KAROO KITCHEN, heritage recipes and true stories from the heart of South Africa

256 pp., 4to., b/w & colour illus., hardback, d.w., Cape Town, 2012

A collection of traditional recipes, veld remedies and culinary tales of the Great Karoo, a sparsely populated semi-desert area of South Africa that covers more than 400 000 square kilometres. Sydda Essop interviewd more than 78 cooks - descendants of the indigenous Khoisan and Xhosa peoples, the Dutch, British and French settlers, slaves from the East, Greeks, Portuguese, Indians and Jews - and convinced them to share personal stories and family recipes.