So, I have just been up for a quick walk with Anna Mari and Archie, both chefs from world renowned Le Quartier Francais, and specifically the Tasting Room. For those that have not had the pleasure of dining there: its an experience beyond all culinary imagining. I have been very fortunate to be treated to a few evenings there, Erica took me for a surprise Birthday meal there this year. It is out of this world. Combinations I have not heard or thought of, unbelievable. One of my preferred dishes there was a kudu and buchu consomme of sorts, quite wild because buchu is not easy to pair with foods, it can either work or flop horribly. At the tasting room it works!
They are working on a soon to be released culinary programme, not wanting to let too much out the bag, it was great to get up with the guys to learn a bit more about the Fynbos, and right up into the flowering protea band this morning. Awesome weather we’re having, plus the natural splendour of a very busy flowering section of proteas. Great start to my day. We bumped into a massive stand of Buchu I did not know was there before, which has prompted me to get back up and pick some for a new batch of buchu brandy. Now I have been Tweeting (follow me here: http://twitter.com/rambowine) and Facebooking the virtues of buchu for ages.
Buchu has amazing medicinal properties, one of which comes in particularly handy to Nikey and I is its ability to knock any babelas known to man by kicking it severely into touch. Whether this is from the rather extreme taste or from the mixture of the leaves and brandy, is for the beholder (at my bachelors it made no friends amongst the secret seven, and they have been known to master the art of hangover control) Nikey swears its the brandy.
Mixed with vinegar, its one of the best antiseptics around, and when you steam the plant, the oils are particularly volatile, as mentioned earlier, steaming fish or meat with buchu can be very interesting. The Khoi San would use buchu as a cleansing agent, snorting the powder or eating leaves, both as an appetite suppressant and for its purgative effects on toxins in the body. Before trance the shaman would sneeze the lion out, get the bad num (potency) out with buchu. (Whenever my bad num needs a bit of sneezing the buchu tea is not far off) Im going back up to pick some more buchu, for my dwindling collection of buchu brandies. Maybe one bottle will sneak off to an upcoming bachelor party soon, as it seems to be such a hit at these gatherings, hope you like it Paulie! Keep it well away from the bushpig. Hes an animal on the stuff.
“Bushpig is an animal” – quite true.
You are very complementary about the Secret Seven’s ability to handle hangovers. I think you’re remembering the youthful days of university, and not the reality of a bunch of aging old farts.