In South Africa, the Christmas and New Year holidays fall together with the extended summer holiday, various public holidays and the academic year end. This is a time for reflection, relaxation, recuperation and indulgence.
We indulge in what the added leisure time offer us: FEASTING. Long hours filled with family & friends & food & fun.
We take the time needed to cook good food properly and recognizing that reliance on fast food damages our health, social fabric and cultural food traditions.
We create menus and shopping lists with ingredients suggested by our recipes. Some traditional and trusted. Some elaborate and exotic. Others modest and momentous. Then, at last, we pamper ourselves by enjoying being in the kitchen. Alone or with partners, children and grandchildren. We go slow, we sip wine as we cook and bake, we wear our aprons, we go the extra-step by soaking the cherries in liquor, we stuff the roast with dates, beacon, basil, thyme and some of the soaked liquor, we make tiramisu in the timely way, we daily add one layer to the trifle.
The glorious trifle
The earliest use of the name trifle was for a thick cream flavoured with sugar, ginger and rosewater, the recipe for which was published in England, 1596, in a book called "The good huswife's Jewell" by Thomas Dawson. Sixty years later eggs were added and the custard was poured over alcohol soaked bread.
