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Niël Stemmet
Lapa publishers, 2014.
The sub-title hints at the appealing contents: “Heritage food/word journeys”, and recipes and essays are packaged with some evocative landscapes, along with photographs of interiors, food, flowers and people who are or were special to the author.
I first came across Stemmet Niël in 1993 when he had opened Le Must restaurant in Upington and was creating what he called Kalahari-Provencal fare. I was looking for updated heritage recipes from the Northern Cape and he promptly and generously provided me with his delectable, indulgent take on malva pudding, jam-packed with the dried and glacé fruit of the region. I have never found a better version.
His name often popped up in our culinary world after that, although I lost touch with him. More recently he loomed large in the glossies as the talented interior designer of a couple of fine wineland restaurants.
This, his second cookbook, is based on a series of columns he wrote for Tuis and Home magazines, that proved hugely popular with readers in both languages. Stemmet was not shy to bare his soul in ways that few others would do, as he offered snapshots of his life alongside homespun philosophy and poems that combined nostalgia with a heartfelt appreciation of nature. The recipes that follow relate to the story of the month: these could be special occasions with family, days with grandparents, seaside holidays, and Sundays on the farm. Brought up in Robertson, there were annual trips to Struisbaai and the odd visit to Cape Town “…in the newly washed Studebaker, Ma and Pa in front, we three sturdy youngsters in the back… toasted ham and cheese sandwiches at the smart café in the OK Bazaars”.
His columns inspired numerous letters from Afrikaans- and English- speaking readers, who praise his writing, enjoy his recipes, but most of all identify with nostalgic memories. They are reproduced here, often with thanks for Stemmet’s having distilled their thoughts into words. But the highest praise, I think, comes from Victor Clarke, librarian at the National English Literary Museum in Grahamstown, who likens his writing to Leipoldt’s – “just more contemporary”.
The recipes make up comprise a mouth-watering feast of traditional South African favourites, from ash bread to snoek with apricot butter, from chicken pie to bobotie and ox tongue with apple and raisin sauce. The puddings will transport many to small towns, where bazaars feature guava pud and tipsy tart and trifle.
Editor and translator Linda Roos has done a great job in translating colloquial Afrikaans from the original version, titled Agter+blad. It’s a pity that spelling mistakes like “descendents” weren’t picked up, but this is a minor quibble.
The book opens with a foreword by Anneke Blaise, then-editor of Tuis and Home, who died of cancer a month after writing it in January this year. Stemmet is giving half the royalties from sales to cancer research.
Sunday Argus