East Coast Tables
Why a second book on KZN?
The first book featured people and produce of our coast. So the whole of the hinterland, some might say the heartland, of KZN was waiting to be covered, uncovered, discovered! The Midlands and the Berg, well, they might as well be one big farm. They absolutely burst with fabulous stuff to eat and drink! Argentina has its Pampas - our northern highlands offers the best beef country in SA.
What sets your new book apart from other cookbooks?
It goes behind the recipes to tell stories of people who have contributed. It introduces a variety of brilliant local products grown and made in KZN. It celebrates our own local food heroes from every community. It's a tour of KZN through our kitchens, gardens and farms. It's a good read, we hope, as well as a fun kitchen tool.
We asked Erica questions about putting their second impressive book together:
East Coast Tables: The Inland Edition launched at the East Coast Radio Garden and Home Show in June. It follows the Coastal Edition which launched in 2010, winning the Best Regional Cuisine Book in South Africa in the Gourmand World Cookbooks Awards.
Spending time with Erica Platter is always verbally delicious. Her celebrated background in journalism has given her a wonderful command of the English language, peppered with a salty wit and dashes of mischief. It is no wonder that her second cook book with Clinton Friedman is heading for another serving of success.
Stuck in a muddy cabbage patch, face to face with an angry pig - there's more to putting together a cookbook than simply whipping up your favourite recipes and making them look pretty on a plate.
LOIS KUHLE met up with well known foodie, journalist and author, Erica Platter to get a taste of the 'real' story behind her latest cookbook.
BURSTING WITH FLAVOUR
What exploits and experiences have you left OFF the page?
Clinton (ace photographer) and I always have eventful road trips. Our timetables are minutely planned, we dash from one farm to another, one kitchen to the next, and this time our photo safaris were just after the very heavy snows. It was very cold, and wet. Naturally, it was I, not the driver (Clinton) who had to get out of his bakkie and slosh through chicken and duck and pig and sheep and cow manure to open umpteen farm gates in the pouring rain. We got stuck in scarily deep mud in one of the vast hills of cabbages on the Dargle Road and slipped and slid for about an hour until we managed to escape. Why were in a cabbage patch? Well, KZN grows vast quantities of greens and we thought the cabbages, sparkling with raindrops, might make a good cover. They didn't.
Then I had to try and placate a very cross and enormous pig, well a sow, I suppose, who emerged from the bushes on Enaleni farm and objected vociferously to Clinton trying to take a picture of its piglet being held by farm owner Dave Brennan. Clinton is always quick, but this time he got the shot in seconds and we all retreated ignominiously to safer ground.
How did you find all the fascinating people to contribute to the book?Most cooks love sharing recipes, and are happy to recommend other cooks. As a journo you sniff a story, follow leads, work the phones, email, pin people down and winkle out other suggestions. For example: Graeme Taute, the best bread-making teacher in KZN - he even taught my husband to make the most brilliant baguettes and sourdough loaves etc., put me in touch with the Solms family, whose Highland Flour Graeme swears by. So we travelled from Lidgetton, where Graeme lives and bakes (and is writing his first novel) to the Berg, beyond Winterton, to the lovely Solms family who grow and stone grind the best, purest flour you can find. From them it was a natural progression to their neighbours, the Honiballs - yes, Henry, of springbok rugby fame - who is a grain commodity trader in Winterton, and whose wife Marisca farms and cooks.
And your favourite pics?
I am certainly biased but I think Clinton's documentary style is brilliant, from the wide angle sweeping landscapes to the animal and plant close-ups to the food shots. I think the book's images are superb. Nothing (except my neck in the authors' pic) is photo-shopped, nothing is artificially lit, everything is shot as it is, on the day, when it comes out of the oven, as it grows.
Which are your favourite recipes?It depends on what's fresh and in season or what's in the fridge. I do have a special soft spot for recipes like Richard Poynton's Hollandaise sauce, because it's so ridiculously easy, it breaks all the cheffy rules! He makes it in a blender, a microwave, and a thermos flask! Yes! I also love my friend Lu's foolproof souffle for two.
Article published in The Ridge Magazine Aug-Sept 2013
Any special food finds, that you hadn't encountered before?
The Highland Flour from the Berg; Sue Hoffman's incredible Wayfarer trout; Croft Farm's chickens; The Gourmet Greek's feta and yoghurt. All the ingredients we have featured are special.
How do you and Clinton work together?
He calls me ‘Rude Old One’. Well! Who's being rude?! We get on very well and hardly ever disagree on anything.
What's your next trick?
My lips are sealed. But it will be more delicious revelations and recipes from KZN. We have such fabulous food here, made in so many interesting ways. There are many more stories to tell.
East Coast Tables: Inland Edition, The Midlands and the Berg
is available online from the publishers,
East Coast Radio (www.ecr.co.za) and from selected book stores.