“KZN should be the leader in South African food tourism. I don’t know how we let the Cape, with its pale, pallid, insipid cuisine, claim and get away with that position!” says Erica Platter with vehemence at her home in Simbithi. It was this fiery determination that drove East Coast Tables, a beautiful new cook book celebrating the specialities, flavours, family recipes and kitchen secrets of our wonderful coast.
Erica, along with her daughter-in-law and managing editor Gywn Platter, photographer-designer extraordinaire Clinton Friedman, and backers East Coast Radio, has documented her venture into kitchens humble and grand, collecting generations-old recipes, and classics with a new twist; saluting an array of East Coast food people and places, from venerable tearooms to swish hotels.
“This has been an amazing journey filled with smiles, never a dull moment,” is how Clinton describes the process of production of the book. “I’ve met the most extraordinary people, visited the most wonderful places, tasted out of this world food . . . and to think it’s all here at home on the coast of KwaZulu-Natal.”
In the author’s notes, Erica is outspoken on behalf of the team: “We won’t deny there’s an element of ‘The Kingdom strikes back’ about this book. The food of the KZN coast is perplexingly under-rated. While Cape, Karoo, West Coast and bush cookbooks abound, no book tells a broader East Coast story. It’s time to blow our own vuvuzelas!”
There’s no doubt that East Coast Tables will blow your mind!
Click here for profile on Oyster Box chef Kevin Joseph
“Our food is so bright, vivid, bold, multi-layered, like the communities who are at home here,” says Erica. “A masala of honest, earthy, authentic ingredients and flavours. Quite different from the rest of the country. Better, we believe! We hope this book will encourage visitors and tourists to explore and enjoy all this, and make locals proud.”
Devi Sankaree Govender, journalist for Carte Blanche and the Sunday Times, says in the foreword: “I grew up in rural, coastal KZN, where we hardly ever went to the shops. Our ingredients came from the soil and around us. Looking back, we were probably the pioneers of the organic movement – we just didn’t know it!”
While the emphasis is on easy-to-make cooks’ recipes rather than complicated chefs’ techniques, a number of coast-based food pros have contributed to the book, cheerleading its focus on local bounty and traditions.
“Beach food is all about simplicity, freshness and the best ingredients, not chemistry experiments,” says Shaun Munro, executive chef of the Beverly Hills Hotel, whose Gran’s Pickled Fish recipe is a winner. Kevin Joseph, executive chef of The Oyster Box, says he “loves the unpretentiousness of East Coast Cooking”.
“We’re not into foam and froth. People here like comfort food, and they really do know their spices.”
Up-and-coming Sibaya Casino chef Petrus Madutlela questions the use of ingredients flown in from other countries. “We should delight in, as this book does, wild greens, fruit and unusual veggies grown in market gardens and on local farms, fish caught off our coast.”
Springbok and Sharks rugby captain John Smit throws in a seafood recipe of note, and cricket legend Shaun Pollock a luscious banana ice-cream. Local restaurants have revealed the secrets of signature dishes.
Now see “Lunch with John Smit”.
From amadumbe to fresh palm hearts, from imfino and bhaji to seafood and spices, from Mauritian to Zulu, Chinese to Indian and many more, this book honours and documents how we cook and eat and entertain right here. Brilliantly photographed, this is our coast on a plate, on a kitchen table, on a veranda overlooking the sea.
Useful info: East Coast Tables by Erica Platter, Clinton Friedman and Gwyn Platter. Published by East Coast Radio, available at Exclusive Books, Pick n Pay and other retailers for R289.