9 minute read
Booze, Beats & Munchies
FODDER BOOZE, BEATS,
THE BOOZE - THE (BI-POLAR) PAPSAK
The finest musical export from Cape Town’s northern suburbs since Eben Etzebeth’s debt-collecting uncles dished out sweet chin music in the 70s - Jack Parow also dabbles in booze. After launching a successful brandy a few years back, he is back with a bi-polar papsak (box wine) that’s perfect for weekend warrior getaways. Fresh or salt? East or west? Hot or cold? Red or white? Why choose? With a 1.5L red on one side and a 1.5L white on the other, Heeltyd Speeltyd has you covered for whatever your mission holds. heeltydspeeltyd.co.za
THE BEATS - SCHIZOPHRENIC TENDENCIES
Between us, we’re a little divergent in our music tastes at the moment. Conrad (editor-at-large) loves a bit of Ramsstellicalicious thunking in his smallmouth bass and kob pursuits, Bod (art director) embraces the ‘90s shoe-gaze and if Tudor (editor) was a dinosaur he’d be an omnivore. As a result, what we’ve been listening to of late takes you from chaos to calm, braaivleis and balm, and back again. The Animals, Rammstein, Metallica, Guns ‘n Roses, Warmduscher, Toots & The Maytals, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Thom Yorke, Elbow, Spoon, Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV – it’s all in the mix.
Press Play
THE BOOK - POTS, PANS & POTJIES
Believe that you are a pretty accomplished braai guy? This cracking new book from Greg Gilowey and Karl Tessendorf (the guys behind travelling TV show, Beer Country, beercountry.co.za), will test you, push you, feed you (very well) and ultimately take your braai game to a new level. Focused on cast-iron, they have a spread of incredible recipes developed and perfected for, well… pots, pans and potjies (what we call Dutch Ovens in South Africa). Anyone can tan a chop or burn some boerie, but can you make a Black Pepper Beef Short Rib Potjie, a lamb shank Vindaloo or a Cape-ssoulet (their take on the classic French dish)? For this issue we opted for that South African classic, Monkey Gland sauce, applied to Greg and Karl’s kick-ass chicken wings. POTS PANS & POTJIES is available from Exclusive Books, Wollworths, Takealot and other outlets.
A BOOK & MUNCHIES
MONKEY GLAND POTJIE WINGS
South Africa’s famous sweet and tangy braai sauce meets bold Texan Steakhouse flavours in this braai and potjie mashup masterpiece. Thanks to our mates at Cape Herb & Spice for the tasty hook-up!
Feeds: 6 • Prep: 30 minutes • Cook: 1 hour + standing time
THE BRAAI
20 free-range chicken wings Oil for drizzling Cape Herb & Spice Texan Steakhouse RUB
THE POTJIE
Oil for frying 1 large onion, peeled and sliced vertically 50 g butter 4 cloves garlic, chopped A knob of fresh ginger, chopped 1 C tomato sauce 1 C chutney 1 C stout 1⁄4 C Worcestershire sauce 2 Tbsp honey 2 Tbsp brown vinegar 1 Tbsp soy sauce 1 Tbsp Tabasco sauce
TO SERVE
2 spring onions (green part only), sliced Pap, Lemon wedges, charred
METHOD
Drizzle the wings with oil and season with Cape Herb & Spice Texan Steakhouse RUB. Braai the wings over hot coals to caramelise the exterior. They won’t be cooked through, but you want them nice and charry. Set the wings aside. To make the potjie, preheat a number 3 potjie over medium-heat coals. Add a splash of oil and fry the onion until soft and starting to brown. Add the butter, garlic and ginger and fry for a minute until fragrant. Stir in the remaining ingredients and simmer the sauce with the lid off until reduced by a third – about 15 minutes. Toss the wings into the potjie and give them a stir to coat in the sauce. Put the lid on and make sure the heat is medium-low, then slowly braise the wings in the pot for 30–40 minutes. Check the pot every now and then to make sure the sauce isn’t catching. Take the pot off the heat and allow it to stand with the lid off for 10 minutes. Season to taste and dress with the sliced spring onions. Serve with pap and charred lemon wedges. Beer Pairing: Greg says, “You need hops and lots of them to cut through these sweet and sticky wings so we recommend a Session IPA, specifically the Darling Brew 4x4 BraaiPA collab we did with them. The aromatics and bitterness are an epic contrast to the caramelised umami overload in the sauce.”
