Aims
Comments Off While conviviality is implicit in our name and monthly events, Slow Food Cape Town aims to become a force for tradition and preservation in the Cape. We identify and present awards to artisanal producers annually and intend extending the scope of these awards.
We hope to follow Slow Food Italy in establishing an “Ark of Taste”, to identify and record threatened species. The Cape boasts an enormous wealth of indigenous plants and herbs, many of which need to be saved from extinction.
Slow Food Cape Town also concerned about the environment. As Petrini says, you cannot be a true gourmet without being a conservationist. In an age where genetically modified foodstuffs are the norm – and animal fodder has caused mad cow disease – we support organic farming and natural products like cheese from non-pasteurised milk.
The international movement puts its money where its mouth is in the form of the International Slow Food Awards. I, and members of my committee, serve on the international Slow Food jury which votes for candidates realising the Slow Food objectives.
The Cape Town Convivium of Slow Foods has established the Funa Foods Fund (Funa is an African word meaning needy) directed at upliftment. The projects we support are food-related, and motivated from within the community.
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When the Committee got together with Kobus to taste the various cheeses up for awards, Valerie Elder of The Real Cheese had some interesting advice on how to taste:
It is obvious from Jan van Riebeeck’s meticulous journals that life was no walk in the park from the moment he, his wife, three ships and not so merry men arrived in Table Bay. Food, both in sufficient amounts and of proper nutrition, would be an enduring five-year struggle for the young Dutch officer, as HW Claassens wrote in a splendid thesis published by the University of Pretoria in 2003.
The Hydnora africana (so unusual that it has a unique family species, hydnoraceae) was found near Calvinia and classified by the famous Swedish botanist Carl Thunberg in 1774 . A root parasite which produces a single underground fruit, it is sought after by humans and animals alike (hence the name ‘jackal food’). Because it was slow to ripen (two years, according to botanists) and not found everywhere up the barren west coast, it was always a delicacy: true struggle veldkos.
In February last year, Paul Buckle from Velddrif wrote to Die Burger’s botany columnist Ernst van Jaarsveld, explaining how he found a plant after 45 years of vigilance. He recalled how he and childhood friends used to break open the cricket-ball-shaped ripe fruit and enjoy the coconut-like flesh. He also relates how the fishermen of Velddrif used to tan their nets by soaking them in a solution of kannika.
Terra Madre, translated from the Italian as ‘Mother Earth’, brings together all the members of Slow Food’s international food communities. Although the focus is on food producers (think: Kenyan Masai herdsmen meet Tibetan Yak farmers meet Irish honey producers!), chefs, educators and activists are also present. Over the course of a long weekend, all these diverse groups and individuals network, discuss common issues in forums and workshops, and attend lectures on Slow Food themes, which this year included topical issues such as GM crops, the energy and food crises and food biodiversity.
Taking photos of a workshop, only to discover that the photographer next to me, replete in short shorts (in a chilly Italian autumn!) and long socks, is an Afrikaner honey farmer from George. I was very proud of all the South Africans I met over the weekend. So many amazing projects I’d never heard of! Hearing a young farmer from YARD, based in Jo’burg, talk about his work and his commitment to Slow Food, in front of a crowd of three hundred other African delegates.
The water buffaloes came from Australia, a country whose veterinary standards compare with our own. They are gentle and intelligent, a far cry from their distant and dangerous cousins the African Buffalo, who would be highly unlikely to allow anyone to milk them. And they are thriving in the Cape – most of the heifers are pregnant and lactating well.
Born on a farm, and with many years’ experience in conventional citrus, berry and apple farming, he now has his own farm, on the Spier Estate, outside Stellenbosch. As part of their commitment to emerging farmers, Spier leases the land from the municipality, which Eric has since turned into fertile, organic farmland. His produce is certified organic by Afrisco, and he farms using permaculture principles. He farms a range of vegetables, which he sells at the Natural and Organic Farmers’ Market, directly to locals-in-the-know, and to commercial packing houses. He also provides practical training to post-graduate students in sustainable agriculture at the neighbouring Sustainability Institute.
Eric has ten hectares of land, but through crop rotation, has only 5 ½ to 7 hectares under cultivation at one time. He hires three local workers – all women – year-round, and more hands during the harvest, when he can afford it. Ideally, he’d like to employ ten workers, but this is not economically viable. When asked why he has an all-woman workforce, he burst into laughter and said, “Women work harder”. His family – three daughters and a wife – might have something to do with that, too!
Eric recently went on a trip to India, sponsored by the Sustainability Institute, to visit small scale farmers. He was very impressed by their small, productive polyculture farms, and has put into practice at his own farm several of the things he learnt on his trip. “In situ compost is one thing I learnt in India,” he says, explaining that weeds that are pulled out of the fields shouldn’t be moved to distant compost heaps, but are best left lying where they were pulled in the field, where their green matter will break down more quickly into the soil, nourishing the crops and saving unnecessary labour.
Themocracy