Cape Town by Mouth

Last weekend was just perfect. Sunshine, culinary treats and a trip to Paternoster, a foodie fishing village on the west coast. If you have read some of my blogposts you may already know that I love to forage (read about mushrooms here). Foraging is something that we grow up doing in Finland and it has even become somewhat of a trend spearheaded by Rene Redzepi from Noma in Copenhagen. I have hardly been able to contain myself since I first heard about Slowfood’s Veldkos ramble. The Cape Floral Kingdom is the smallest yet richest in the world and I have been dying to learn about local wild food.

Oep ve Koep in Paternoster

20 slowfoodies pitched up at 11am on Sunday morning at Oep ve Koep in Paternoster and headed out to the veld with the enthusiastic, knowledgeable and very entertaining Rupert from Cape Nature.

20 slowfoodies on a veldkos ramble

We learned to identify sout slaai and veldkool (salty salad and field cabbage) as well as a prickly relative of asparagus that I can’t remember the name of (my brain switches off when plants are not highly tasty). Rupert also helped me identify sorrel. I have been happily eating it in Finland before (we call it fox bread) and some wild food enthusiasts use it in salads. Sorrel has crept into my salad pots uninvited in Cape Town and I have ignored it unsure of its edibility. I shall make sure it feels welcome from now on.

Veldkool, "field cabbage"

Sout slaai (salt salad)

As a conservationist, Rupert had slightly mixed feelings about foraging. It is not all fun and games here in the Western Cape. Wild garlic,which takes seven years to grow, is so loved as a natural remedy that stocks are being devastated. Apparently people have been caught smuggling pickup truckloads of it out of the Tygerberg reserve. An interesting thing about many plants in the Cape Floral Kingdom is that while some are found throughout the kingdom others, that might be closely related, are only found on a single ridge. The yellow daisy in the photo had Rupert dash up a ridge in excitement.

Rupert our veldkos guide and not just any yellow daisy

Lunch at Oep ve koep was an absolute treat. Kobus van de Merwe uses a lot of wild herbs and plants in his cooking. We started with bokkom butter and bread and a lightly pickled waterblommetjie. So pleased to see waterblommetjies outside of stews. These treats were followed by calamari bobotie, which was complemented by seaweed. Our palates were cleansed with pickled onion and salvia (sage related herb) soup poured from an enamel teapot. The main course was a highlight: potato dumplings with field cabbage and some dune spinach. Oep ve Koep is well worth a visit. Kobuses beautiful yet down to earth cooking is served in a cozy courtyard with missmatched tables and rambling herb bushes. His Sardines on Toast blog will have you salivating and planning a trip to Paternoster.

Calamari bobotie

Potato dumplings with veldkool

Supper clubs or pop up restaurants encompass a whole range of setups from dinner parties with strangers at some eager cook’s home to creative evenings with a famous chef spreading his wings in an odd setting. Often based on invitation and membership, people are drawn in by the surprise and secrecy (It is actually illegal in most countries to sell food and alcohol without a license so the organizers have to keep things hushhush). Dining at a supper club is a social experience. Far from the typical restaurant behavior of avoiding seeing or hearing other people, part of the fun is having random conversations with strangers. Supper clubs also clearly belong to this great global trend of making things small,  local, cuddly and anti-corporate.  There are tens if not hundreds of these in major cities like New York and London (see coverage in the Guardian and in the New York Times over the last couple of years) and they have finally made it to this southern most tip of Africa.

Full of anticipation, The Chimp* and I went to our first supper club on Thursday. The one we visited was the last in a series of supper clubs called Chop leading up to the Toffie Food Festival. The supper club was located in a secret venue downtown. I arrived at the address and was greeted by a picture of a knife and a bleeding finger at the door. Hmm.. I knew I was at the right place. Three flights of stairs took me to a room decorated with brown paper. Brown paper as a video screen, brown paper as a wall, brown paper as a table cloth and brown paper as chair covers. Lots of brown paper. Even the cutlery was served in a brown cardboard box. The food was nothing short of spectacular. Snacks of salty popcorn, biltong and pickled quail egg, perfectly cooked veal brain raviolis with sage butter, angus beef steaks with smoked potatoes (and a photo of a salad!), vodka tonic jelly, flambeed chocolate pancakes and coffee and witblits (local spirit). (Our) creativity hit the roof when we were served the vodka tonic jellies. The lights were switched off and we here handed glow in the dark pens. Suffice to say that our hands and faces were beautifully decorated by the end of the evening.

