Cobbles and clay for the driveway

One afternoon I found Keith where he was studying the driveway, my quizzical look prompted him to explain his next project to me. He was going to cobble the driveway with river stones from the historical floodplain of the Breederiver in the valley.

Clearly inspired by the property name engraved on the marble plaque on the gate pillar, he decided that the entrance to the property needs to be elevated to match it.

When one is in tune with vernacular building practices one sees building materials in everything. One day on our way back to Towerwater coming from Swellendam, we passed a farm where there were mountains of stones pushed to the edge of ploughed fields.

I know how Keith has been longing to get his hands on those stones, and this day he asked if I could see the name of the farm and the owner on whose farms the stones were. I could get the farm name and we went home and the next day Keith did not only manage to get the farmer’s name, but Keith’s contact managed to arrange that Keith could go and fetch some stone.

On Keith’s question as to how many stones he may take the farmer pointed to the mountains of stone and said, “knock yourself out”, meaning that he can take as many as he needed. Keith started the painstaking job of cobbling the driveway after the first load.

After working out which shape stone worked best as a cobble, the second and subsequent loads were much easier to select without having to take back any that were unsuitable for the task.

Watching Keith build this big stone puzzle with determination, it was clear that when he set his mind to it nothing was going to derail him. The best thing was to support him. Every day after I had finished working, we set off to pick up stones for cobbling the next day.

When the cobbles were all in place, I learnt that the preferred grout for this vernacular driveway is a mixture of clay, lime, and cement. On a Saturday morning we climbed into the old faithful Toyota Hilux bakkie loaded with spades and buckets like big children setting off for the beach. Our destination to look for natural clay, was not the beach but a patch of recently disturbed veld outside the town.

The grout mix of clay, lime and cement

The art of grout

The first load of clay we took was in the form of big lumps of clay that we decided to stomp into fine clay again. We soon learnt that breaking down big clay lumps into clay dust is not that easy and is back breaking work.

The second load of clay we sifted directly into the buckets at the source. It took a bit longer to collect the clay, but it was quicker and easier to mix the fine clay into the grout. We mixed the grout in an 8:2:1 ratio, being 8 clay: 2 lime: 1 cement. Then we brushed the dry grout into the gaps between the stones and wet it with a fine spray of water to dry overnight. We could not ask for a more natural look for the cobbles, the grout turned out to be a very nice red-looking clay between the cobbles.

The next day, after photographing the completed cobbles, I discovered a serendipitous stone heart in amongst the cobbles. This was surely proof that Keith had put his heart into cobbling the driveway for Towerwater.

Buying a bakkis for breadmaking

One of the most important pieces of furniture in a traditional Cape kitchen from the earliest times up to the early years of the 1900’s must be the bakkis or baking trough. Up until at least the 1920’s many remote farms in the Cape had to be self-sustainable, and the kitchen was the heart of the farm complex. Bread was baked for everybody working and living on the farm. As large-scale baking was a laborious process made more challenging by a scarcity of wood fuel for the ovens, baking was centralised either in a bakhuis (bakery) or in the kitchen of the homestead. The wood-fired oven was generally situated to the rear left in the hearth in larger homesteads or in a freestanding outside oven for smaller houses. Every homestead would have the necessary equipment for the purpose of making bread. This would include, amongst other things, a meelkis (flour chest) and a bakkis (baking trough).

The bakkis (dough trough) in the foreground

The meelkis was a large chest with three or four compartments for storing different kinds of flour. According to Dr Mary Cook in her book “The Cape Kitchen”, published in 1973, the compartments were used for storing coarse meal, fine (sifted) meal, bran and perhaps some other meal.

The meelkis (flour chest)

The meelkis on the Towerwater loft is made of Oregon pine and has a sloping lid with hinges. It houses three compartments and is 750mm high X 1350mm long X 500mm wide. It stands flat on the floor although one does find meelkiste which are raised off the ground on low feet.

The compartmentalised meelkis (flour chest) for storing different types of flour

The Towerwater meelkis was sourced at an auction of Paul Roux’s shop contents in Ashton, after his death in December 2005. Although the woodfired oven in the kitchen can accommodate many loaves for baking, I doubt if the meelkis will ever need to be used for the storing of flour at Towerwater.

The demand for loaves of bread has shrunk like the farm the house stood on that many years ago. We might not have a need for storing large quantities of flour, but it felt right that the house should once again have a meelkis as a point of reference for its restored large wood-fired oven.

The bakoond (wood-fired oven) door in the hearth

We were lucky to find a Cape meelkis on auction when we did. We were not so lucky when it came to a bakkis. When Keith started to explore the making of authentic Cape sweet sourdough yeast and bread, the need for a bakkis escalated. Keith believed that the ancient micro-organisms captured in a well-used bakkis will aid in the making of the perfect traditional Cape yeast and bread.

A close-up of the typical dovetailing detail

The sides of the bakkis slopes inward. This feature aids in the kneading of the dough in the trough. The lid of the bakkis is loose so that it can be removed to allow for the kneading of the dough. According to Dr Mary Cook, the lids in the earlier bakkiste typically had stinkwood edging.

A view from above showing detail of the lid trim

An example of hinged "bakkis", source: Ou Kaapse Meubels, Dr Mathilda Burden, 2013

The bakkis that has hinges is probably a broodkis (bread chest) for storing bread (DR Mary Cook, The Cape Kitchen, 1973 – p68), or a meelkis that had legs added to it (Dr Mathilda Burden, Ou Kaapse Meubels, 2013 – p35, or a wakis (wagon chest) on legs (M Baraitser and A Obholzer, Cape Country Furniture, 1971 – p255).

Bakkis, lid removed for kneading dough

I was fortunate enough to buy a bakkis at an auction in Robertson recently. At last Keith will be able to pursue his breadmaking passion with the aid of a traditional bakkis.

