Boerekos by a boerseun
Each week Marie-Lais looks out for the unusual, the unique, the downright quirky or just something or someone we might have had no idea about, even though we live here. We like to travel our own cities and their surrounds, curious to feel them out. This week she’s on a stoep in Bergbron.
It might seem that not a whole lot happens in Bergbron but then perhaps you haven’t noticed the metal windmill where Helderberg Road meets Bergbron Drive? Longtime friend Egan and I sip homemade ginger beer with floating litchis from enamel cups that arrive as you sit down at the Bergbron Plaaskombuis.
This shady stoep easily holds 200 people for parties but we’re breakfasting on it. She’s South African, lives in Toronto, was lusting after a boerewors breakfast and there can be no better place.
You see, Heather and I were here not even a week ago, on a rainy day when the normally open stoep was enclosed in plastic. Today sweet potato vines push their leaves and orange flowers almost onto the table.
Here are people from various walks of Joburg. What they might have in common is familiarity with typically Afrikaans, hearty farm food, served with some wry touches.
“A whole family from that street over there arrives for breakfast on weekends in their pyjamas and pantoffels. I like everyone to feel comfortable,” says a spritely Johan Smith, who put this place together based on his experiences of eating with his ouma on the farm. “The staff thought I had lost it when I offloaded that windpomp. But you must see when church comes out on Sunday how fast this stoep fills up. And people even stay for lunch.”
On the previous visit my eye had wandered over the lunch dishes on the menu and alighted on “Brandbek Stoep Curry with stamp en slaai”.
On Sundays, real moerkoffie is served in addition to the other coffees.
Johan holds a big mug of what he calls his “moerse koffie”.
A hulky Illy can hangs be- low the ceiling fan and has been adapted to work as a speaker on the stoep.
Last time, Heather ordered a ‘Sonop Jaffel’, a jaffle containing scrambled eggs, bacon and cheese. It looked beautiful.
She looked through the sauce bottles, selecting the syrup to squeeze over it, explaining to alarmed me that that’s what they do in her part of the US.
Today Egan has that “Boerseun” breakfast with the longedfor wors, eggs, tomato, baked beans, toast and jam.
I have “Skilpadjies”, my secret food fetish of liver minced and wrapped in caul fat.
I had them last time too. Perhaps what happens in Bergbron, stays in Bergbron?