where you cannot just pop in), here the curries are delicious but they’re rough and ready. My favourite late night (after 10pm) place.

9. Kyoto, Kloof Nek Road, Tamboerskloof. This is the best sushi after Nobu and at half the price. Convenient and chic. Within two minutes walk from home, the choice is often between Kyoto or my other favourite neighbourhood restaurant, the classic European fare at 10. Societi Bistro, Orange Street, Gardens.

11. La Perla, Beach Road, Sea Point. On a sunny day for alfresco lunch, this is the spot. Now that I have been made as a restaurant critic by the staff, the service and food are on their best foot. The 12. Grand Beach Cafe has the edge on location though.

13. Masala dosa, Long Street, CBD. Run by the wonderful, Amit Raz, this is my favourite casual eatery. Lots of vegetarian options, funky buzz, arty hangout, a home from home.

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The Kitchen, Woodstock

Gentrification can be a mixed blessing. Property values go up, and with them rentals. The poor, the elderly, the small retailers, and the historical buildings they occupy, all of which gives a suburb its distinctive character, find themselves on the wrong end of a developer’s wrecking ball.

Few of us want to live in a crime-ridden slum no matter how characterful its architecture, but restoration and social upliftment is preferable to demolition and forced removals for profit.

My school geography teacher said it was only a matter of time before Woodstock would boom. That was 25 years ago. In the interim, there have been several waves of 30-somethings speculating with their professional incomes, believing they rode the crest of gentrification and would be afloat with the rewards of the imminent property boom. Many found themselves washed back out to rentals in the city bowl; Woodstock, even with its proximity to the city and ripe with commercial corridors, stubbornly refusing to be the next Green Point.

In the decade straddling 1900, the population of Cape Town exploded with new immigrants and brought into being the suburb of Woodstock, formerly the seaside bathing spot of Papendorp which had quadrupled in population in a little over ten years. A ‘grey’ area, never quite conquered by the apartheid Group Areas Act, it established its identity pretty early on; while in 1908, dry Observatory had 16 churches, Woodstock had 20 bottle stores.

Slow and uneven, but overall steady progress, from the Palm Centre to the Biscuit Mill, seems now to be gaining momentum. The innumerable paint stores on the main road have finally found application for their products within their own precinct. There is even the Upper Woodstock Aesthetics Advisory Committee. So it’s out with squatters and statutory tenants, and in with designer furniture, creative industries and art galleries. All this, and right now one is still hopeful, can only benefit the residents in their dilapidated buildings one block behind the new facades. A geriatric clinic and no less than five new neighbourhood old age homes are encouraging signs.

And where there are advertising agencies and office workers, restaurants soon follow. A good example of what can happen is the Bromwell Hotel dating from 1927. With 56 known tenants and only one working toilet, it festered on the market for three years. Finally condemned by the fire and health departments, instead of being knocked down, it was sold and renovated.

It’s now a boutique mall, boulangerie, deli and mildly pretentious café called Bread with off-street parking and a doorman outside in top hat and tails. The Italian coffee served in designer cups that favour the right handed is organic. The menu is simple and pricey, with three choices of each: petite sandwiches (R45), wholesome salads (R55), mains (R70 – R80) – ravioli, chicken breast, burger, and desserts.

Further up the drag is Superette, a café outlet for the organizers of the Neighbourgoods Market, offering locally sourced seasonal fare. It has a roomy, elegantly neutral interior, with soft greys and whites, with bowls of lemons and flowerpots as yellow accents, and pretty sprigs of fresh fynbos. There are bottles of agave nectar sugar and jars of organic vanilla pod. A long window table with magazines and bar stools allow privacy and comfort for solitary customers.

A daily menu, written up in Koki pen on the open kitchen’s tiles, offers good value. The all day breakfast sandwich (R35) of bacon, cherry tomatoes and scrambled egg is served on large plates on which are glazed somewhat oddly chosen quotations from Shimon Peres to Bill Bryson. For lunch, there is pork belly or lasagne or sandwiches (Chalmar steak, tuna, giant bratwurst).

