BILTONG AND POTROAST DIKDERM
Last week Theo nursed his mother yeast while I nursed a mother of a babbalas. No he doesn’t have a fungal growth between his toes but he does have this dough besigheid under a lappie which he fiddles with every few days. He read up about these bakeries in San Francisco San Francisco
The babbalas which I’ve been nursing is due to working behind the bar at the Crazy Crayfish where I’ve been meeting more of the locals and drinking mandatory shooters. Last night I met Rooi Voёl. I just love the nick names these West Coast people go by. Apparently byname goes back to the old days when many of the farmers had the same name and it was necessary to distinguish from Jan Hoender who farmed with chickens to Jan Jakkals who was popular with the ladies to Jan Petrol who owned the garage to Jan Bakoor with the lopsided head. These byname were even printed on their cheque books so the people at the bank could tell the difference. Genuine.
Since Voortrekker days, the boere haven’t had much imagination in naming their many offspring and they still prefer to stick to tradition by keeping oupa groetjie’s namesake alive but they sure do have imagination when it comes to things like biltong and braaivleis. I think I could write a book just on different ways of eating biltong. The most unusual way so far is Oom Danie’s who soaks his slices in his coffee which gives the coffee a smaaklike flavour and then afterwards he chews on his coffee marinated biltong. Natalie, the owner of the Crazy Crayfish likes to cut a few slices, not all the way through, and then sandwich slivers of garlic in between the biltong which she snacks on. She also spruces up her potato bake with layers of sliced biltong. These people grew up on doorstopper sarmies with lashings of butter and dik slices of biltong wedged in the middle. They all have their own secret recipe to make their biltong and would probably suffer from withdrawal symptoms if they went without any for a week. Usually they hunt Gemsbok to keep their supplies topped up but yesterday Theo helped them slaughter 7 cows for meat and beef biltong. Guess what happened to the cow hides. Yip, he brought the whole bloody lot back to the caravan park. 7 brides for 7 brothers or was it 7 hides for 7 hundred kilos of thongs.
I helped him to work the smelly tick infested hides by spreading them on black bags and he rubbed 50 kg’s of coarse salt onto the fatty side. We left them like that overnight so that the moisture could draw out and they become pickled which prevents them from vrotting (the hides that is, not the ticks). Next morning Theo strapped a few planks together for supports and we hung the hides for a little while for the moisture to run off. We folded the still salted hides into black bags as air tight as we could and you can apparently store them like that for years. Theo plans to sell a few hides to the tannery in Springbok which would help pay for our 100 kg heifer which we bought. Alternatively we will have to build a new cupboard on the back of the truck to transport the hides so that Theo can eventually make enough bullwhips and thongs for the whole of Namibia
My birthday came around again this year much to my disgust. The first thing I did that morning was coil a snake around my fingers. It was Triston’s, Natalie’s sons, pet Rat Snake which he brought around to show us. This being the day before hungry Anchovy (they are west coasters remember) was fed his weekly tiny pink mouse. Theo surprised me by booking us on a horse ride in Port Nolloth as a birthday present which I absolutely loved although I didn’t have the guts to break into a gallop across the sand dunes with the wind in my hair and a feeling of freedom as the horse and I became one. Mmm I’m loosing my nerve I think although I didn’t want to look too competent on a charging horse and give Theo ideas of how to salt his biltong. I recently read that in the Voortrekker days, some people used to wedge a chunk of spiced raw meat under their horses saddle so that it could get salted from the horse’s sweaty flanks. Now that’s one kind of biltong I could give a miss.
The Spar in Port Nolloth sold vetderms which I think excited Theo much more than the horse ride did. He grabbed the last packet of the stuff and excitedly dragged me off to make a fire to cook the coiled slippery stuff. Before you go eeuuuw, what do you think they use for sausage casing? Theo braaied the marinated derms until they were crispy and quite tasty although I suspect your heart will stop if you eat the fatty stuff on a regular basis. We washed it down with champagne and Theo boiled the last 2 pieces to extract the fat. He wants to make a lard mixture to rub into the leather thongs when he plaits his bullwhips.
Well I’ve gotta go now. I want to see if the ticks have crawled off the 7 cow tails so that we can turn them into 7 flyswatters.
Babbalas - hangover
Besigheid - business
Lappie - cloth
Balletjie – small ball
Vroetel - fiddle
Byname – nick name
Hoender - chicken
Jakkals – Jackal
Bakoor – cauliflower ears
Boere - farmers
Oupa groetjie – great great grandfather
Braai Vleis – barbeque meat
Oom - uncle
Smaaklike - tasty
Dik – fat
Vrotting - rotting
Derms – casing
Vetderms – Colon
Rooi Voёl – Red bird (in this case- Red dick / penis)
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