POTTED HISTORY

When the indigenous people at the tip of Africa proved averse to house training, the early Dutch settlers imported slaves – a practice that continued till 1807. They were generally Muslim (the Dutch had colonised the East Indies, where the Islamic faith dates back to the 15th century) and often skilled craftsmen: the men as tailors, carpenters and coopers; the women renowned for their cooking.
With the emancipation of slaves in 1834, many settled on the slopes of Signal Hill above Cape Town (Bo-Kaap), where land had been developed as a residential area for the poorer community, as it was within easy walking distance of work.

In time, this fringe neighbourhood of terraced houses (less than 2km in extent and narrower than half a kilometre at its widest point) became increasingly Muslim, bound by Islam and strong cultural traditions, which are still observed today. It was food and religion that ensured cohesion in the community. To a Cape Malay household, sharing food with a visitor calls down a blessing on the home.

The modest houses reflect the architecture of the time: a mix of Cape Dutch and Georgian influences, with flat roofs, plain facades fronting narrow streets, and small rooms running off a passageway that led to a courtyard.

Despite its panoramic views of Table Bay, the Bo-Kaap was ignored by the Dutch and later British settlers, who preferred the leafier mountain slopes and valleys. It was only when business eyed the prime location that steps were made to preserve the Malay Quarter. The area, the largest concentration of pre-1840 architecture in South Africa, was declared a National Monument. It’s a vibrant, multicoloured townscape – houses are joyous in purple, orange, lime green and turquoise – with a distinct character that sets it apart from an increasingly faceless city.

Spicy notes

Jan van Riebeeck deserves recognition for establishing a garden to provide fruit and vegetables for both passing ships and the fledgling settlement at the foot of the mountain.

But fortunately for Cape cuisine, in the kitchen, the slave ruled the master, and it was the Malay slaves who were responsible for the spicy dishes, cool sambals and hot atchars that enlivened local cooking and later took pride of place as traditional South African fare.
The spices basic to this emerging cuisine were initially brought to the Cape by sailing ships of the Dutch East India Company, which re-victualled in Table Bay. Enterprising Cape Town housewives would place orders with sailing ship captains en route to Batavia for the variety of spices they considered essential to daily fare. A domestic account book of the early 18th century lists exotic purchases of birds’ nests, dried prawns and desiccated sea urchins.

Recipes were modified by a lack of traditional ingredients, new flavours from the veld – and a fusion of Dutch and Malay preferences. Hence the habit of serving both potatoes (favoured by the Dutch) and rice (basic to Malay cooking). Even today these staples may share space on the same plate. The Dutch penchant for pies survives in hoenderpastei given piquancy from all-spice and cloves, and plain Dutch melktert is still sprinkled with cinnamon.

In Leipoldt’s Cape Cookery, written in the 1940s, SA poet and gourmet
C Louis Leipoldt gives a lyrical description of preparing spices for curry: "Take a copper mortar, dusted with buckwheat meal, and place in it a diced red chilli, a diced green chilli, two tablespoonsful of coriander seed, a snippet of green ginger, a pinch of coarse cinnamon… a young orange leaf, a scraping of lemon peel, a clove of garlic, two large spoonsful of molten butter, a spoonful of turmeric. Now use the pestle, and pound and rub and grind what is in the mortar."

Why the pestle and mortar for the mix? As his family cook patiently explained, "My basie, it is to get the soul out of it and into the meat…"
This "soul" of the spices is intrinsic to Cape Malay cooking.

by Jos Baker in the Slow Food Newsletter, February 2005


The Cape Malay Cooking Safari
Bo-Kaap insights tour
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