Tuesday 19 December 2017

Travelling companions - A tribute to Dr Hans Fransen

We had to say farewell to Dr Hans Fransen on Friday morning at his celebration of life ceremony held in Pinelands. Hans, with his two PhD’s was a meticulous researcher and an authority on art history and architecture. His internationally renowned work earned him a knighthood from the Netherlands. I was fortunate to have worked with Hans on several occasions over the past 30 years.

Well travelled books
First, as the organiser of talks and outings for the Vernacular Architecture Society of South Africa and later as chairman of the Society. Hans was an inspiration. He was always keen to give a talk to the Society. Sometimes, the briefing for the talk and the final talk as presented would differ, because Hans always had new perspectives on vernacular architecture which he would be keen to share, and we, equally keen to hear.


Something I will always remember of Hans, was his willingness to share his knowledge. His impressive legacy of publications on vernacular architecture bears testimony to his generosity of knowledge sharing.

I remember meeting Hans outside my cottage in Woodstock where he was cycling through the suburb. He was recording buildings for his book, “A Guide to Old Buildings of the Cape”, which was a total revision of his earlier work, “The Old Buildings of the Cape”. The updated work was published by Jonathan Ball in 2004. He was recording the terrace in which we live, to be included in the publication.


Seeing Hans cycling through the city was a familiar sight. When encountered, he could still find time for a friendly chat.


There are few words to describe the significance of his published works on the cultural and built heritage of South Africa. We refer to the book “The Old Houses of the Cape”, co-authored with Dr Mary Cook and published by Balkema in 1965, as the bible of Cape vernacular architectural inventory in South Africa.

This book was my constant guide when planning outings for the Vernacular Architecture Society of South Africa. I have a well-worn traveling copy that was always in the bakkie when we used to go on road-trips exploring the Western Cape platteland and discovering old buildings.

“The Old Houses of the Cape” was our guide to the architecture of that landscape.

Map from "Beyond the City Lights" - Lawrence Green (1957)
Another travelling companion, was a publication of the well-known raconteur and journalist, Lawrence Green. Lawrence Green, though a generation earlier than Hans, also had a passion for the history of the Cape, but his light-hearted approach, was to research or investigate ‘the stories’ of the old Cape. His particular interest was in the people. These are the people who gave life to the vernacular buildings of our interest, when some were still relatively new. One of Lawrence Green’s books would be the companion book through which we would discover some journalistic social history of the landscape. I feel that the social and architectural history of a landscape are integral to each other. To more accurately understand the buildings one needs to understand the people who built and lived in them.

Map from the "Old Houses of the Cape" - Hans Fransen/Dr Mary Cook (1965)
Lawrence Green captured so many facets of South African life in his books. Books like “Karoo” (1955), and “Beyond the City Lights” (1957), and others published by Howard Timmins, simply coloured the history of the landscapes we explored.

To illustrate the point, I use the town of Robertson. In the “The Old Houses of the Cape” by Hans Fransen and Dr Mary Cook, with its many illustrations and maps, the information of the town will be recorded as follows on page 209.

“Robertson was founded in 1853, although the farm ‘Het Rode Zand aan de Hoopsrivier’ was bought as a site from J. (Hans) van Zyl the year before. It was called after Dr. William Robertson, at that time predikant of Swellendam, who till that time had visited the place every three months. This is another example of a dorp that owes its beginning not to the need of local government, but to the need of a church – the cornerstone of which was laid in 1853.
The town is laid out in rectangular building blocks on a level stretch of ground between Willem Nels River and the Hoops River. The streets running from NW to SE in particular are very regularly spaced – except for the church block, which intercepts Market Street – which gives a certain monotony to this fairly large town. Dotted over almost the entire area are gabled houses dated between 1853 and 1865, fourteen in all, and several older houses, mostly with flat roofs and slightly later in date. The gabled houses nearly all have rectangular ground-plans, two rooms deep, and correspondingly high gables; some of these have pronounced wings – without scrolls – resting on the outer pilasters. Unfortunately no important clusters of old houses can be found.”

This information with the beautiful maps drawn by Hans, would give us, on a reconnaissance excursion, a clear idea of what we will find in the town when looking at the architecture. On our way to a town I would read from Lawrence Green while Keith was driving. The stories gave the town a life and context to the buildings.

In “Beyond the City Lights”, Lawrence Green (1957), Robertson is introduced as follows on pages 221 to 223.

