Dear friends and fellow bloggers, Easter is a special time in South Africa, specifically in my hometown, Cape Town. Regardless of your religious beliefs, Easter is a long weekend where most get time off to spend with family. Preparations start early with the preparation of pickled fish. It is fish that is pickled in a sweet-sour pickling sauce with softned onion rings that are part of the sauce. Hot cross buns are served with the pickled fish – although a strange combination – it has become something I and particularly my husband loves. My mother said that the recipe emanated from the Cape Malay slaves who got time off over the long weekend. The fish was prepared and kept better like this during a time without fridges. My mother dilligently made pickled fish for as long as I can remember, and when anyone was hungry over the weekend, she’d point at the container and say dish.
This year, I made the pickled fish. I wasn’t anywhere near to being as seasoned a veteran as her in the chopping of onion rings, the balance of the pickling sauce, and whether to add the pickling sauce hot or not. I wished she was there for key questions, or to taste the sauce or fry the fish. When she would prepare it in the kitchen, I would sit and try and lift a fried piece of fish before it was lowered into the sauce. With her back turned my mother would say I know you are NOT taking another piece of fish. For my mother Easter was a time of family, food, prayer and renewal and each year, she played a big part in making it like this. I wondered if my pickled fish would be good enough and whether the quiet ache for her would eventually go away.
Over the week and weekend, my family has shared times when we ate my version of pickled fish. It wasn’t perfect, could have done with this and that, but it had the main ingredients which I think she also added. We spent time just being together and talking, laughing about the old days, and what she would have said. Me and our little family have endured so much, lost our Granny, but also gained a new way of being. It’s not easy, and with mental illness, I often pray for relief. This weekend however, I am quietly filled with the idea of hope and renewal, and what it could do for the pickled fish and hot cross bun industry. Have a lovely week.