TASTES THAT BIND PUMPKIN PATCH A little sugar and a dash of cinnamon can keep a small boy busy in the kitchen, and turn pumpkin into one of his favourite foods, says SAM WOULIDGE PHOTOGRAPH JAN RAS PRODUCTION HANNAH LEWRY 42 My mom’s attitude to children and vegetables alternated between encouragement (“If you eat all your pumpkin your hair will grow out nice and curly”) and punishment (“If you don’t eat your pumpkin then you’re not leaving this table”). I hated pumpkin, mostly because my ma did not adhere to the old-fashioned Afrikaans school of culinary philosophical thought, namely that life was bitter, so vegetables should be sweet. There was never any sugar sprinkled on our pumpkin. Or on our carrots. Nor on our gem squash. And definitely not on our mielies. Vegetables were steamed and lightly salted. Buttered if we were being indulged. Even sweet potatoes – the very name insists on them being served sweet – were served in their skins with only blobs of butter for company. But on very rare, very special occasions, pumpkin became party fare when it was fried into plump fritters and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. I remember these pampoenkoekies well because when they did make their sweet appearance, I ate them without complaining, focusing instead on the cinnamon sugar-topumpkin ratio and imagining them to be a sort of vegetable consolation prize, since pancakes were obviously not on offer. My husband, Jacques, whose Afrikaans mother had married the eldest son of an Afrikaans Free State farmer, grew up eating pampoenkoekies on a regular basis. He recalls a childhood of sweet vegetables. My Afrikaans mother had married an English-speaking South African, so perhaps it was for this reason that her cooking style wasn’t as traditionally Afrikaans as it might have otherwise been. Growing up, my identity was complex. “But what am I?” I would ask my parents, when the taunts of other children became too much; when the English kids called me a “rock spider” and the Afrikaans kids called me a “soutie”. “You are South African,” my ma and dad insisted time and time again. Now I have a son with an identity even more complex than mine. He has an Afrikaans father, a partly English mother and, by birth, his heritage is Xhosa. As parents, Jacques and I are determined that he be proud of all parts of his identity, but, just as my parents did for me, we will also teach him that he is, above all, a South African. And that means an amalgamation of languages and stories and flavours. With this in mind, I learned how to make pampoenkoekies the way my mother-in-law makes them. I made them for Jacques, because he loves them and because they remind him of his childhood and of his Free State Ouma Phoebe. And I made them for Seb, so that he too can one day have childhood taste memories that are similar to those of his father. As I sprinkled the cinnamon sugar on the puffy fritters, I smiled in memory of my own ma, turned to my son, whose beautiful crop of dreadlocked curls proudly proclaim his blackness, and said to him, “If you eat these pampoenkoekies, your hair will stay curly.” Then we ate those sweet pumpkin fritters in memory of those who had gone before. Because we are all the sum of our parts. W confessionsofahungrywoman.com; @samwoulidge PUMPKIN FRITTERS This is one of Seb’s favourite things to make, the mushing and mixing appeals to him as much as the sprinkling of the cinnamon sugar does. In our family we believe pampoenkoekies are best eaten piping hot, while standing around the kitchen table. Makes 12 EASY GREAT VALUE Preparation: 20 minutes Cooking: 20 minutes pumpkin 500 g, steamed, drained and cooled free-range eggs 2, beaten cake flour 60 g baking powder 1 heaped t salt a pinch butter and oil, for frying cinnamon sugar, for sprinkling 1 Mash the cooled, steamed pumpkin with a fork once. (I’m lazy so I buy the ready-cubed pumpkin in packets and steam it in the microwave according to package instructions). 2 Add the beaten eggs and mix. Sift in the cake flour, baking powder and salt. 3 Melt a little butter in a pan and add a little oil. When it starts sizzling, drop in heaped teaspoons of batter, making sure that they are nicely spaced apart, and fry each side until lightly browned. 4 Remove from pan and drain on kitchen paper. 5 Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and eat warm. HEALTH-CONSCIOUS, MEAT-FREE WINE: <strong>Woolworths</strong> Shannon Sauvignon Blanc 2016 PORTRAIT MICHAEL LE GRANGE
“I MADE PAMPOENKOEKIES FOR SEB, SO THAT ONE DAY HE CAN HAVE CHILDHOOD TASTE MEMORIES THAT ARE SIMILAR TO THOSE OF HIS FATHER”
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