“Robertson came into being two or three years after Montagu, but in the conventional manner. The church bought Mr. Hans van Zyl’s farm, which bore the impressive name of “Het Roode Zand aan de Hoops Rivier in het Land van Waaferen”. That was much too long, so they called the new village Robertson after Dr. William Robertson, minister of the Dutch Reformed Church at Swellendam.
Swellendam farmers were already grazing their cattle in the area, just as they did at Montagu. When it was discovered that the soil was suitable for vines, the village was born.
The farm “Het Roode Zand” cost £4200, and the auctioneer who sold the plots was the redoubtable Mr. Joseph Barry of Swellendam. He and his nephews owned ships, shops and farms; especially shops. At one time he issued his own paper money. “As jy lekker wil lewe, koop by Barry and Newe,” was the slogan of a century ago, as good as many a modern effort. Barry followed the church into every new village and opened the first shop. He was the business pioneer of Robertson, and his descendants are still there four generations later.
Robertson soon became a wagon-building village. It was Fouché and his daughter (an unusual combination in this trade) who made President Kruger’s coach, now in the Pretoria museum. During the boom years it was said that half the village was making wagons while the other half was away on togry, selling the wagons in the republics. Sometimes a cavalcade of twenty wagons would leave Robertson and travel in company. These wagons would be loaded with wine and brandy, almonds and raisins, vinegar, moskonfyt and dried fruit. Clever carpenters in the village, Preiss and Koos van Zyl and others, also made stinkwood furniture of the sort that collectors are glad to find nowadays.
They believed in bilingualism at Robertson as far back as 1854. The children were attending a school at which Nederlands was the only medium, and naturally they spoke Afrikaans at home. So the parents wrote to Glasgow for a teacher, and the appeal was answered by Alexander Clarke. His salary was seventy pounds a year. This strict but popular man learnt Dutch quickly, used his cane freely and gained a great reputation as a teacher. He had been in the village for two years when he swallowed his dental plate at a meal. Heroic methods were used in the effort to recover it. They tried to hook it out with wire, and when that failed they pushed it father down his throat with his own cane. Meanwhile a volunteer had galloped to Worcester for the doctor. When the doctor arrived fifteen hours later Clarke was dead.
This new village without a doctor lived in great fear of measles. When outbreaks were reported in other villages, Robertson posted sentries to keep strangers out. One week-end in September 1860, however, a girl named Sophie Erasmus came in from one of the farms in the district with her father to attend church. She was not feeling well, but she was in love. Her young man took her to church next day, and before her illness had been diagnosed, Sophie had infected about seventy people with measles.
It was the custom in those days to treat measles with a revolting concoction which included kraalmis. The local midwife was a great believer in this appalling drink of farmyard manure. She mixed it carefully herself and went from house to house administering the potion of death. For this so-called cure for measles contained of germs of typhoid fever. In this first typhoid epidemic, one hundred white people were affected and sixty died. The very last victim was the minister, the Rev. C. H. de Smidt, who had weakened his resistance by working himself almost to death attending the others. Among coloured people the death rate was frightening.
It was a drought year, and the typhoid epidemic caused so much additional distress that the government had to open a soup kitchen. Other villages sent wagonloads of food. Typhoid returned almost every summer, however, and Robertson gained the ominous nickname of “Koorsdorp” A serious outbreak occurred in the summer of 1896-97, due once more to polluted water.  Soon afterwards the situation was saved by the piping of water from the Langeberg to the village. During the water famines, water was so precious that every householder took his pump-handle to bed with him for fear of thieves.”

I wonder if Hans and Lawrence ever crossed paths. I will never know. But here were two men recording different histories of the same places and in that giving a more complete picture of the cultural landscape.

I never met Lawrence Green, the journalist, but I am glad I was fortunate to have met Dr Hans Fransen. A generous man in knowledge and spirit. One seldom realises the contribution a person makes to one’s life until you reflect upon it when that person is no longer there.

I am sorry that Dr Hans Fransen never visited Towerwater to see how his work inspired us to rescue and restore the property, but at least his written legacy graces the bookshelves of our library. With his books as informative travel companions we will remember him as we explore the countryside looking at Cape vernacular architecture. Something I think he would have liked.

  

Wednesday 13 December 2017

Forgotten beauty

A rose hedge grows alongside the railway line near the now demolished Bonnievale station.


From time to time, when either walking or driving through the vineyards, one cannot miss the hedge’s profusion of pink. As the vineyards obscure the railway line, it seems from certain angles, that the hedge is growing in the middle of nowhere. Curiosity compelled me to investigate the display close-up. I needed to discover the story of this nowhere rose.


The rose has over many years, grown into an informal hedge. Over a long time and left undisturbed, it has rambled onto itself. From close-up it was even more spectacular. Big clusters of small pink roses covered the hedge of thorny branches.


