Land and Belonging
Discover how food serves as a powerful medium for reclaiming land, homes, and a sense of belonging
Wheatfield by Stephen WesselsDepartment of Cultural Affairs and Sport, Museum Service
Tasting the landscape
From wheat and potatoes to vineyards and orchards, the fertile soils of the Western Cape produce a huge variety of foods. When we eat, we taste the land: Karoo lamb, Swartland wheat, Ceres stone fruit or Stellenbosch wine, all are rooted in landscape and place.
Reading the land by Stephen WesselsDepartment of Cultural Affairs and Sport, Museum Service
Land, meanwhile, is steeped in history. Western Cape foodways are also a story of rural and urban forced removals, disconnection from ancestral land and growing practices, and migrant labour. How can food help reclaim connections and belonging to land?
Sourdough Bread by Stephen WesselsDepartment of Cultural Affairs and Sport, Museum Service
Aletta Hendricks’ sourdough bread
Mrs Hendricks' sourdough bread is made with two very local ingredients, wheat flour and potatoes. Potato peels provide the yeast for the sourdough starter, giving the bread a special flavour straight from the land.
Sourdough with potato yeast
In this short video, Mrs Hendricks explains the process for making sourdough with potato yeast.
Putting down roots: Farming and growing
Small-scale farming is becoming increasingly important for food security and livelihoods. Organisations like Abalimi Bezekhaya provide training and support for urban farmers. Community gardens can also reconnect people to practices disrupted by apartheid-era forced removals.
Liziwe Stofile: "imifino" with home-grown vegetables
Liziwe is a trainer at Abalimi Bezekhaya. This is her "imifino" (vegetables cooked with pap). She learnt this dish from her mother. "I grew up on a farm, that's one of the reasons I love growing my own food. I have my own garden that I eat from - I don't buy vegetables anymore!"
Nazeer Sonday, Philippi Horticultural Area (PHA)
"I'm a farmer in the PHA. For those who don't know, that's where almost all your vegetables are coming from! We have a deep struggle to protect the PHA for food security and for land. I want to connect people to the space, the land and soil with the food grown in that soil."
Olives by Stephen WesselsDepartment of Cultural Affairs and Sport, Museum Service
Olives by Bubbles
Patricia "Bubbles" Cheetham bottles olives grown in her Porterville garden. She spent parts of her life in Italy, and decided to bring some of these flavours home when she moved into a house with its own olive tree. She brines them in red wine vinegar for up to nine months.
Land, food, memory
Zubeida Carr's family were forcibly removed from District Six in the 1960s. For Zubeida, her mother's samoosas are inextricably linked to these memories. More than just a delicious snack, they're also a way to keep a link to the past alive.
"I am a child of District Six. When my mother had to support the family, she would make samoosas and koesisters, and now I'm doing exactly the same. The memories of helping my mom come flooding back as I do it, and I do love it."
- Zubeida Carr
Samoosas by Stephen WesselsDepartment of Cultural Affairs and Sport, Museum Service
Zubeida Carr’s Samoosas
Having learnt about food from her mother’s kitchen table in District Six, today Zubeida and her son Jumana run a thriving food and catering business in Lansdowne, Cape Town.
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