Malvapudding.Pdf

MALVA PUDDING 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 desserts – 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 koeksisters and melktert? 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 54 Getaway July 2013 www.getaway.co.za 55 Untitled-1 1 2013/05/06 11:18 AM 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, bobotie 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 koeksister 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.

Load more