There is nothing better then having a fresh broth to use as a flavour canvas for making a delicious soup during a winter evening. The recipe below can be modified to what you have in the fridge, so please use this as a guide to create some divine umami alchemy! We live close to clean…
Category: Wild Food Recipes
How to make South African beer – uMqombhothi from Maize Meal
uMqombhoti is a beer recipe to inspire you to learn various food traditions from all over the world while bringing your own kitchen alchemy and culinary linguistics to the table.
How to Eat and Think about Bug Grub: A Taste of Entomophagy
Would you ever say, “I’m a Entomo-tarian and love crickets roasted and tossed in sea salt and cayenne pepper and covered in chocolate?” Considering bugs as grub gives way for the future of Pestaurants, cricket flour protein bars and stinkbug snacks being served in city centres across the globe. With two other curious minds, adventurous taste buds…
How to identify and pick wild edible mushrooms in Cape Town, South Africa
“Is there rain and gale force winds on your side?” “No.” “Okay, then we’ll meet you at the forest gate at 7:15” In Cape Town, winter brings sloshy puddles and leaf layers on the forest floor. Mushrooms, like stars fallen from the galaxy, pop out of the ground in diverse shapes, forms, colours and size. This…
How to Harvest Seaweed: Superfood Nutrition from our Ocean
Edible Sea Vegetable: SeaWeed I confess, my kitchen turns into edible science experiments almost every day. Seaweed is my new ingredient in the kitchen lab. Once you get to know the nutritional facts and the familiar taste of popcorn it has when nori (a type of seaweed) is roasted on the fire, then you’ll definitely give…
CONNECT BACK TO NATURE: Urban Food Foraging
The more time we spend using whole food ingredients, the more curious we become of their source and qualities. We may begin to ask questions such as – “How do eggplants grow?” “Can I eat the green tops of carrots?” “What can grape leaves be used for?” “Are those mulberries?” Our curiosity for nature and…
Real Food Foraging in our Urban edible landscapes.
Real food foraging is taking Freetarian tactics to a whole other edible landscape. It’s not about rummaging through the grocery store’s dump site or scrapping bubblegum off the concrete. Real food foraging is a learned art: It bridges culinary knowledge, environmental awareness and plant/fungus identification to your own edible advantage. Growing up with a Greek…
Recipe: How to Make Spring Roll-Nori Wraps
This Nori (seaweed) wrap recipe is an alternative to spring rolls. It’s perfect for getting a balance of essential vitamins into your diet. It’s also delicious and beautiful to share at picnics and parties. It pleases: vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, and my dad who likes to live on garlic and lamb chops will even chow these…
How to Cure your Own Olives in Brine: Greek Yiayia Style
Follow my blog with Bloglovin How to make your own olives edible. Mom would say, “Only eat 8 olives a day, honey.” But it was too easy to devour the salty Grecian delights by the dozen. With crusty brown sourdough bread and green virgin olive oil on a flat side plate, nothing satisfied me more…
South Africa’s West Coast Pomegranate and Peppercorn Salad
Soul smiles and surf-sore shoulders leave me mindful and replete. A montage of new faces smiling in the heat. Moon memories and salted dreams sail me through the Monday office beat. Yes, let’s strike out into the open, where wild places await. Let’s turn off the cell phones, leave our city behind. Let’s forget the…
Urban foraging and making Mulberry Tart
Growing up, we used to pick wild mulberries. The dark mulberries ripened to their juicy capacity and fell on the pavement, painting the sidewalks purple. This was nature’s graffiti and we were young urban foragers. Just below Chicago’s purple EL line, we thought the forest preserve was our Jungle Book fantasy and we ate from…
Share. Cook. Love: The Cook Book
Our story began 2005, Feb 14th. Durban, South Africa. A Surfer met a Gypsy at Capoeira class. It was a Monday, after the first day of our third year at University. 7 years later, in the province where it all began, we told everyone we loved to join us for a festival of families, a…
What to Eat when Visiting Greece’s villages: Nourishing Food Traditions
Summertime and road tripping lead to some of my favorite food adventure memories. In Greece, you can drive on national highways and come across Greek village tavernas that serve greek horiatiki salads under grapevines. Roadside stalls are piled with local fresh, dried, and preserved food that have been made and celebrated for centuries. Tradition, food…
Step by Step-Easy Dolmades Recipe (just like your Yiayia’s)
In less than a month, I’ll be back in Greece buying white peaches from my Yiayia’s (grandmother) neighbourhood laiki (produce market) and learning how to make feta cheese from the thea’s (Aunties) in the horio (village). But lately I’ve been channeling my ancestors by consuming far too many olives and craving those cultural food comforts…
Mopani or mopane worms (caterpillars) taste like dried leaves
“They taste like a bit like biltong or chicken, I love them!” she explained. “Actually, they taste more like leaves.” A bag of Mopani worms are sitting dried in my cupboard waiting for my “how to cook this” experimentation session. My seastar, Nokulinda, bought them from a Sangoma down the road from her work in…
Oat Milk Pancakes with Peach and Pear Syrup
This isn’t a vegan recipe but it can be. It’s an alternative pancake recipe when you look into your fridge and realize the milk is all gone. You’re still in your pajamas, too hungry to wait in a check-out line at the grocery store, so your creativity kicks in and you make a plan. How…
Prickly Cactus Pear Smoothie
The best thing about when friends house sit is the magic of new groceries that end up in your kitchen. One Sunday afternoon, I discovered prickly pear syrup (turksvy stroop) in my fridge and it sat there, waiting for me to make crepes or pour it on yoghurt. Instead, it ended up in my fruit…
Rooibos Rice with Smoked Paprika Mussels (Quick Paella-wanna-be)
I thought to myself, ‘How can I make a rice dish a little more interesting?’ So I started with the idea of color and decided to use all ‘red’ coloured ingredients in my kitchen. So first off, I made rooibos (redbush) tea-flavoured water to steam my brown rice. I also took flavours commonly found in…
Amatungulu Num Num Jam (Carissa-Natal Plum)
Carissa, also known as the Natal Plum, Num Num, Noem-Noem, or Amatungulu in our household was found growing just steps outside our house in Muizenberg, Cape Town, South Africa. My boyfriend Chris grew up with his grandfather making this jam out of the Carissa fruit that grows in Durban, Kwa-Zulu Natal. So when we saw…
Morning Power Smoothie with Baobab Fruit Powder
A morning smoothie that uses super-powered natural foods to the best of their ability. You’ll consider fruit and nut gathering as a hobby after making this potion.
The Culinary Linguist 