{"id":20802,"date":"2011-05-19T09:01:39","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T07:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whalecottage.com\/blog\/?p=20802"},"modified":"2012-03-26T22:53:08","modified_gmt":"2012-03-26T20:53:08","slug":"recession-brings-the-future-of-food-back-to-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisvonulmenstein.com\/blog\/cape-town\/recession-brings-the-future-of-food-back-to-the-past\/","title":{"rendered":"Recession brings the future of food back to the past!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I had heard of and spoken to Sonia Cabano almost a year ago, but we had never met, until last week, and we have done so twice in a week!\u00a0\u00a0 Sonia has\u00a0a refreshing view on many things in life, and I was interested to speak to her about her love for food, and the cookbooks that she had written to date.\u00a0 She is proudly South African in her love for local foods, and sees that the food preparation of generations past will become that of the future.<\/p>\n

Sonia (de Waal) became a well-known advertising model for Lancome, Mary Quant and Yves St Laurent after leaving Brandfort, living in Milan, Paris and London for\u00a0twelve years.\u00a0 She grew up in a food-loving family, with her mother being an amazing baker and cook, says Sonia, and her family ate in the way Sonia proposes we should all go back to – they had a vegetable garden at home, and meat came from a smallholding her dad owned.\u00a0 They ate organically then, not giving it a name, but by its principles.\u00a0Sonia was always in her mom’s kitchen, and helped her mom, and now her children do the same when she prepares food.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It was in London that she was asked to cook for clients, word having spread about her wonderful dinner parties.\u00a0 She loved the supply of fur and feathered game in the city, and London’s specialist shops, something she would love to see more of in Cape Town.\u00a0 Her love for shopping at food markets stems from this.\u00a0\u00a0 Her dream to study cooking at the Ritz Escoffier School in Paris did not materialise, but her second best option was to go to London’s top restaurants and ask for an apprenticeship, and it was Bistrot 190 and Kensington Place that gave her places in their kitchens.\u00a0\u00a0 When many left the country in 1994, it was the year that Sonia returned to South Africa, and to Cape Town specifically.\u00a0 She started a catering company, but closed it down after five years when she had her children.<\/p>\n

She received a call out of the blue to audition for SABC 3’s “Pampoen tot Perlemoen” food programme, was hired, and made four series with them. She added food writing to her activities, for VISI, TASTE, Sarie, Insig, and House & Garden.\u00a0 To this she added writing cookbooks, and two have been published to date:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>*\u00a0\u00a0 ‘Kombuis’ – was written in Afrikaans for Afrikaans foodlovers.\u00a0 She said she found it harder to express herself in Afrikaans, as cooking terms have not evolved in this language.\u00a0 The book contains traditional ‘boerekos’ recipes interpreted by Sonia, and she included a chapter on how to larder.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0 ‘Easy, Simple and Delicious’, which she says is the easy way to make fresh staples in the lazy and fast way!<\/p>\n

Her newest book, to be called ‘Relish’, will be published in September.\u00a0 It will focus on sauces, seasonings, and condiments to make at home.\u00a0 It includes making preserves, as well as cheeses, such as ricotta and mascarpone.<\/p>\n

Sonia wants to share her passion for local food, and wants to keep her readers out of supermarkets for basics, which she would like them to make, like pasta sauce, instead of buying them out of a tin, and\/or containing preservatives and colourants.\u00a0 She includes chef’s tips in her books too. In addition to writing, she does cooking demonstrations, and is a recipe development consultant.\u00a0\u00a0 She wanted to set up a Slow Food shop, but could not find the right venue for it.<\/p>\n

She espouses the principles of Slow Food, and it ties in with her food philosophy of “Tradition is Modern”!\u00a0\u00a0 She feels it important that small food and wine producers be encouraged and supported, and that a small food collective be organically nurtured to become a valuable resource.\u00a0 \u00a0Sounding similar in her food philosophy to Neil Stemmet<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, Sonia talks about “Kontreikos”, which is eating seasonal food from one’s region and which the farmer has been fairly remunerated for.\u00a0 Sonia is very anti-supermarket, and proudly told me that she has not stepped into a Woolworths in six months.\u00a0She sees supermarkets as ‘dehumanising’, pushing their wares down consumers’ throats, and Woolworths in particular does not practice its environmentally-friendly claim it proudly advertises inside its stores.\u00a0\u00a0 She supports ethical production of foods, and wants us “to live in harmony with nature”.\u00a0 She would love us to go back, and she wants to document, to how the ‘old country ladies’ made\u00a0foods\u00a0like butter, and beverages\u00a0in the past.\u00a0 She would love Capetonians to get out of their homes again, and to connect in the neighbourhood, not just with their neighbours but also with the local shops in these areas.\u00a0 She thinks that the recession is fantastic in making us all return to basics, to discover what is essential, and to no longer be shopping-driven.<\/p>\n

Having rejected it initially, due to the disparagement she had seen on it, Sonia has now taken to Twitter, and finds it a fantastic tool for networking, for sourcing information, for the immediacy of response, and to communicate and share one’s thoughts and feelings about anything and everything!<\/p>\n

POSTSCRIPT 23\/5<\/strong>:\u00a0 The comment by Maria has upset Sonia, and she has been contacted by 12 persons, she says, who all claim that we wrote the comment as “Maria”. Michael Olivier of Crush! made this claim to Hetzner last year, when he tried to get our blog closed down!\u00a0 Sonia sent an sms today that she felt that she ‘was being set up’ by me in having interviewed her, writing the blogpost, and then writing the ‘Maria’ comment – it is an absolutely ludicrous allegation, as\u00a0we have the blog in which\u00a0we can write what\u00a0we like, and\u00a0we do not have to resort to writing comments on\u00a0our own blog, nor on anyone else’s.\u00a0I would not have spent the money and time in inviting Sonia for lunch, had I not been interested in her as a person, and her writing about food.\u00a0 It is sad that such nastiness goes around in\u00a0Social Media, and that people talk about others without having met them.\u00a0\u00a0Sonia has decided to block us on Twitter as a result, from having been in praise of us getting her starting\u00a0on Twitter only three weeks ago, and being happy with our blogpost about her when it was posted on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Sonia Cabano.<\/strong> Tel 071 674 0222. www.soniacabano.co.za<\/a> Twitter: @SoniaCabano1<\/p>\n

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com<\/a> Twitter:@WhaleCottage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had heard of and spoken to Sonia Cabano almost a year ago, but we had never met, until last week, and we have done so twice in a week!\u00a0\u00a0 Sonia has\u00a0a refreshing view on many things in life, and I was interested to speak to her about her love for food, and the cookbooks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[3,124,266,21],"tags":[4814,11556,2085,11551,7429,32378,8057,4370,4766,8722,11258,11560,11554,4638,4863,11558,11547,11555,11548,2788,7421,11559,3817,5670,727,489,11550,11552,11553,11557,4860,11546,9799,1587,7152,32373,171,11549],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t