How long it has been there no one will know. I doubt whether anyone even cares. But, there it grows between the railway line and the vineyard. There appears no reason for it to be there, in that specific location. Over the years, a dirt road has forked around it into a track between the rose hedge and the railway line and the hedge and the vineyard. There it grows like a big traffic island of beauty.


How she got there I will probably never know. Who she is, was another matter. One, which I might trace with a little effort I thought, as I picked a sprig of roses and headed home. On arrival, I decided to consult Roses at the Cape of Good Hope by Gwen Fagan, published in 1995.


I searched the images for a rose that looked anything like those I had picked. It was between a Centifolia rose, ‘Pompon de Bourgogne’, and a Species rose, ‘Dorothy Perkins’.

After investigating the leaves, the thorns and the growth pattern of the specimen I had brought home very closely, Keith confirmed that it was ‘Dorothy Perkins’.


Gwen Fagan writes the following about ‘Dorothy Perkins’. “Soon after its introduction in 1901, ‘Dorothy Perkins’ became the sweetheart of Cape gardeners. In spring flower-laden arches, verandas, summer-houses and boundary fences transformed the poorest cottage gardens into spectacles of colour, turning village streets into delightful havens for Sunday afternoon drivers and strollers. During the first few years nursery catalogues enthusiastically displayed full-page illustrations, selling plants at double the price of any other rose. 
In 1908 ‘Excelsa’ (‘Red Dorothy’) and ‘White Dorothy’, were welcomed with as much fervour as their pink sister and these three ramblers retained their popularity at the Cape well into the 1940s.”


Gwen also mentions that they were popular plants for railway reserves. That might explain how ‘Dorothy Perkins’ came to grow alongside the railway line in Bonnievale. A remnant of a time when train travel was popular and the station a hive of activity.


‘Dorothy Perkins’ was named after the granddaughter of the rose grower, Charles H. Perkins.  He introduced the rose to the market in 1901 and in 1908 it won top honours at the Royal National Rose Society.

‘Dorothy Perkins’ also started a long tradition of naming roses after people. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_%26_Perkins


The rose is mentioned by several authors in their works. In ‘Tender is the night’ by F Scott Fritzgerald, published in 1934, the author describes a ride in a funicular in Montraux Switzerland by Dick, one of the main characters. “Though one must not pick flowers on the way up, the blossoms trailed in as they passed - Dorothy Perkins roses dragged patiently through each compartment slowly waggling with the motion of the funicular, letting go at the last to swing back to their rosy cluster. Again and again these branches went through the car.”


‘Dorothy Perkins’ is a Whichurian Rambler. “The Wichuranas are named after the German botanist Max Ernst Wichura (1817–1866). While the Wichuranas are beautiful and popular in themselves, they are also known to be the parents of ‘Dorothy Perkins',” Source:  http://www.all-my-favourite-flower-names.com/rambling-rose.html

To be precise, the parentage of ‘Dorothy Perkins’ is a cross between Madame Gabriel Luizetrose with Rosa Wichuraiana. Source:  https://www.gardenia.net/plant/rose-Dorothy-Perkins

Who knows how she got to adorn the Bonnievale railway line. Now, ‘Dorothy Perkins’ graces a dirt track next to a seldom used line. Like a forgotten beauty who has risen above her surroundings. There she is year after year, just being beautiful for beauty’s sake as intended by Charles Perkins in 1901. 

Friday 8 December 2017

Blue garden in a teapot

On a balmy Saturday afternoon, a luxury at Towerwater is to relax while having tea under the great oak on the lawn.


Our love of tea is well-known. Wherever we go, a proper teapot and loose-leaf tea is a must. In a time where teapots are a growing curiosity and tea is generally made with a bag in a mug, we still prefer to enjoy our tea properly brewed, from a cup and saucer. It is after all more than a functional exercise for us, it is an occasion.


We decided to enjoy some tea we bought in Bruges during our recent visit. The selected tea for this Saturday afternoon under the oak, was Het Brugs Theehuis’s Jardine Bleu. It is an aromatic tea that conjures up images of country gardens with fruit flavours and floral hints.


The names of the teas in the shop were what first attracted me. I liked Winter Dream. The idea of cooler weather appealed to me on that extraordinarily hot day in Bruges. The cooler interior of the shop and the spiciness of the black tea were in themselves refreshing.


The Jardine Bleu tea reminded me of the Towerwater Garden blue agapanthus, cornflowers, forget-me-nots and blue roses. The tea had the fragrances of summer at home, and after five weeks in Europe, home was becoming a happy longing.