MAP THE BELOVED COUNTRY
SOUTH AFRICA IS IN THE MIDST OF A FRESHWATER FISH CONSERVATION CRISIS, BUT WHAT IF THERE WAS A WAY FOR ANGLERS TO HELP PROTECT OUR FRESHWATER FISHES AND RESTORE THEIR RIVER ECOSYSTEMS? AS FLY ANGLER DR JEREMY SHELTON OF THE FRESHWATER RESEARCH CENTRE WRITES, SNAPPING AN IMAGE OF YOUR CATCH WITH A SMARTPHONE AND UPLOADING IT TO A CITIZEN SCIENCE APP COULD MAKE A BIGGER DIFFERENCE THAN YOU THINK.
South Africa’s freshwater biodiversity crisis
Every four years South Africa’s National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) takes stock of the country’s biological diversity by undertaking nation-wide assessments of plant and animal life to help focus limited conservation resources where they’re needed most. The most recent National Biodiversity Assessment was completed in 2018 and the results were alarming. Freshwater fish emerged as the country’s most threatened species group and freshwater habitats, (including both rivers and wetlands), have become more degraded than any other ecosystem type. A strong message emerging from the assessment was that urgent conservation action is needed if we are going to save our threatened freshwater fishes and restore the fragile habitats in which they live.
The knowledge gap that’s holding back freshwater conservation
Critical to successfully conserving our freshwater fishes is a solid understanding of where the different species occur, and how their distributions are changing. South Africa is home to 134 species of freshwater fish (27 of which are non-native species introduced from elsewhere). However, our knowledge about the distributions for many of these fishes, especially the rare and endangered ones, is poor, which is holding back conservation efforts to protect them.
Truth be told, South Africa’s government-funded departments, institutes and organisations mandated to monitor and manage biodiversity simply do not have the capacity to do the surveys needed to track changes in the distributions of our freshwater fishes , a situation highlighted in a 2016 paper by former CapeNature freshwater fish scientist Dean Impson. That is not to say that good work is not being done. Scientists are doing what they can to keep track of which fish are where, but studies and surveys are generally limited to short (typically 2-3 year), grant-linked time scales and usually centre around one or two focal species. In short, we are fast losing track of which species occur where, and of how their distributions and populations are changing. This is especially true for rare species or those that inhabit remote or difficult-to-access areas like steep gorges, overgrown tributaries and places off the beaten track.
The rise of citizen science
The term “citizen scientist” may sound off-putting at first, but citizen science might just hold the key to narrowing the fish distribution knowledge gap and improving freshwater conservation here in South Africa. In essence, a citizen scientist is anybody who makes an observation of a plant or animal, keeps a record of it and shares that record with scientists. But it’s really the advent of the smart phone that has revolutionised citizen science over the last decade. In 2008, a mobile application called iNaturalist was launched and within a decade it became the go-to platform for citizen scientists from around the globe to store and share their biodiversity observations. Today the platform hosts over 100 million biodiversity records, including 1 million records of fish.
iNaturalist – a game-changer for mapping species distributions
How the app works: Using iNaturalist is straightforward and the interface is clean, fun and intuitive. Getting started requires three basic steps: (1) download the iNaturalist app and sign up (it’s free), (2) take a photograph of a plant or animal and (3) upload your observation and suspected species identification (your smartphone will automatically share the observation date and location with the app). Any photo records of freshwater fish (taken both above and below water) in South Africa will automatically be added to an iNaturalist project called “Freshwater Fish South Africa” where experts can help with confirming species identifications. But here is where things get interesting: once a record identification has been confirmed by at least two experts, it is considered “Research Grade” and can then be used by scientists in national biodiversity assessments and conservation efforts. Moreover, a new platform called the Freshwater Biodiversity Information System (FBIS) developed by Cape Town-based non-profit the Freshwater Research Centre has engineered a way to harvest research grade fish records and inject them directly into the coalface of freshwater conservation and decision-making at a national level.
HOW FLY FISHERMEN CAN HELP
To date, the numbers of iNaturalist records in South Africa for groups like insects and birds are impressive, totaling ~150K and ~130K respectively. Freshwater fish on the other hand, have a mere 1600 records uploaded thus far, with limited contributions by fishermen. However, it’s the fishermen, especially fly fishermen, who are out there on the water catching and observing fish more often than anyone else, frequently in remote and difficult-to-reach places where knowledge of fish distributions is particularly poor. There is thus great potential for fly fishermen to ramp up these observations for the benefit of freshwater fish and ecosystems. Fortunately, the app also has built-in options to obscure or hide exact record locations for cases where one may want to keep the location of the exact location under wraps. As citizen scientists armed with the iNaturalist app, South Africa’s flyfishing community has an opportunity to vastly improve our understanding of our country’s freshwater fish distributions in a way that will help prevent extinctions, keep track of invasive species and better conserve priority freshwater habitats, ultimately promoting more sustainable local flyfishing into the future.
