The Hanepot grape was also now made into Grape jam.^
The fruit remains whole if carefully preserved.
We used sometimes also to make raisins. The grapes,
after being sorted and all the bad ones taken out, are put
into small baskets, and dipped into a large pot of boiling
“ lye,”✪ Raisins made of the ashes of a shrub called Gouna, growing
on the Karoo — which contains a quantity of potash or soda.
This extract is made so strong that an egg could float on it,
and the grape after being immersed in the boiling mixture
for a few minutes cracks ; we then lay them out on mats
on our flat roofs, and in a fortnight they will be beautifully
clear and dry for packing away. Excellent raisins are
made at Worcester and Robertson, Cape Colony, it being
very dry and warm there.
Many of the farm labourers, whose homes were at the
nearest Moravian Mission Station, “ Mamre,” got a holi-
day at the end of March, and were allowed to go home
for a few weeks. Everything after a long South African
summer has a burnt-up and very dry appearance at the end
of March, and every one welcomes the first showers. In
the Western Province, where my home was, less rain falls in
the summer than in some other parts of the Colony, and
those who saw the country with its brilliant carpet of
wild-flowers in September and October, would hardly
believe it was the same desert-looking place they saw in
the latter part of March, and yet it is marvellous how
the sheep and cattle find their food on the hills, every
scrubby little bush affording pasturage.
The climate during the month of April is most delightful.
^ Hilda's Where is il, p. 84.
7
MY OLD HOME
The nights are very dewy, and refreshing rains begin to
fall, and soon the country has a soft tinge of green. The
farm is all alive, the labourers return from their holiday.
All the manure which has been collected in the stables
and kraals where the sheep and cattle sleep is soon carted
on the lands prepared for ploughing, and when that is
done there will be time for a short fortnight at the seaside.
May and June are busy ploughing months, when all
the farm is astir early and late. The lambs have to be
attended to, and sometimes on cold wet evenings we would
make a bowl of hot “egg-flip” for our brothers and the
young men learning farming on the estate, who came in
from collecting any stray lambs on the hills. This egg-flip,
by the way, is most delicious and nourishing ; made by
boiling some “young wine” {i.e. wine of a year old made
on the farm), adding some water, cinnamon, cloves and
sugar, and pouring the boiling mixture into a bowl in
which half-a-dozen eggs✪ Egg-Flip have been well whisked— it was
keenly relished and appreciated by the tired men who
had been out all day in all weathers. The shooting season
closes on the ist of July, and we generally had friends to
stay about the 20th of June, when buck and partridge
shooting would be the order of the day, a large number
of the neighbours alternately meeting on each other s pro-
perties, and going sometimes for a day’s shooting to the
cattle-farms on the seaside belonging to my brothers and
cousins. Meanwhile, the flower-garden gave ample occu-
pation to those of us who loved gardening, and we would
beg for an active man to dig it while we did the planting
it being impossible to get a man spared for work in the
garden when the farm work is in full swing.
o
Page 4 · 3 recipe records on this page
Presented as published in 1902. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
The Hanepot grape was also now made into grape jam. The fruit remains whole if carefully preserved.
We used sometimes also to make raisins. The grapes, after being sorted and all the bad ones taken out, are put into small baskets, and dipped into a large pot of boiling “ lye,” made of the ashes of a shrub called Gouna, growing on the Karoo — which contains a quantity of potash or soda. This extract is made so strong that an egg could float on it, and the grape after being immersed in the boiling mixture for a few minutes cracks ; we then lay them out on mats on our flat roofs, and in a fortnight they will be beautifully clear and dry for packing away. Excellent raisins are made at Worcester and Robertson, Cape Colony, it being very dry and warm there.
Many of the farm labourers, whose homes were at the nearest Moravian Mission Station, “ Mamre,” got a holiday at the end of March, and were allowed to go home for a few weeks. Everything after a long South African summer has a burnt-up and very dry appearance at the end of March, and every one welcomes the first showers. In the Western Province, where my home was, less rain falls in the summer than in some other parts of the Colony, and those who saw the country with its brilliant carpet of wild-flowers in September and October, would hardly believe it was the same desert-looking place they saw in the latter part of March, and yet it is marvellous how the sheep and cattle find their food on the hills, every scrubby little bush affording pasturage.
The climate during the month of April is most delightful.
^ Hilda's Where is il, p. 84.
The nights are very dewy, and refreshing rains begin to fall, and soon the country has a soft tinge of green. The farm is all alive, the labourers return from their holiday. All the manure which has been collected in the stables and kraals where the sheep and cattle sleep is soon carted on the lands prepared for ploughing, and when that is done there will be time for a short fortnight at the seaside.
May and June are busy ploughing months, when all the farm is astir early and late. The lambs have to be attended to, and sometimes on cold wet evenings we would make a bowl of hot “egg-flip” for our brothers and the young men learning farming on the estate, who came in from collecting any stray lambs on the hills. This egg-flip, by the way, is most delicious and nourishing ; made by boiling some “young wine” {i.e. wine of a year old made on the farm), adding some water, cinnamon, cloves and sugar, and pouring the boiling mixture into a bowl in which half-a-dozen eggs have been well whisked— it was keenly relished and appreciated by the tired men who had been out all day in all weathers. The shooting season closes on the ist of July, and we generally had friends to stay about the 20th of June, when buck and partridge shooting would be the order of the day, a large number of the neighbours alternately meeting on each other s properties, and going sometimes for a day’s shooting to the cattle-farms on the seaside belonging to my brothers and cousins. Meanwhile, the flower-garden gave ample occupation to those of us who loved gardening, and we would beg for an active man to dig it while we did the planting
it being impossible to get a man spared for work in the garden when the farm work is in full swing.
o
Records on this page
RaisinsGrape JamEgg-Flip