BOOK EXCERPT: Remembering Sydda Essop, who turned recipes into a social history of the Karoo

We had a friend in Beaufort West who once compiled a great Karoo cookbook. It was a perfect symphony of interesting food and immersive storytelling. But her life and achievements went way beyond the book.We last saw her more than a decade ago and learned that she passed away in 2024. Her story, which we captured after her book launch, will live on in the annals of Karoo heroes. And here it is, fresh and relevant as ever.The Essop familyEveryone in Beaufort West in the Central Karoo knows the Essop family of Beaufort West. Sydda, daughter of Amina and Solly, became best known for her remarkable book, Karoo Kitchen, first published in 2012.Her father Solly used to be the famous one in the Essop family. He was a retailer, the maker of the locally famous cooldrink called Sonsap, and a fiercely committed anti-apartheid activist from the 1940s through to his death in 1984.The Essops’ big house on the outskirts of Beaufort West hosted many well-known politicians.“Nelson Mandela often held me on his lap when I was a baby,” Sydda Essop told us with a shy smile. We were visiting her at her mother’s house in Beaufort West in 2012, for a profile that would be published in Country Life magazine.Sydda Essop in the backyard of her mother Amina Essop’s house in Beaufort West. (Photo: Chris Marais) Solly se kindEssop told us she would travel with her father when he was going around the countryside campaigning for farmworkers’ rights.“People knew me as ‘Solly se kind’ (Solly’s child). That’s when I became interested in how people lived, and what they ate.”Essop studied art at the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town. She became involved in helping women and children, especially those whose husbands had been arrested after taking part in protest marches.Later she would start The Karoo Gender Forum in the Central Karoo to empower young women and girls. Essop also became a published poet.Her fascination for people continued when she later worked in the supermarket she co-owned with her sister. “I wondered how people ate on an R800 grant, as it was then. I’d see people buying chicken on a Sunday. They’d buy cabbage, beetroots, carrots, fat pieces and tins of fish. I wanted to know: how did they prepare it?“When I drove past a farmhouse, I’d wonder what they were having for lunch.”Fusion KarooThese questions led to her to do something very few people would have done. In 2007 Essop sold her house in Cape Town and set off in her Nissan Navara to find out what the people of the Karoo eat. “Karoo food is one of the root cuisines of South Africa,” said Essop. Now with increased in-migration of former urbanites, it is becoming more conscious of its foodie credentials, and people from the cities are demanding wholesome Karoo food. The Karoo’s cuisine is being spiced up by new arrivals – Somalis, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis. So many have already left their mark on it: Malay, Trekboer, Xhosa.Aunt Siena Blow came from Victoria West and was married in Beaufort West. (Photo: Craig Fraser / Quivertree Publications)Stored for posterityTwo things convinced Essop she’d made the right decision. First, she’d sought out the help of her mentor, Cecyl Esau of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, a former head of uMkhonto weSizwe.“He met me for coffee, and he just listened to my ideas. At our next meeting, he gave me a digital recorder and told me: ‘This is going to be a social document, and these stories need to be told for posterity.’”Second, Essop felt encouraged after meeting Craig Fraser and Libby Doyle of Quivertree Publications. They had published another award-winning Karoo cookbook, Prickly Pears and Pomegranates by Bernadette le Roux and Marianne Palmer of Cranemere Farm near Pearston.“I needed publishers who understood this was a collective piece of work. I often tell the children and battered women I work with, that you need to believe and to dream. But what I’ve also realised is that you need someone to believe in you. And that is what I got with Craig and Libby, and editors Johan van Zyl and Lin Murray. I cannot speak highly enough of them.”Essop moved back in with her mother Amina, using Beaufort West as a base. She featured people from Loxton, Victoria West, Murraysburg, Prince Albert, Britstown, Hopetown, Nelspoort and, of course, Beaufort West.Cooks featured in Karoo Kitchen included Wilma Bruwer and Mietjie van Wyk of Loxton. (Photo: Craig Fraser / Quivertree Publications) All of South AfricaShe talked to boeretannies and recorded their thoughts about food and life and their recipes. She spoke to people with Dutch surnames, French Huguenot surnames, English surnames, Greek, Portuguese, Xhosa and Malay.She spoke to farmers wives and farmworkers. Some of them made her lovely teatime spreads of scones and clotted cream with homemade jam. Others asked if she would mind drinking tea from their own cups, since there were no others.One of her most vivid memories was interviewing a Somali woman, who lived in what was then the poorest and most violent settlement in Beaufort West, a place they called Baghdad.“What the Somalis and the Congolese have taught us is how to do informal business. They come with absolutely nothing. This Somali woman I interviewed had nothing. But the other day I met her to give her this book, and she was doing so much better. She and her family are still living in their store, but it is much better, in a different area and bigger. Her children are speaking fluent English and Afrikaans and playing tennis.”Horiya Mohamed’s recipes from her homeland of Somalia. (Photo: Craig Fraser / Quivertree Publications) An interesting food heritageOn the front cover of Karoo Kitchen it says: “Heritage recipes and true stories from the heart of South Africa.”These words neatly encapsulate the book. Here you will not just learn how to cook venison, but specifically the stuffed springbok loin that Amanda Loots of Victoria West likes to make. In its pages you’ll encounter Debbie Anstey’s chicken soup and kneidlach, Benita Johnson’s marinated grilled mutton rib and Sophie Louw’s method of making kaiings (mutton crackling).It has tradition along with innovative meals, like the late Bokkie Botha’s starter with figs and ham, or his famous spicy bread sticks, devised with one of the upcoming chefs he mentored, Henry Olivier. Famous tracker Pokkie Benade gave his family recipe for kambro jam and revealed his favourite edible and medicinal Karoo plants: dassiesbos, rooivergeet, willekeur and ystertong.The book contains Bettie Japhta’s midwife recipes to help babies with jaundice, babies born with a caul, babies with wind, and mothers who don’t have milk.Amina Essop, Essop’s mother, offered her lamb curry and refreshing pomegranate juice recipes, along with reminiscences of how she came to the Karoo from India to marry Solly.A gift to the KarooThat is the charm of this book. Alongside people’s personal recipes, they give you an insight into their lives. There are meals of luxury, like rolled shoulder of venison and naartjie ice cream, and meals of economy and opportunism, like sheep’s head baked in a sheep’s stomach, and leg of caracal.Porcupine crackling is apparently delicious, and this book is where you’ll find out how to prepare it.It is Dillys Trollip of Britstown (the source of a wonderful lamb sosatie recipe) who puts her finger on a big part of the appeal of the Karoo and food: “In the Karoo, hospitality is very important, probably because we live so far apart. When we call on each other, things are done properly.”For Sydda Essop, this book was an act of love.“People absorb flavours and ideas from one another, right across class and race barriers. Food is what binds us together. As I travelled and spoke to so many people – far more than are reflected in the book – I learnt humility, because I could see we have all suffered from the past. I could also see we are united by similar values.“This book is a tribute to the people that I interviewed. This is my gift to the Karoo.” DMSydda Essop died in 2024, after a long battle with cancer. Her book, Karoo Kitchen, went through two printing phases and is no longer in circulation.This story first appeared on Karoo Space. For more classic stories on the Karoo by Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit, try the Karoo Quartet (Karoo Roads I-IV: R960 including courier in SA) and Klein Karoo Magic (R400 including courier in South Africa). Enquiries: contact Julienne at julie@karoospace.co.za