Malva The Boschendal malva made by Leah Luskam according to a recipe that is near identical to the Mag- gie Pepler original. It is baked as one large pudding to be dished out in generous The poetry of spoonfuls. pudding Nikki Werner questions the origins of malva and, on scratching the surface of accepted beliefs, takes a journey of a different kind: myth-busting the malva. Photographs by Brandon de Kock.

window runs the length of sticking winter – and to Leah. Boschendal’s kitchen, framing ‘I must be in a nice mood when I make the Simonsberg mountain. it,’ said Leah, who has the air of a lovable A Using a long dowel other- auntie but becomes serious on eyeing the wise employed for shaping crisp, lacy whisk, ‘otherwise it doesn’t work.’ She’d brandy snaps, Leah Luskam flips a lined up a selection of ingredients that switch and the standing mixer begins to could be found in the humblest pantry: whir. Her movements have a natural eggs, sugar, milk, cream, butter, flour, flow; she’s baked malva pudding here vinegar, bicarb, apricot jam. for 17 years. You know malva, right? A Combined, these transform into a rec- traditional Afrikaans pudding as tangle of sponge soaked to saturation in entrenched as and ? sugar-butter-cream sauce. The point, as Or is it? Have you ever stopped to I was to learn, is entirely textural. Done wonder how this brown, plain Jane right, the reward is a whole that’s lighter of pudding became so thoroughly than the sum of its parts. Get it wrong institutionalised as part of our national and there’s no room to hide – no glisten- repertoire it landed up on Oprah and ing fruits or brûléed sugar crust – which at Woolies as a ready-meal? Or why it is is why Leah insists on beating for a full so wildly popular that a humble malva 15 minutes. recipe is the most-clicked piece of con- Not everyone has Leah’s light touch. tent on getaway.co.za? Really. Above As one malva connoisseur noted, ‘You Kruger kills and bungee-jump footage. could attack Syria with some of the Probably not – I certainly hadn’t and I cannonballs served up today.’ Maybe write about food for a living. But it was I’d eaten too much cannon-fodder, but these questions that led me to a story frankly I never really ‘got’ malva. which unfolded on the outskirts of that I simply assumed it must be as old as oak-trimmed university town, Stellen- the ox wagon – or never had reason to bosch, to a wine estate I associate more think otherwise until Getaway editor, with quaffable Blanc de Noir than rib- Cameron Ewart-Smith, asked me to look

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Malva pudding Untitled-3.indd 2 Untitled-3.indd Untitled-3.indd 3 but probably got its name from its a lovely spread, which included a malva The Winelands spongy texture’ – the Afrikaans for pudding – that was the first time it was Malva Route marshmallows is ‘malvalekkers’. picked up by the English community and When I followed up, Magdaleen foreigners.’ When Alicia Wilkinson, the Boschendal Restaurant, demurred, ‘I’m a dietician, not a food principal and much-loved matriarch at Stellenbosch. Tasting this malva historian,’ and put me onto Dr Hester Silwood School of Cookery, corroborated requires committing to the full Classens, known for her definitive tome: this story, I’d turned a corner. lunch buffet in Boschendal’s Die Geskiedenis van Boerekos 1652 – 1806. Finally there was some agreement: original cellar. When we visited Hettie believes it’s the pelargonium leaves, on a tipping point, when malva made the spread included snoek pâté, simmered in the sauce and removed the leap from ouma’s cookery book to roast leg of lamb, and, before pouring it over the pudding. restaurant menus. And all roads led besides malva, Leah’s delicate Author of The Great Boerekos Book, to Boschendal. ‘I remember the whole brandy snaps. Costs R240 a Dine van Zyl, agreed: the secret is in family going for lunch, just for that person, excluding drinks. www. the sauce. But according to her, it must pudding!’ enthused Alicia. Alicia still boschendalrestaurants.co.za. contain brandy otherwise it’s not malva teaches that malva as a blueprint recipe, pudding. Enter theory number three: crediting Michael Olivier, who was Tokara, Helshoogte Pass. Dine says the Dutch made a Malvasia Boschendal’s PR manager at the time. Phone ahead to check the pudding (shortened to malva) using According to Michael, it happened in daily specials for chef Richard fortified Malvasia wine but substituted the Summer of ’79. Boschendal’s chef Carsten’s little spherical malvas brandy on arriving in the Cape. was on holiday and he’d asked his friend, served with ice-cream, By now I’d called a string of culinary Maggie Pepler, to fill the gap, also per- honeycomb, frozen almond par- heavyweights. The evidence was anec- suading her to make her mother’s malva fait and hazelnut streusel. dotal and the claims unsubstantiated, pudding. Michael suspects it ‘snuck out’ www.tokararestaurant.co.za. yet malva’s murky past is as fervently when included in a file of recipes printed debated as the origin of humankind. for guests. ‘I can happily claim responsi- Fyndraai Restaurant, Fransch- Malva kept me awake at night and I bility for the resurgence and subsequent hoek. Chef Shaun Schoeman

