Food & Home Entertaining
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EATING LOCALLY<br />
n the little town of<br />
Velddrif, you’ll find an<br />
enterprise that’s taking<br />
South African salt production<br />
to a new level. Solar, handharvested<br />
sea salt is an<br />
environmentally friendly<br />
product with a low carbon<br />
footprint. And it’s a whole lot<br />
healthier than the insipid, iodised<br />
salt that comes out of most shakers.<br />
Khoisan Trading Company was<br />
founded by husband-and-wife team,<br />
Yntze and Joan Schrauwen, who<br />
settled on the Berg River in 1991 and<br />
were looking to set up an exciting<br />
enterprise in their new home. Yntze<br />
became interested in producing salt<br />
in the ideal conditions found on this<br />
stretch of coast. He sourced investors<br />
and established the Velddrif Salt Works<br />
on a nearby farm. Yntze began<br />
pumping sea water from an aquifer (an<br />
underground layer of permeable waterbearing<br />
rock) into drying pans and was<br />
soon producing high-quality salt.<br />
In 1994, Yntze and Joan started<br />
Khoisan, a separate trading company<br />
that would diversify the product and<br />
sell it to a range of outlets. They built<br />
smaller pans for the hand-harvesting<br />
of unreined, unwashed, non-iodised<br />
salt. This unprocessed salt retains its<br />
natural minerals and trace elements,<br />
and doesn’t contain artiicial additives<br />
or anticaking agents.<br />
The little business has gone from<br />
strength to strength, becoming an<br />
important employer in Velddrif. The<br />
Schrauwen’s daughter, Britt Geach,<br />
is the creative director of Khoisan.<br />
I met her at their factory and shop in<br />
Velddrif. A tall blonde with a Khoisan<br />
cap perched on a head of unruly hair,<br />
she was all-welcoming, exuding warmth<br />
and enthusiasm for the family business.<br />
Britt showed me some of the products,<br />
ranging from bath salts and gardeners’<br />
gold dust (gypsum) to soap and body<br />
cleanser. But, pride of place went to the<br />
various edible salts, ranging in lavours<br />
from tomato-and-olive to spicy-grill.<br />
“Sea salt has become the fashionable<br />
thing in the gourmet-chic world,” said Britt.<br />
“It’s a key ingredient used by top chefs,<br />
often dusted over a dish at the last minute<br />
to give diners the pleasure of the slight<br />
crackle and then the delicious melting.”<br />
I placed a few grains on my tongue.<br />
There was a distinct mineral taste and<br />
a roundness of lavour. The crystals<br />
prickled my tongue, then dissolved<br />
28 JUNE 2016