Blurry glow in the dark fun

The supper clubs, I have come across on other local foodblogs and the media have all been from the professional end of the spectrum. Very innovative and well organized. Taste magazine covered one where the décor changed seven (for each course) times during the evening. I do hope the more amateur end of the supper club movement becomes popular here in the Cape as well. In my dear native country, Finland, they have even gone so far as to organize a national supper club day. Anyone who loves to cook and fancies opening a restaurant can do so for the day. It has been so well received that the third one (in six months) is coming up in November. The funniest one I have read about was a sandwich bar on the third floor of an apartment building that delivered its orders with ropes and baskets. Genius.

*My husband, Cameron, is upset about not having a pseudonym like the other foodbloggers plusones. The chimp is actually what his mum calls him ; )

Restaurant day in Helsinki- image from FB page

Restaurant day in Helsinki- image from FB page

We ventured out to Gugulethu, “Gugs”, on a chilly Saturday night and I am glad we did. I don’t think I have ever been to a wine festival with such a joyous atmosphere. People were actually being  friendly to each other. No snootiness and pretension from exhibitors or tasters. The tents on the roof of the shopping mall were heaving with people having a good time. Some of the wineries present were Nederburg, Groot Constantia and Asara. I tasted Creation wines for the first time and was blown away. I am bleak I didn’t take their Merlot to Le Fake Wine Club last week.

This was the first wine festival organized in Gugulethu and I hope it will be an even bigger affair next year. I also hope to see more wineries taking time off from wooing the Chinese to address this growing market right at their doorstep.

Finally I hope to see more of the Gugulethans at the other foodie events as it seems my dear mother in law might move there in search of fun otherwise.

If you know me or have been reading my blog, you know how excited I get by cheese. Boy was I excited about going to the cheese festival. Firstly I had no idea that cheese attracts so many people in South Africa. We stood in a traffic jam. It took us an hour to drive from the highway about 5 km to where the cheese festival was. One of the exhibitors told me that 11000 people attended every day! The atmosphere was quite festive when we were there on Saturday. People were visibly enjoying their cheese but there was also quite a few students knocking back the free wine. One of the exhibitors had a sign saying: students please understand that I am here to sell and that I need to make money.

SA gone mad for cheese? Traffic jam to cheese festival

Anyway back to the important stuff: the cheese. Firstly I have been so spoiled  to have had the opportunity to spend years in the centre of the cheese universe: Paris. I have taken cheese courses and spent time making goats cheese (and milking goats!) in France. I have rennet and cheese bacteria in my fridge. I love love love cheese.

Here are my top finds:

- Pepe Charlot. A Joburg based Frenchman buys his milk from university goats (you can taste the cleverness) and makes a beautiful buche de chevre in his garage. I enjoyed every morsel of my R60 piece. Sadly I have none left and you can’t get it in CT. It was the first really good soft goats cheese I have had here. Got his card and apparently he does deliveries. sales@pepecharlot.co.za

- Goat Peter.  Exquisite pecorino-style cheese called grison. Hardly any of that left in the fridge either. mmm. Nibbling while I write.

- Green Goose. Organic haloumi and Ficksburger from the Freestate. Ficksburger is a great semi soft- washed rind cheese. Perfect for making toasts with caramelized figs. yum. Sold in some Checkers and the Real Cheese in Obs.

Green Goose cheese

- Sandford. Charming couple making cheese from Jersey milk in Hemel en Aarde. We bought some of their pecorino and it is delicious.

- Forest Hill. Probably the biggest of the ones I liked. Loved their mountain cheese and their brie was not too bad at all. Will head out to Anura winery to do another tasting soon.

- Puglia cheese Best mozzarella I have had in SA. Finally one that is not rubbery. You can also enjoy it at Mozzarella Bar in Kloofstreet.

- Finally we loved Ovis Angelica‘s sheeps pecorino. Apparently this is the only sheeps milk cheese around.

- Other great products Vesuvio olive oil and the lovely Richard Von Geusau’s hand crafted choccies from Greyton.

Sadly there was also quite a lot of vacuum packed commercial yellow rubber on offer. Maybe to feed the students?  Hopefully that will change in the years to come.

Beautiful Green Goose cheese waiting to be eaten