wasn’t even a fan. Could it have Huguenot popularity of malva pudding,’ he said. serves citrus-buchu soused 2013/05/06 11:27 AM 11:27 2013/05/06 2013/05/06 11:27 AM roots? Would aligning myself with the Michael, a cordon bleu-trained restau- malva with citrus-buchu ice-cream. mallow theory be a career-limiting move? rateur turned food-and-wine writer, is www.solms-delta.co.za/restaurant. It was time to go from heavyweight to both gentle and genteel. In describing legend. The only other recipe suggesting Maggie, he said, ‘Food seemed to come Pierneef à La Motte, Fransch- into it. So I opened a 1960 copy of South Surely not… My parents’ contemporar- brandy – or sherry, water or orange juice out of the tips of her fingers with consum- hoek. La Motte’s rose geraniums Africa’s bible of home cookery, Cook and ies remembered their mothers making for that matter – was Ina Paarman’s. mate ease’ and I’m left with the impres- are cold-pressed for essential oil, Enjoy It (Kook en Geniet in Afrikaans) in it. Some light googling tossed up three Having met Ina once before, I was sion this is a woman with an appreciation which chef Chris Erasmus uses above left : The Governors Hall à la search of a baked malva. Surprisingly, theories on the name. Number one: rose- impressed by her meticulous approach, for the details that make life rich, like the in individual malvas with raw carte restaurant at The Lanzerac Hotel and Spa. According to Hermanus there was no trace of it. scented malva leaves were once baked manifested in her polished grooming, an unique beauty of hand-woven damask or honey and lemon verbena sauce Anthony, who has worked at the hotel This must be a Cape Dutch thing, I in the batter, ‘malva’ being the Afrikaans unsurpassed chocolate cake mix and the mastering the art of malva. served with milktart ice-cream. since 1968, the Lanzerac malva pud- thought, and as an Engelse meisie I was term for our indigenous, pink-flowering fact that she returns her calls in person. So it came as no surprise that Maggie’s Available on the winter specials ding was once part of a Sunday night on the back foot. So I joined forces with pelargonium or rose geranium. Aunty Ina would know. son is David Pepler – Stellenbosch menu, which changes daily. buffet that was booked out three Joan Kruger, an Afrikaans-speaking ety- But pelargoniums fall under the Gera- ‘It became popular around 1980,’ said University professor and presenter of www.la-motte.com. months in advance. Above right: The Lanzerac malva is made by Welsh-born mology expert with an insatiably curious niaceae not the Malvaceae family, and Ina in her measured tone, ‘Boschendal environmental programme Groen – a executive chef Stephen Fraser – his mind and an interest in malva. Together would their fragrance stand up to such had a very good restaurant and they served man celebrated for his far-reaching Further afield. Head to Gaaitjie recipe comes from his mum in Wales. we embarked on a comprehensive trawl great swathes of sugar and cream? And in Paternoster, where owner/chef of cookery books and libraries looking why didn’t writers C Louis Leipoldt and Suzi Holtzhausen (who once for some sign of it. Hildagonda Duckitt, who documented so apprenticed with Topsy Venter, For fellow food nerds interested in much of our culinary past, touch on pel- Untitled-3.indd 1 a strong advocate for the plant a detailed booklist I’m happy to oblige argoniums in pudding when both were ‘I must be in a nice mood when I theory) lines her pans with pelar- but in short, there seemed to be a twist such keen botanists. make it,’ said Leah Luskam, who gonium leaves before baking the in malva’s tale. The earliest published More likely, I thought, was the marsh- Maggie Pepler recipe. Suzi’s flour- reference we found was from the 1970s mallow theory. In The Complete South has the air of a lovable auntie but ish is topping the pudding with – a malvapoeding in Erina Bezuiden- African Cookbook, Magdaleen van Wyk blue cheese and preserved figs. hout’s My Beste Nagereg. Which raised introduces ‘marshmallow pudding’ becomes serious on eyeing the Gaaitjie closes during June and the question: Was malva only as old (malvapoeding) by saying, ‘This rich July and serves malva pudding in 2013/05/06 11:27 AM as the bell-bottom? pudding contains no marshmallows, whisk, ‘otherwise it doesn’t work.’ August. www.saltcoast.co.za.

