Sunday "pickle"

Two weeks today Easter will be over so yesterday was all about that local Easter tradition: pickled fish. This year, the orders started coming in a month ago, and one with the request that they have it on Good Friday. A far cry from two years ago: we were locked down, no markets allowed and nor was one allowed to sell - or even give - food to other people.

A necessary digression

When we went into a hard lockdown, two years ago in March, Easter fell earlier than this year. Feeling the fear and now "un-normal" things were, l naively decided to try to retain some semblance of normality, if not cheer. So, I posted on our community notice board, something to that effect and that I was taking orders for pickled fish. As I had done, twice a year for the last several.

I say, naively, because our my understanding of the lockdown had not included word for word interrogation of the regulations. I discovered, thanks to vitriolic keyboard "police", that even my suggestion could not be countenanced.

So, began for me, a very difficult patch. That was just one incident. Perhaps I will write about the others. Suffice it to say that I retreated, folded my wings and embraced the black that came with being locked down.

I recognise that, only now, am I beginning to re-emerge and really heal. Partly, too, because at least three of those self-appointed keepers of the village wellbeing have been spat out have left.

Back to the fish

This really is a pickled dish, that includes curry powder. In Afrikaans, it's also called kerrievis - curried fish. The sauce includes the other traditional ingredients for pickle: vinegar and sugar.

Other essential ingredients are onion, spices and herbs including fresh ginger.

How I make it, is a combination of advice and the leaflet from Simply Spice, from which we bought our spices when we lived in Cape Town, and the recipe from Jenny Morris's e-newsletter about 20 years ago.

Now, the fish is happily a-pickling...until I pack it into portions and/or into the dishes folk have supplied for their orders. It will otherwise be available at the market on Easter Saturday.

I thought my recipe was up on my blog. It's not. I shall see if I can do it by the end of the week.

Until next time, be well
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa

Photo: Selma
Post script
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