A culinary tribute to one of SA's late food icons, Dr Renata Coetzee

A dinner honouring the memory of food anthropologist Dr Renata Coetzee showcased the culinary heritage of the Khoi-Khoin people — the subject of her last book, 'A Feast From Nature'

25 November 2018 - 00:00 By Hilary Biller and Hennie Fisher

Dr Renata Coetzee's thirst for knowledge of SA's different cultures and their food was insatiable. Through her extensive research and writings on the subject, she helped to raise local and international awareness about our country's food heritage and indigenous ingredients. When she passed away a few months ago, she left behind a vast legacy through her books, her TV programmes and teachings. (She taught at many universities in SA and abroad.)
Her first book, South African Culinary Tradition, was about food culture in the Cape from 1652 to the 1800s. Originally published in 1977, it's still relevant today, and features an excellent collection of local recipes and the origins of each of them.
More recently the Khoi-Khoin culture became Coetzee's passion. She authored three books on the San people, including her last, A Feast From Nature - Food Culture of the First Humans on Planet Earth (African Sun Media)
A vast tome of information, drawings and photographs, it's another excellent resource, if not a little controversial. The chapter on Veld-Food Plants of the Khoi-Khoin is a visual feast, offering a vast array of veld plants that are finding their way back to South African tables. It's fitting then, that to commemorate Coetzee's life, Pretoria University's consumer and food sciences students decided to host a dinner in her memory showcasing the food and culture of early humans in Southern Africa and particularly the Khoi-Khoin people.
It was a noble gesture to cook a meal for 80 guests using indigenous or endemic plant and animal material. The students did a sterling job, under the guidance of student Darren Vasiljevic.
The unusual menu started with a dish of what the students thought would not be too difficult to source the ingredients for - a nature's salad of morogo puree, spekboom gel, pelargonium sand, lemon foam, pickled papkuil shoots, compressed aloe buds and indigenous edible flowers.
But the pickled papkuil (Typha capensis) shoots, which resemble bamboo shoots and were a delicious main element of this course, turned out to be a nightmare to source.
Fancy a dune spinach (Tetragonia decumbens) soup with deep-fried warthog biltong? Coetzee's long-time friend Truida Prekel helped source the ingredients for the soup from Cape Town (some of them foraged, others purchased from a local market), and the biltong was made by the students.
One does not immediately associate the Khoi people with fish, but in fact they ate a lot of coastal produce. Using a bit of licence, the students served tilapia with dressed sea fennel and oyster leaf puree, both sourced from a grower in Midrand, together with wood sorrel and bokkom crumbs.
The main course, a duo of springbok and ystervark - a braised springbok shank accompanied by a shard of crisp porcupine skin, buttered ice leaf and waterblommetjies, amadumbi, grilled uintjies, cricket rice and a glace de viande.
An Italian favourite took on a local flavour for dessert - a buchu panna cotta served with preserved t'samma, gooseberry and rooibos coulis, arum lily crumble and acacia honey taffy.
Arum lily does not immediately strike one as being edible, even though the relatively dangerous calcium oxalate crystals in the plant can be rendered harmless with prolonged cooking. The lily bulb did, however, add an interesting lemony fresh herb taste to the dessert.
Considering there are more than 20,000 species of edible plants in the world, but that less than 20 species now provide 90% of our food, we probably should all be much more interested in what grows around us, and curious about those that are edible and can be made into delicious dishes. The students did Dr Renata Coetzee proud...

There’s never been a more important time to support independent media.

From World War 1 to present-day cosmopolitan South Africa and beyond, the Sunday Times has been a pillar in covering the stories that matter to you.

For just R80 you can become a premium member (digital access) and support a publication that has played an important political and social role in South Africa for over a century of Sundays. You can cancel anytime.

Already subscribed? Sign in below.



Questions or problems? Email helpdesk@timeslive.co.za or call 0860 52 52 00.