Bread, from flour in the meelkis, kneading in the bakkis to baking in the bakoond

I doubt if anybody else has bought an antique bakkis to use for its intended purpose. The bakkis is a proud addition to the collection of Cape furniture at Towerwater. Currently, the bakkis is used to proof the regular fresh yeast dough before baking the bread and to store the bread after it has been baked. The plan is to use it to grow the sweet sourdough culture and then to mix and knead the dough in it for a true Cape sweet sourdough bread. 

Images of bakkiste, source:Cape Country Furniture, M. Baraitser and A. Obholzer, 1971

Images of bakkiste, source:Cape Country Furniture, M. Baraitser and A. Obholzer, 1971

Sources:

Cape Furniture, M. G. Atmore,1965

Cape Country Furniture, Michael Baraitser and Anton Obholzer, 1971

The Cape Kitchen, Dr Mary Cook, 1973

Cape Antique Furniture, Michael Baraitser and Anton Obholzer, 2004

Ou Kaapse Meubels, Dr Mathilda Burden, 2013

Strawberries and the garden of earthly delights

Late spring is a time of new beginnings in the Towerwater garden. It is a time of expectation, hope and delight. Expectation of how all the seeds and seedlings will turn the garden into a culinary feast. Hope, that some of the seedlings will survive the myriad of pests devouring them before they can even make their second set of leaves. Delight, when Mother Nature blesses us with her abundance.

Early in the season one delights in the few vegetables available for harvesting. The small pickings of late peas, carrots, beetroot, spinach, curly kale, and kohlrabi. In the fruit section we can enjoy some paw paws and lots of strawberries.

The strawberry bed is a delight for the senses. Walking past the grapevines into the vegetable garden, the fragrance of ripe strawberries fills the air. You smell them before you notice them with their plump ripeness among the deep green of their leaves.

The simple pastoral scene of a strawberry bed full of ripe fruit, conjures up the pleasures of summer desserts. It is as if one can taste the red fruit bursting into one’s mouth simply by sight. The view of the ordered bed of strawberries and beds of vegetable seedlings is a far cry from Hieronymus Bosch’s painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights, which he painted between 1490 and 1510.

Details depicting strawberries in the painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights

What made me think of the painting was the depiction of people enjoying strawberries in the centre panel of the triptych. Strange how some paintings can make an impact on one. I can’t say that it is a favourite painting of mine. It is more the fantastical depiction of people enjoying pleasures of the flesh in what I would describe as a futuristic garden. I found it very different from other Renaissance paintings.

In June 2001, at the end of my six-week backpacking holiday in Spain, I visited the Museo del Prado in Madrid, where I saw the painting.

Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, oil on oak panels, 205.5 cm × 384.9 cm

One can appreciate the detail in the actual painting much better because it is quite large. It is a painting filled with fantastical detail. Looking at the triptych, it is clear that what separates paradise, depicted by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in the panel on the left, and Hell depicted in the panel on the right, is earthly sin, depicted in the central panel. There are other fruit and berries offered seductively from one person to another in this scene, but somehow the strawberry is elevated to a different level as a symbol of earthly pleasures.

Did the Garden of Earthly Delights cement the idea of the strawberry as an aphrodisiac, perfect for seduction? Perhaps the fact that the fruit is shaped like a red heart has something to do with it.  

I don’t know if my strawberries seduce the myriad of pests that eat them, but if I look at the amount of fruit that they can damage overnight, I can imagine them enjoying the ripe fruit like the characters depicted by Hieronymus Bosch in his painting. Luckily, we manage to rescue at least 2kg of strawberries a week at the peak of the season.

Hulling strawberries on the kitchen stoep

The picking of strawberries is enough to make me reach for one of my cookbooks in the Towerwater library to find a way of preserving these “earthly delights” for a teatime or cocktail seduction. With enough stock of last year’s strawberry liqueur left, we opted to make strawberry jam this year.

Towerwater organic strawberry jam

Ingredients:

2 kg Organic strawberries
Juice of 2 lemons (90ml)
1.8 kg Sugar (warmed)

Method:
Hull the strawberries and weigh them. You will need at least 1.8kg of hulled fruit. Halve the strawberries and place them in a ceramic bowl. You can lightly crush them, depending on how fine you would like the fruit to be in your jam.

Put the strawberries and lemon juice in a preserving pot an bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 5-10 minutes, or until the strawberries are soft.

Add the warmed sugar to the strawberry mixture and dissolve the sugar over a low heat.

Increase the heat and boil the mixture rapidly, without stirring, for 15 minutes or until it reaches setting point. Remove the pot from the heat to test. The sugar thermometer should read 104°C. If you do not have a sugar thermometer, you can use the cold plate test.

With the pan off the heat, lightly skim off any scum from the surface of the jam. Cool the jam slightly.

Pour the jam into warmed sterilized jars, to within 3mm of the tops. Seal the jars and label.

Notes:

Warmed Sugar – Sugar will dissolve quicker in the fruit mixture if it is warmed first. Put the oven on its lowest setting. Weigh the sugar and place it in an oven proof bowl. Warm the sugar in the oven for about 15 minutes.

Cold plate test – place a saucer in the freezer. Drop a little jam on the cold plate. If the jam forms a skin, and wrinkles when it is pushed with a finger, it should have reached setting point.

I would like to think of Towerwater’s garden as a delight where one can be seduced to relax and enjoy serenity. Perhaps with tea and scones served with organic strawberry jam.

Other Strawberry posts on this blog

Black pepper and strawberry gin sorbet 

Strawberries and the pursuit of happiness

Strawberry Vinegar

Extroverted Strawberries

Daiquiris at Dusk