The eatery that pioneered this gastronomic phalanx into Woodstock is simply named The Kitchen. It has that bric-a-brac feel of Woodstock main road, with a grid wall of wooden shelves and a glass display counter filled with old plates, bowls, cups, vases and tshatshkes.

I highly recommend the R40 salad plate with lentils, wild rice and mustard; beetroot, radish and coriander; mielies and yellow peppers; green leaves; to which may be added R5 extras such as feta, avocado, grilled aubergine and roast chicken.

The most recent to open is La Bottega, from the owners of one of my favourite little spots, Nonna Lina, in the city. Their enormous wooden deck (about 100m2) will work well on sunny days. Inside, the emphasis seems to be on the bar and a big screen television for sport broadcasts. Their special feature is build your own Italian piada (a thin flatbread) to which you add charcuteries and cheese; the kitchen then warms it up for you.

It’s still teething time; the lunches – panini, pasta, salad and pizza – don’t yet measure up to their standard in town. I had gooey penne in a sauce somehow at once stodgy and separating. But one thing seems sure; unlike the beurre blanc, the renaissance of Woodstock seems irreversible.

Bread, The Bromwell, 250 Albert Road, Woodstock. Tel: 021 447 4730.
The Kitchen, 111 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock. Tel: 021 462 2201.
La Bottega, Buchanan Square, 160 Sir Lowry Road, Woostock. Tel: 021 461 9731.
Superette, 218 Albert Road, Woodstock, Cape Town. Tel: 021 802 5525.
All are open for breakfast and lunch.

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Photo: Hetty Zantman

Col’Cacchio invites six top South African chefs to produce a gourmet pizza, one creation on offer each month for six months (April to September). As it is 2010, this year each chef will ‘represent’ a participating country in the upcoming soccer showcase.

The celebrity chefs this year, three male and three female, are: Michael Broughton (Terroir), Nicky Gibbs (The Westcliff), Jodi-Ann Pearton (The Food Design Agency), David Higgs (Rust en Vrede), Chantel Dartnall (Restaurant Mosaic) and Franck Dangereux (The Foodbarn).

R5 from every gourmet celebrity pizza sold goes to the Children’s Hospital Trust, a 100% of the donations going to upgrade the Burns Unit. This ward admits over 1300 severely burned patients annually and has not been upgraded since 1956!

What better reason to go and get a pizza!

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Oded Schwartz http://www.odeds-kitchen.co.za/

Agribusiness is so out of sync with nature, it is poisoning not only Americans, but the planet. Industrial fertilizer washed down the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico has created a hypoxic zone destroying all marine life for 20 000 square kilometres. Food in the USA is riddled with antibiotics, petrochemicals, and genetic manipulation (the results of which are indeterminable). All these horrors of production, are absorbed by people. His basic thesis is: we are what we eat and by implication we are what we eat ate!

Pollan is no polemicist, but once you’ve read him, you start to rethink your relationship with food; though I must admit, as a child I was less than pleased to discover milk came squirting out of a cow’s udder and not from a shapely glass bottle.

‘Slow Food’, the Italian-born, worldwide movement against globalised food culture, is celebrating their 20th year. A lobby for sustainable, small-scale, diverse, ecologically sound farming practices, it aims to preserve culinary traditions and promote local farmers’ markets. Farmers’ markets have sprung up all over cities in the USA. I visited one in LA with small pens of livestock to teach the city kids the difference between a sheep and a goat.

To be honest, the real appeal of slow food is not its ethical altruism, leftist revolutionary zeal, or even saving the planet, but the gluttonous promise of tastier, all-you-can-eat healthy, gorgeous food. Such connoisseur interests are catered for at the food market in the converted Old Biscuit Mill in Woodstock.

