Durban - Fresh food markets have mushroomed in the Midlands. Duncan Guy visits four of them.
COUNTRY PUMPKIN MARKET
If you think the answer to solving South Africa’s problems lies in entrepreneurship, you can walk the talk by supporting two lesser-known markets in the Midlands.
Entrepreneurship is the buzzword at the Country Pumpkin Market close to the Mandela Capture Site. For the past year it has been the focal point of a development programme, giving students on a catering course the opportunity to learn how to run their own businesses.
“As the profits take off, we sell them the stall,” said Esme Raw, catering co-ordinator at the Ethembeni Place of Hope, a community outreach programme in the area.
It has a local theme, specialising in local products. Proceeds from pork, chicken, meat and egg sales along with pickles, jams, herbs, plants and beeswax candles are split between shareholders on a profit-sharing basis.
The topic of young people looking to entrepreneurship as their future career choice is, of course, close to the hearts of many, ranging from school teachers to people such as former Durban Chamber of Commerce President Akash Singh.
“Lots of schools focus on sport. Why not the same for business?” he recently remarked to The Independent on Saturday, suggesting a business blazer as a token of recognition for pupils who achieved in their enterprises while still at school.
Perhaps the small beginning at the Country Pumpkin Market could lead to bigger things.
l The Country Pumpkin Market is on the R103, between the Nelson Mandela Capture Site and the Piggly Wiggly complex, just before the Dargle turnoff. It is open every Saturday, from 8am-11am.
DARGLE FOOD MARKET
This is never the same twice in a row. The monthly event follows a different theme.
Veggie seedlings from rural school food gardens and the young folk selling them will be the ingredients of next week’s theme: Young Entrepreneurs. “What’s more, they will be non-genetically modified,” said organiser Adine Griffin.
A constant feature among the themes is the breakfast on offer, bacon and egg rolls. The smell from the cooking pan greets people on arrival at the venue, the Lion’s River Polo Club.
Other edibles to supplement a main meal of a morning feast usually include coffee, cake and home-made lemon squash.
For consumption back home are fresh vegetables and other farm produce – chicken and occasionally, duck – products of the Dargle Valley.
Market days sometimes host storytelling for kids.
July’s market will be around the theme “The Great Bread Bake Off”. The aromas should rival that of the egg and bacon rolls.
l The Dargle Farmers’ Market is at the Lion’s River Polo Club, on the Dargle Road off the R103. It is open once a month. June 7 is next.
KARKLOOF MARKET
The traditional Durban dish, bunny chow, is a well established fast food. But what about the Cape’s bobotie?
You can buy the mince-bread-fruit-curry-egg dish and walk away munching it from the Karkloof Farmers’ Market, the largest and most established of the Midlands’sfood markets.
Howick chef Lou Scott-Barnes started making the dish most people associate with being in a casserole about 18 months ago. “There was a lovely Afrikaans girl at the market who did them. But she packed up and went home to Cape Town.
“People then came asking me for them, so I figured out how to make them.”
Scott-Barnes used to make Greek spanakopita wraps. She adapted them to being bobotie wraps, filling them with slices of the Cape Malay dish with ingredients that include almonds, dried fruit, curry, bread soaked in milk, egg custard and bay leaves.
“It’s South Africa’s answer to a Greek delicacy,” she says.
l Karkloof Farmers’ Market is open every Saturday from 7am. It is just outside Howick on the road to Karkloof.
PETERSGATE HERB CENTRE
Beer and food go well together, even in the morning. So the organisers of the monthly food market at Petersgate Herb Centre have learned.
“There will be more food for sale at the next market,” said organiser Karen Makin.
This will supplement the monopoly a stallholder had on grub at the last market, feeding visitors rolls packed with roast pork and crackling, coated in apple sauce.
Among new items on the menu will be German sausages produced by a German-speaking resident.
A strict qualification to sell at this market is to be local to the immediate area.
The hooch on sale comes from Ronald McClelland’s Lions River Craft Beer Brewery in the Caversham Valley. It’s a labour of love for beer fanatic McClelland who travelled the world collecting tips on how to master the art of brewing his own beer.
Among his odd jobs was one at an ancient brewery in Switzerland. “I also served pizzas at the Huntington Beach Pier (the famous surfing spot in California) and worked as a foreman at a landscape company in Denver, Colorado.”
The Switzerland experience, however, proved more useful to his future in the Midlands.
He produces the beer using computerised equipment that is suited to a one-man set-up. He bought the equipment from Germany. At the last market, his Bavarian Festival lager proved the most popular, followed by his Bohemian Pilsener and then the American Pale Ale.
Another brew available to ward off the cold on a chilly Midlands winter morning is apple cider, flavoured with cinnamon and nutmeg with a touch of sherry added to give it a tiny kick.
l The Petersgate Market will open on June 21. It is next door to Granny Mouse, 2km from Lidgetton and 6km from Balgowan on the R103.
Independent on Saturday