n terms of our suppliers things have never been so good. I really think that now there are interesting things on our shelves. When you see a new variety of nectarine on the shelf, it may not be Christopher Columbus bringing tomatoes to the new world — not as revolutionary — but one really does appreciate the effort on the part of some suppliers to experiment.
What Woolworths does travels down. If Woolworths starts, whether it’s new organic varieties, months later the other supermarkets will follow. It makes our menus more interesting. Obviously, it’s for the privileged, but there’s Fruit and Vegetable City if you want to buy in bulk.
Let’s take organic foods: it was the consumer in America and Europe who wanted organic goods. The supermarkets followed through, so the consumer often does dictate. For me that has been one of the most interesting trends: how we went from organic being a very small privileged sector of the market to it being so big in the United States and in Europe. Here Woolworths tried very hard and now you will find organic things in Pick ‘n Pay and in the Spar.
I will always support organic produce, but will not restrict myself, not at my age and stage. My daughter made me very aware. She’s got young children and she wants food that’s correct for her children to consume. Again, Woolworths has introduced a range of baby foods that may not be organic but they are not sweetened, they are a natural product. They really must be congratulated for that; after all we are quite a small buying population.
I’ve spoken to women who say they can’t wait for their children to leave home so that they can just shop at Woolworths for prepared food. I understand and I’m sympathetic because I know that to cook requires a certain amount — from preparing to clearing up. Those who don’t enjoy cooking need the convenience of those sorts of foods.
I said in my book Cape Town Food (Struik) that if it wasn’t windy the Portuguese would have landed and we would have had good coffee and good bread. Instead, we got the Dutch and the British.
Dutch country farm cooking might be heavy but you can’t fault its integrity. But ultimately our culture does tend to go middle-America, and in South Africa we’ve lost that wonderful European tradition.
But I think education comes from supermarkets and I think that they try. When I wrote Meals for a Month in 1977 I was so excited because we had a second lettuce on the shelf. In addition to the iceberg we now had the soft butter lettuce. When I think about what I can put in a book today. Ironically Lazy Days (Quivertree) is going back to cooking in the country with simple ingredients. But if you look at my book Seasons (Struik) from last year I showed that you really can have fantastic salads today. Nowhere has the jump been made in terms of fresh produce — the range of salad ingredients, the range of fresh vegetables. For me that’s had the greatest impact of all.
Lannice Snyman
I found the piece by Nic Dawes really weird. I don’t know where it was trying to go. I am a food writer and he obviously is not. I have been doing this for an awfully long time, writing about restaurants and being a cookery editor and I understand the evolution of things nationally and internationally. To dumb it down, I’ll say that we have experienced a quantum leap in terms of what we used to get and in terms of what we used to see on restaurant menus. What we’re seeing now is the way food has evolved internationally.
But I don’t think we are getting the best out of our supermarkets. I base this on travels overseas. This year I spent time in the United Kingdom as well as in the Far East. I’m astounded when I travel by how gorgeous and simple, well grown, well picked and well presented these things are. If you compare for example Borough Market in London where Jamie Oliver shops with a roadside vendor in Vietnam — you’re getting similar gorgeous, fresh, ripe fruit and vegetables. Yet in South Africa I do find that in the food chain and in the chill chain, in fact in the whole farming chain, the consumer is not getting stuff at maximum ripeness or peak perfection. And we’re accepting it. I don’t think we should be.
As consumers we think we’re powerless and we sit back but what we should be doing — and what chefs and cooks should be doing for example — is to buy fresh fruit and vegetables that are in season that are farmed close to where you are. What the consumer is demanding and wanting, and getting from our supermarkets is fruit out of season that has to be brought in from overseas. Clearly that has to have been picked early and chilled after which it cannot ripen. All it does then is quickly rot.
I think South African consumers are not demanding enough. But if you stay simple and you say, ‘Okay I’m buying pears: Are they in season and where have these things been grown?’” If they’re from Elgin and it’s pear season, then buy them and eat them. It is the same with fish. If Roman are running or it’s snoek season then you’ll know it’s the best. We need to be informed and we need to be fussier.
Good taste
Phillippa Cheifitz is food editor of Femina and House and Leisure magazines as well as consultant food editor on the Woolworths award-winning retail magazine Taste. Her most recent book Lazy Days (Quivertree) takes its reader on a trip up the Cape’s West Coast to Paternoster where Cheifitz has a Beach House. She says, ‘My books are always very personal. They always reflect what what I do. Lazy Days reflects my weekend; and I want to share the kind of cooking that’s important to me at the time.”
Fabulous food
Lannice Snyman is an award-winning publisher and owner of Lannice Snyman Publishers. Her previous title Posh Nosh: Fabulous Food for Family and Friends won last year’s coveted Jury’s honourable mention for publishing excellence at the Gourmand World Cookbook of the Year awards.
Her new book Fruit Art (Lannice Snyman Publishers) is a collaboration with photographer Malcolm Dare. About the source of her inspiration Snyman says: ‘It’s pretty much about how the whim takes me. I was so not ready to do another book after Posh Nosh but Malcolm arrived with the most remarkable images.
‘South Africans love fruit everywhere. We use it a lot and what I was trying to do was to find recipes that stretched the flavours and textures we’re used to and to make you think differently about adding fruit to meat, chicken or fish. I also wanted recipes that are quick and easy, that didn’t demand that you spend a lot of time sourcing ingredients, or a lot of time in the kitchen.”
In November 2006 Snyman received the Eat Out Johnnie Walker Lifetime Achievement Award.