Here at last, I found the kind of olives one dreams about, real Buffalo mozzarella from water buffalo that actually roam around a farm in Wellington, fresh pomegranate juice, papayas from Swaziland, and the last of the artichokes.

Run by the “neighbour goods market”, the producers are generally expected to attend their stalls in person. The organisers favour fresh, seasonal, organically grown, and artisanal food products, but it is a gourmet market at heart; I noticed some purveyors of flown-in fine foods.

Piped music from the 1920s plays; children eat shucked oysters; organic food is still a preoccupation of the urban elite. The health dimension is clearly an important marketing hook too, with antioxidant the buzzword. Many of the producers have sidelines of homeopathic remedies. A few inquiries and I had found miraculous cures for all those diseases that medical science is still struggling to treat.

Low sperm fertility count? Eat pollen. Mark Farah, a beekeeper, has created special screens that knock some of the pollen off his Cape honeybees when they return home. You can buy bottles of the male gametes of wild dandelion and pincushion proteas at his honey stall. Unlike commercial honey, which is mostly from eucalyptus or fruit orchards, Farah’s gourmet bees have hives in pristine sites around the Cape and up the West Coast, kept well away from agriculture. His delicious range is well worth sampling.

Cheryl Castelein’s Funki Fungi mushroom stall is another treat. The ubiquitous mass produced button mushrooms you find in supermarkets spawn cheerfully on manure. Trying to produce shiitake and oyster mushrooms, which grow on sterilized wood chips, is another matter. The capital intensive process requires strict control of humidity, light and temperature. Pickers in the pine forests of Mpumalanga and the Natal Midlands supply her stall with wild mushrooms, and in the rainy season from the Cape mountains cep (porcini) and pine ring mushrooms. Sometimes they bring her wood blewits, known as chicken of the woods, a large bracket type yellow mushroom, named for its taste. She also sells delicious wild mushroom paté and truffle oils.

On your way in or out, don’t miss Oded’s Kitchen, home to international chef, Oded Schwartz. He has a fascinating and unique range of preserves, sauces and pickles. He has just come up with a chocolate braai marinade (R85 for a 500ml bottle) that looks set to be a sensation this summer.

Beside the grocery stalls, there are numerous stands serving cooked food, This being Cape Town, you’ll find: a ‘French patisserie’, ‘Simply Italian’, ‘Touch of Greek’, the Belgian waffle stand, Flammkuchen (an Alsace version of a pizza), sushi, tuna burgers, bagels, a charcuterie with Spanish style sausages, and a smoothies bar. Never shop hungry, so before the crowds arrive, take breakfast here at one of the communal wooden tables. It’s a great start to the weekend.

Neighbour Goods Market, The Old Biscuit Mill, 373 – 375 Albert Road, Woodstock. Saturdays from 9am to 2pm. For more info: Tel:021 448 1438.

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Lunch with Chef Hemant Oberoi

Taj Opening Soon

Hemant Oberoi, the Group Executive Chef at Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces and arguably India’s most influential chef, was in Cape Town to oversee the preparations for three new restaurants in the new Taj Cape Town.

It is only in the past year that we have started to have celebrity chef restaurants arrive in South Africa – with first Gordon Ramsay (Maze), Nobu Matsuhisa (Nobu) and now Hemant Oberoi.

Oberoi as corporate chef for this luxury chain opens over six restaurants worldwide every year.

The Cape Town Taj will have the upmarket Bombay Brasserie (after their establishment in London), the smart casual Mint which opens on to St George’s Mall, and Twankey (a wine bar and Indian tapas style restaurant) on Adderley Street.

Oberoi is a charming, soft-spoken man who shoulders an enormous amount of responsibility with ease. He was caught in the Mumbai Taj Hotel during the terrorist attack and subsequent siege. The experiences he related at lunch were truly horrific. Yet, it has not changed his positive attitude to life.

The chef’s table was very fine indeed. We will watch with interest for their official opening.

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