Island Bread and Vetkoek
As Medic, I was responsible for the health of the entire population of the Island. I did not let this weigh on me too heavily because, apart from me, there were only six inhabitants, and they were all young and fit. My employers, the Department of Transport, realised that I would have a lot of time on my hands and, accordingly, placed me in charge of the storeroom. I found this a somewhat ironic coincidence, as I had been a storeman in the Dockyard several years prior to going to Gough. This additional duty entailed rationing our food supplies and keeping the pantry stocked.
When I went through the inventory, I discovered that there was an abundance of flour, white, brown and wholewheat. As I had wanted to try my hand at baking bread before going to the Island, I decided that now was the time to add Baker to my CV.
Following instructions from the baking section in our Food Preparation manual, I began to experiment. First of all, I battled to bring the tinned yeast to life. Then I had to get the hang of kneading the dough and letting it rise to double its size. Because the yeast had been brought back from the dead, this proved a challenge that required perseverance and ingenuity, like placing the covered bowl of dough in the equatorial climate of the drying room for a whole hour. I also discovered that the flour had not been replenished for several years and, as a consequence, I was working with stale ingredients.
I persisted and produced two loaves a week for most of the year. Although I considered my bread to be of an acceptable quality, I later learned that the other team members found it to be substandard, and only ate it out of politeness. This explains why Thys approached me one day while I was kneading dough and made a suggestion. Why didn’t I try making vetkoek? He told me how his mother had dropped balls of dough into hot oil and turned them into his favourite, most mouth-watering, golden brown species of confectionary. He persuaded me to experiment with a small quantity of risen dough. I took a generous pinch of the stuff and dropped it into the pot of hot oil he had placed on the stove. After briefly sinking it began to swell and popped to the surface. When it reached the size of a small bun and began to turn brown, I removed it from the oil, placed it on a plate and waited for it to cool. After less than five minutes Thys insisted it was ready to be tasted. I cut it down the middle, handed him his half, and we took our first bites. This was better than boring old bread! We applied butter and took another mouthful. Even better. I dropped more lumps of dough into the pot and that was when Barney arrived. Before long the whole team was in the kitchen chomping on fresh doughboys.
This image is of vetkoek with curried mince, which some people rave about as a filling. I prefer peanut butter and fig jam.
With this photograph, I captured Thys in a pensive mood. I could be wrong, but I suspect he was thinking about vetkoek.
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