Anna's recipe file

I avoid yeast and double boilers. I can’t chop parsley with lighting strokes, bone a chook or crack an egg one-handed. I "fold in" only when my back is to the wall.

These recipes are the ones I use, as opposed to those that one cuts out of magazines meaning to try them some time. I very seldom add to my regular collection.

Some recipes I got from my mother, some I got from friends. Some I just absorbed from watching my mother over the years. (We spent a lot of time socialising in my mother’s kitchen while she cooked.) Most I adjusted to suit my policy of exerting the least possible effort in the shortest possible time.

Many are traditional South African recipes: the ethnic comfort food of the expatriate.

There is no single South African cuisine. The different ethnic groups cooked according to their traditions. However, significant cross-pollination has occurred and many of South Africa's most popular dishes are hybrids of various cuisines.

When the Dutch first settled at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652 their job was to grow European vegetables for the ships going to the Dutch East Indies. The sailors needed fresh vegetables to prevent scurvy.

In 1688 the French Huguenots (my ancestors) arrived bringing grape cuttings for wine and their Provençal cuisine which fused with that of the Cape Dutch and enlivened it with the addition of fresh herbs.

In the 1700's the Dutch imported slaves from Indonesia. They came to be known as Cape Malays. Many were employed as cooks and forever altered Cape Dutch cuisine with the addition of tropical spices.

When the British took over the Cape Colony from the Dutch in 1815 they brought with them the British-Indian cuisine (such as "curries" and "chutneys") that they had come to enjoy during their colonization of India.

In the late 1800's the British transported indentured workers from southern India to tend the sugar-cane plantations in the Natal Colony. They brought their fiery hot predominantly vegetarian cuisine.

Soon merchants from the northern Indian state of Gujerat migrated to Natal independently. (Among them was Mahatma Ghandi who lived in South Africa for 21 years.) They introduced their aromatic and complex vegetarian cuisine.

The pioneers who trekked into the interior of the continent needed to take supplies that were light and nourishing: from them we got biltong, dry boerewors and rusks.

Until the advent of the railways, "transportryers" with ox wagons took supplies to the gold fields and to the outlying districts. They perfected "potjiekos": a slowly simmered stew of layered meat and vegetables, made in a three-legged cast iron pot over a few coals at the outspan.

All these things make up my repertoire. My recipes are not in any particular order and they are not particularly gourmet stuff, but they are easy, mostly inexpensive, they work and I haven’t had any complaints.

Cook and enjoy.