Pickled pie in the Karoo Christmas sky
The tat is tarting up the house for the festive season, and the fruit mince is soaking in jars
The origins of a complex heritage permeate the Karoo like the roots of trees entwining beneath the earth on which stand our houses with their afdakkies and broekie lace. In many of the family histories are legendary grandparents, fusspot greataunts or black-sheep uncles who left what was once called the home country. Their legacy often remains in what is cooked for the Christmas spread.
The festive season, in particular, is liberally laced with British traditions. The hot, hard liquor, the spiced fruit mince with its brandy kick, and some of the best Christmas fruitcakes you can buy are made by the same tannies who, during the year, turn out their preserves and pickles and jar them up to be sold at every farm stall. Heyla Meyer was selling her beautifully wrapped kerskoeke at our local Krismis market last weekend and, trust me, there is No Skimping on the brandewyn.
But we can – and do – adapt them to our own ways and the things that grow and live around us, just like the way we decorate our homes for the season has evolved from the ubiquitous baubles and tinsel to grabbing anything that shines and gleams with colour and character and turning them into the eclectic interiors we’re known for.
The Karoo is made for fairy lights. We string them up everywhere and, unlike in England and Scotland, we keep them up throughout the year. Twinkling little lights are a part of Karoo culture as much as the salvaged old cars we use as ornaments in our yards, and the rusty tat we see not as junk to be thrown out but as wildly colourful decor. We stick them on our walls and shelves and admire them as one would a Monet or a Bruegel.
Nowhere is the gaudy and the garish more at home than in our Karoo winkels and voorkamers. What in the Lancashire county parish would be frowned upon as vulgar is,
to us, prized and honoured. We revel in the discarded and the distressed.
There’s a perfect example of this in our Karoo lounge right now. We do have more formal art and the memorabilia of our travels abroad on our walls, and every picture has a story. The watercolour painting of the Tudor Cross in Chichester given to us by colleagues as a farewell; the Bières de la Meuse poster by Alphonse Mucha we bought in Prague; the Union Castle scene at Southampton harbour we bought decades ago in a junk store in East London (our coastal city) for its nostalgic value as a reminder of the coastal trips on the Cape Town and Pretoria Castle liners in the 1960s.
But for every one of those there is something discovered, something rescued, something that fell into our laps – the found and favoured of the Karoo, like the wire guitars on our walls, one of which is now strung with colourful fairy lights for the season. We’re likely to keep it that way once the other decorations have been taken down and boxed up again for another year. We showed it to the GrandBoy during a family video call and he turned to his parents and said, “We need to go to the shop and buy a Christmas guitar!” I reckon he’s inherited the Karoo gene.
When the family arrives later in December, this being our turn to host the clan, he’ll see our krismiskitaar first-hand and we’ll all savour Heyla’s Christmas cake as well as Granddad Tones’ (that’s me) own handmade Karoo Krismis mince, because for the first time in my life I have just finished making it from scratch.
It’s an ancient English tradition, but I have given it a bit of a Karoo twist. All the traditional things went in, with a bit of adaptation. There are currants and raisins, sultanas and dried citrus peel, fresh apples and orange juice, cinnamon and nutmeg, dark brown sugar and brandy.
Instead of suet I used persievet (rendered fat of Persian sheep). Instead of almonds I chose walnuts grown in the Eastern Cape Midlands of the Karoo, and as well as brandy I opened a precious bottle of Omstaan XI, a white muscadel from the far Northern Cape that is blended from the best barrels of 11 vintages. Not too much; most of it will be savoured with the mince pies that will result.
But the coup de grace, dare I say, was the tablespoon of kapokbos leaves and tiny fluffy white flowers I stirred in. They’re indiscernible, but knowing they’re in there makes me happy – a little touch that for me is a nod to the Karoo I love.
Kapokbos means snow bush, and they make possible a white Christmas on the plains of Camdeboo.
As well as brandy I opened a precious bottle of white muscadel that is blended from the best
barrels of 11 vintages. Not too much; most of it will be savoured with the mince pies that will result