56 Getaway July 2013 www.getaway.co.za 57 Malva pudding Untitled-3.indd 5 Untitled-3.indd 4 knowledge. ‘Malva should be unspeak- David presented it, decorated with Maggie’s malva pudding ably light combined with a certain rich- malva leaves, calling it malva pudding.’ This is Maggie Pepler’s recipe, ness,’ said David, describing the malva Sadly David and his cook aren’t around which Michael Olivier refers to of his childhood. And this is how it lives to tell us more about the good old days. as the ‘benchmark recipe’. For on at Boschendal, now made by Leah. Today the Lanzerac malva comes more on Maggie, malva and other Tasting her version opened my eyes. garnished, not with foliage à la David, recipes, visit michaelolivier.co.za. Light, fluffy and so saucy it teetered on but with a jaunty crème anglaise-filled Serves six the brink of collapse, I couldn’t stop ‘canneloni’ and pineapple compote that sinking my spoon into its dark, luscious tastes like a ray of sunshine on a wintery 1 cup flour depths. It sits alongside a jug of Moirs day. It suits the napkins folded into papal 1 tbsp bicarbonate of soda and besides the silver tray it’s hats and the Cape governors looking out 1 cup granulated white sugar presented on, there’s no clue this malva from gilt-edged frames. But it still didn’t 1 egg might be the original recipe. solve the mystery. 1 tbsp apricot jam It turns out Maggie’s cooking also After weeks of research I’d established 1 tbsp vinegar graced the hotel restaurant at the nothing more than the obvious: malva is 1 tbsp melted butter one variation on an old-fashioned theme 1 cup milk of baked pudding with pour-over sauce. For the sauce: 2013/05/06 11:28 AM

Light, fluffy and so saucy it teetered on the As is British vinegar pudding or Afrikaans 2013/05/06 11:28 AM ½ cup cream asynpoeding, Jan Ellis pudding (named for ½ cup milk brink of collapse, I couldn’t stop sinking my the Springbok flank), even Brandy pud- 1 cup sugar ding and sometimes telefoonpoeding. ½ cup hot water spoon into its dark, luscious depths. I was no closer to discovering where ½ cup butter