Enjoying the tea in the Towerwater garden, brought back happy memories of an amazing sojourn. Our friend Susan joined us. As Dorothea Johnson said in “Tea and Etiquette”, “Tea beckons us to enjoy quality time with friends and loved ones, and especially to rediscover the art of relaxed conversation.”


Relaxed conversation was had and the afternoon sped away into dusk. After we had solved the world’s problems over cake and tea, we left world peace for another day as we bid Susan goodbye.


I am reminded of what Okakura Kakuzo says in ‘The Book of Tea’. “Teaism is a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence. It inculcates purity and harmony, the mystery of mutual charity, the romanticism of the social order. It is essentially a worship of the Imperfect, as it is a tender attempt to accomplish something possible in this impossible thing we know as life.”


Having a garden within and around a teapot, remains one of the higher indulgences at Towerwater.

Wednesday 6 December 2017

Olives and more olives

The first weekend of December is becoming the traditional time for olive preserving at Towerwater. On Saturday, our friend Susan from “Ligspel”, in the neighbouring Klaasvoogds valley, brought me a five litre bucket of olives to bottle.


With several months of curing already completed on the farm, the laborious part of preserving the olives was already done for me. I could now focus on the fun part of preserving the olives, that is, the personalised flavouring and the bottling.


With the new season garlic freshly harvested and cured, I decided to use our fresh garden produce of garlic, lemon, bay leaves and rosemary, as part of the Klein Karoo styled flavour for this year’s olives.


I am happy that I can buy the olives in the valley and that the Towerwater garden can provide all the ingredients required for the bottling. Besides, in this way we support local producers and reduce our carbon footprint.


I am also firmly of the opinion, that all the local produce naturally complements each other. A meal of wine, cheese, olives, fruit, vegetables and bread, all produced in the immediate vicinity, provides for a true harmony of flavours.


The Towerwater kitchen, with its fragrance of fresh herbs, lemon and garlic, transports me back to Tuscany for a brief moment. This, as I make the herb infused brine to pour over the olives in the preserve jars.


What has impressed me most about traveling in other countries, is the pride that the locals have in their own food, culture and country. That has inspired me to embrace our own culture. To create, develop and celebrate our own unique traditions and food flavours.



The Towerwater garden and kitchen is the centre of harmony as I pack bottle after bottle of preserved olives with lemon, garlic and herbs from the garden, while working on the ancient yellowwood kitchen table.


Thursday 30 November 2017

Plans for an ample apricot harvest

Summertime activities at Towerwater are dictated by the garden. A glint of yellow in the apricots tells us that within in the next two weeks we will be making preserves with apricots.

Apricots
The question every season is, do we go traditional or explore new ways of using the sun-ripened golden fruit. This year, among other things, I am planning on making apricot brandy. A number of cocktail recipes call for apricot brandy, but this is not so easily found. One of my mottos in life is, if one cannot find an ingredient, make it yourself.

A recipe for Apricot Brandy in  "Maak jou eie likeur - Jean Dickson, 1991"
I consulted my trusted recipe books. In the 1908, Hilda's 'where Is It?' of Recipes, by Hildagonda Duckitt, on page 4, I found a recipe for ‘Mebos’, (salted dried apricots). It reads as follows:

Apricots, dried and salted
(Commonly called “Mebos”)

Take soft ripe apricots, lay them in salt water (about two ounces of salt to a quart bottle) for a few hours. Then lay them on a mat to dry in the sun; the next day press them between the hands to flatten, and let the stone come out. The next day repeat the process. At the Cape it generally dries and becomes “Mebos” in three or four days in the sun, but if the weather should be damp, they might be dried in heated rooms, or a cool oven. To crystallise the Mebos, lay them in lime water (see lime water) for five minutes, till they feel nice and tender, take out, wipe dry on soft cloth, and rub course crystallised white sugar well into each; take one and half pounds of sugar to one pound of Mebos. Pack closely with lots of sugar in between in jars that will cork well. A very nice sweatmeat, and said to be a remedy for sea-sickness.”

Treasured recipe books
On page 173 and 174 is a recipe for green apricot preserve. It reads as follows:

“Preserve (Green Apricot)
(An old Constantia Recipe)

Ingredients:
100 green or unripe Apricots.
Their weight in sugar.

Prick the fruit with a steel pin, lay them in a deep dish, sprinkle some salt over them (about a dessert spoonful), pour boiling water over them, cover with green vine-leaves (this keeps them green), lay a plate on top. Now proceed to make the syrup, taking a cup of water to a cup of sugar. When it is boiled and clarified, take the apricots out of the salt water, wash them, and pour the boiling syrup over them. Leave for a night like this. The next day preserve by gently simmering till the fruit is nice and clear.”

