The Karoo gifts that come with the kuier

Kuier. Charlize Theron might not know it, but there’s no word in English that better describes the good old Karoo kuier. It is the Afrikaans word for visit, but that just isn’t good enough. To kuier is more than just to go somewhere or be with someone. It has a deeper meaning, of camaraderie, of friendship, of caring, sharing and nurturing. And all of this from one little word of a language spoken by millions of South Africans from Benoni to Wupperthal on the edge of the Succulent Karoo.

We kuier. Which means we come to see you and talk to you and let you know we’re thinking of you, and you’ll make us tea or coffee or pour us your homemade lemonade and bring out the rusks you made the other day. We pop in to see how you are, and we bring something along.

After a particularly lekker kuier the other day, I was given a box of freshly harvested apricots, a sweet reminder that the season for these juicy morsels is here and that a kuier will always bring you something unexpected, something to take home with you. They were green, but that was no problem, they said. Just put them in a brown paper bag and they will ripen perfectly, you’ll see. And there they are in the picture, after a week of being hidden away from daylight in brown paper. Orange, sweet and luscious, where formerly was only unripened green.

Apricots are one of the heralds of the great summer of fruity abundance that we enjoy throughout the Karoo. The hot months when the deciduous fruits line up to please us; it’s the summer’s rejoinder to the citrus that rewards us throughout the long winter to follow.

In the Karoo, there is always fruit, and we make our jams and marmalades, our chutneys and preserves. It begins with the apricots and peaches, then the nectarines and plums; soon we’ll have the mangoes and as the year turns, grapes and pears come into play. Melons too, although in my part of the Karoo we are already seeing spanspek and masses of watermelons.

And cherries; don’t forget the cherries. They grow across the southern Free State in places like Clarens and Clocolan, and in the Matroosberg near Ceres, as well as pockets elsewhere in the country. But no cherry is sweeter than one eaten in the blazing sun in sight of the Malutis.

But first, it’s apricots. My gift of apricots was turned into an apricot tarte Tatin. But first, I decided to get them a little drunk. Tipsy apricots can only be better than teetotallers, in a tart at least.

So. The Karoo Boy travelled recently, right? To Finland. Where, in Helsinki, before catching the flight home, I spied a bottle of Arctic Cloudberry liqueur. And what better for a Karoo tarte Tatin than Arctic berry liqueur? There are French touches all over the Karoo, did you know? They’re in shops and in homes everywhere. It comes from the Huguenot influence in the histories of many families who live in these small towns. There isn’t any discernible Finnish influence on the plains of the Camdeboo that I have been able to identify as yet, although there is a tiny Danish remnant in the history of Cradock. But this liqueur is so special that it will do just as well as mampoer or brannewyn.

In any event, we share our passion for apricots with Turkey and Armenia, where they grow on the sunny Ararat Plain (Iğdır Ovası in Turkish) which is common to both countries, so a transnational approach to today’s recipe doesn’t seem inapt. It is the national fruit of Armenia, in fact, and in Turkey they have a popular idiom, “the only thing better than this is an apricot in Damascus” which, says Wikipedia, means “it doesn’t get any better than this”.

Or, we might add, an apricot plucked from a tree on the plains of Camdeboo.

The online repository of everyman knowledge also tells us that the shortness of the apricot season gave rise to the Egyptian Arabic and Palestinian Arabic expression filmishmish (“in apricot”, meaning in season), or bukra filmishmish (“tomorrow in apricot [season]”), “generally uttered as a riposte to an unlikely prediction, or as a rash promise to fulfil a request”.

Wherever they’re grown, the season for these tiny marvels is short, so we need to grab them while they’re there and make the most of them. 

You can dry them in an air fryer, did you know? You halve them, make sure they’re dry, and dry them in the air fryer at about 48℃ for 12 hours. You could. But life is short and that’s a lot of energy to expend on something that’s readily available. So rather do what I do: buy packets of them from your friendly dried fruit shop. It’s a South African industry well worth supporting. Find my recipe for an apricot tarte Tatin here. DM/TGIFood

Tony Jackman is regional Vodacom Journalist of the Year (Lifestyle) Eastern Cape for 2022 and Galliova Food Champion 2021.

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks. Share your versions of his recipes with him on Instagram and he’ll see them and respond.

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