it came from, who christened it ‘malva’ above left : Alicia Wilkinson (left) serves malva to Michael Olivier from a cast-iron baking dish – a wedding gift – Lanzerac Wine Estate (in 1977) and and why they thought it fitting. Just like that she has used to bake every malva she has ever made. right: The plated malva Michael rated 9.95 (out of 10). Heat the oven to 180°C. Grease, another malva-Lanzerac connection human evolution, there was a missing with butter, an ovenproof glass or came up when phoning Peter Veldsman link. Maggie and David’s recipes couldn’t porcelain dish about 30 x 20 x 5 cm. at his restaurant Emily’s in Cape Town’s be traced back any further back and all I outside people and there are inside no apricot jam. There was no brandy Don’t use an aluminium, enamel Kloof Street. During his long, illustrious knew was malva’s real debut happened people,’ and pointing to the bubbled or rose geranium either. And it predated or any metal container. Cut a career as chef and academic, Peter has on either side of the Helshoogte pass, edge, ‘you’ll see the sugars have cara- the commercial production of marsh- piece of foil big enough to cover seen it all, and he was happy to remi- during a golden age of grand buffets. melized all along the base, not just mallow sweets. the dish and grease it well. nisce about his first malva. Then, with my deadline looming, one around the edges – the inside is where All of this suggested malva pudding Sift the flour and bicarb into ‘I remember it well…’ said Peter, visit to Silwood provided a double malva it gets all goojee.’ may have little to do with the theories a bowl and stir in the sugar. In laughing fondly. It was the 1960s and epiphany. In a generous-spirited gesture, Although feather-light on eating, this touted. In fact, it wasn’t even baked. another bowl, beat the egg very renowned hotelier David Rawdon had Alicia and her daughter, vice-principal, malva held its shape when cut; a square Taking pride in her brevity, Mrs De Klerk well and add the remaining ingre- purchased the Lanzerac (by 1975 he’d Carianne, had made Michael’s recipe of cooking-school perfection served with writes, ‘My object has always been … dients (excluding those for the turned it into one of the top 300 hotels and, later, facilitated my greatest find yet. vanilla-speckled cream. Finally, I got it. to make everything as short and simple sauce) one by one, beating well in the world). ‘One of the cooks made As Michael and I admired the malva’s Savouring each note of bright acidity as possible’. No kidding – her method between each addition. Add this this inherited English baked pudding and honey-toned centre, he said, ‘There are and toasted caramel, I refused to surren- simply reads: ‘Boil’. mixture to the dry ingredients and der my plate until every last crumb of It got me thinking, perhaps the name beat well with a wooden spoon. soft, sticky ‘goojee-ness’ was eaten. derives from Latin? The Latin word Pour the batter into the pre- Understanding my proof was to be ‘malva’ means ‘mallow’ and mucilagi- pared dish and cover with foil, found not only in a pudding but in a sup- nous extracts of the marsh mallow plant greased side down. Bake for 45 porting text, Alicia offered access to her (Malvaceae family) were used to make minutes until well risen and brown Lanzerac Hotel and Spa mother’s cookbook collection. Together early incarnations of the puffy pink con- (add five minutes without the foil if When told that our room – number 113 – is a real ‘hot cake’, frequently booked by one par- we paged through macaroni pudding, fections we blister over braai coals not sufficiently brown). If not prop- ticular Italian gentleman, I wondered whether this has more to do with the five shoe racks than national pudding, canary pudding – today. Theory four, perhaps? erly baked, it won’t take up all the the French doors opening onto the garden. Your only concern in the green sanctuary of The more research for another time! Then, This is just one source and all it does, sauce and it will be stodgy inside. Lanzerac Hotel and Spa is calculating the odds of being hit by an acorn and eggs benny on on page 93 of South African Cookery for now, is push the missing link back by When the pudding is almost the terrace with a rear-end view of the Helderberg is more than pleasant. www.lanzerac.co.za Made Easy by Mrs PW De Klerk, there it 40 years. So my search is by no means done, heat the sauce ingredients, was: malva pudding, published in 1924. over – the journey continues. Meanwhile, ensuring the sugar and butter is Winter offer: Getaway readers qualify for an exclusive special offer valid until The preface dated back another dec- what I can offer with certainty is the melted. Once done, remove from 30 September 2013. Pay R895 a person a night sharing for bed and breakfast (normally ade to 1912 and the ingredients checked ‘original’ recipe. Bake it – not only to the oven and pour over the sauce. R1 225), R1 145 a person for dinner, bed and breakfast, or R1 495 a person for the Spa out: flour, sugar, eggs, milk, butter, vine- honour Maggie, but to understand what Serve warm with a little thin cream Gourmet Package, which includes a 60-minute spa treatment as well as breakfast and dinner. gar, soda (bicarbonate, I presume) but malva is truly supposed to be. or vanilla custard.

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