I find the recipes very interesting. I doubt whether I will try them this year. But I will definitely keep them in store as possibilities.

The nectarines are acquiring that beautiful red glow of ripe fruit. I can see the peck marks of the Cape White-eyes as they test them for ripeness. I will have to invest in netting to cover the fruit trees to protect them from these tiny destroyers of ripe fruit.

Nectarines
We do not mind sharing, but the birds have a habit of pecking holes in the fruit and moving on to the next instead of just eating the whole.

On page 149 of Hilda's 'where Is It?' of Recipes, I came across the recipe for nasturtium seed for use as capers. It reads as follows:

“Nasturtium seeds used as Capers

Gather the seeds before they are too hard. Keep them for a day or two with salt sprinkled over them, then put them into empty pickle bottles; pour boiling vinegar over them and leave them to cool. When cold, cork closely.

The nasturtium flowers are very nice to eat with bread and cheese, and butter; and look very pretty to hand round on a separate plate, with the cheese and butter after dinner.”

Some of the new nasturtium seedlings in the orchard
If I look at the sea of tiny nasturtium plants coming up in the dams of the fruit trees, there will be lots of nasturtium flowers and seeds. I might then try Hilda’s suggestion and experience a culinary tradition that she and her guests enjoyed around the Groote Post dining room table on the West Coast of the old Cape Colony.

Wednesday 22 November 2017

An ordinary orchard

The nasturtiums on the orchard floor have finished flowering. The bright orange and yellow blooms have been replaced by wrinkly green seeds. These can be enjoyed in salads for their peppery taste. I did consider pickling them to make ‘poor man’s capers’, but there are enough laborious tasks to be done in a weekend without adding more to the list.


We removed the last of the nasturtium plants from the orchard, but some seeds remain in the dams around the trees for Mother Nature’s future use. As much as I enjoy the madness of the nasturtium covered orchard floor, I also enjoy the neatness of the clean floor with the dams neatly shaped around the trees.

Pears
It is as if Spring had a party and Summer cleaned it up. The domestic orchard was laid out to produce a variety of fruit over the seasons of the year. The fruit that it supplies is used in as many dishes as may be conjured by the imagination.

Plums
Spending time in the orchard is always a pleasure. Chores like watering and checking the fruit-fly bait stations also provides a moment of relaxation and being in a quiet, serene space.

Yellow cling peaches
Figs
With the early peaches harvested, the focus shifts to the first apricots that will soon ripen. The trees are covered in a variety of young fruit, from apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, figs, citrus and pomegranates, to plums, quinces and prunes. It is much like a symphony of flavours that awaits us for summer.

Nectarines
Every year the orchard produces the same fruit, but each time it feels like the first harvest. The orchard does not produce vast quantities, but there is still enough fruit to enjoy fresh and some for preserving. Each year I try to make some new preserves or liqueurs from the fresh fruit that I haven’t made before.

Pomegranates
The young fruit of the pomegranate resemble Christmas baubles. They create a festive mood at the bottom of the orchard. The apricots are starting out with cheeks covered in freckles. They will soon blush into the warmest of reds. The quinces on the other hand look like little furry animals with fat pot bellies.

Quinces
An ordinary orchard turns the Towerwater garden into something extraordinary. It brings so many surprising pleasures to the table in so many ways.

Thursday 16 November 2017

Spring on a plate

The early peaches are ripening. The birds are testing them as curious shoppers would with Avocado pears in the shop. The unfortunate thing is that birds can’t squeeze the peach to test if it is ready, so most of the peaches are covered with peck marks.

Fresh fruit tartlet with peaches and strawberries
The familiar old makeshift scarecrow in the tree is no deterrent. It is simply a case of the early bird or person, getting the ripe peach. 


We have a choice of peaches, strawberries and paw-paws ripening in the garden. Meals taken in the garden, have to include dessert. If nothing else, than to ensure that we can enjoy the garden offerings in situ.


I am trying to keep dessert menus interesting. My creativity is moving from preserving to finding ways of enjoying the fruit as fresh as possible.

Strawberry foam with fresh strawberries
Fresh fruit tarts are always quick and easy to make. For a spin on the church bazaar pudding my mom used to make, I am exploring afresh the possibilities of strawberries in a foamy jelly.



With longer Spring days and most meals being enjoyed al fresco, it is a pleasure to capture the freshness of the garden as a dessert menu treat.