A Mis(s) – take, or so I thought
22May 15, 2017 by petrujviljoen
I have a toothache. It’s the jam. Some got in. It’s worrying the nerve. I made a jar full the other day from Ouma’s* Cookery Book, Ouma having been the wife of one of South Africa’s (sometimes, mostly) brilliant Prime Ministers.
He … I wanted to talk about Isie. Isie Smuts, nee Krige, wife of Jan Smuts. That in this day and age her profile hasn’t been updated is lamentable. I should’ve been able to find as much information about her, at the touch of the keyboard, as I did about him.
I did, however, find an interesting link between Ouma Isie and the South African author and feminist Olive Schreiner, who wrote the internationally famous The Story of an African Farm – they exchanged letters for almost seventeen years, Ms Schreiner often advising Jan Smuts on politics, particularly the Native Question. If he followed her advice the South African political landscape (as it was in 1948) may have been very different much sooner!
The recipe is for a Marrow* Marmalade. It seemed simple enough to make and I duly put butternut on my grocery list. Don’t ask. Please.It made a lovely, velvety jam and I’m not sorry, not sorry at all. I have some cloves for the toothache.
Days are much shorter
Wakeful nights fraying nerve’s ends
No sweet lullabies
—
*Ouma – Granny
*Marrow – courgette
….
Linked to Dverse, Haibun Monday
petrujviljoen 
That was exceptional!
Thank you ZQ. I’ll visit people’s haibun asap. Dealing with the aftermath of an extracted tooth!
quite a contrasting Haiku
Thanks.
I like how you weaved the marmalade with the political history and making it almost counterfactual… if only if… and maybe there would have been less a toothache as well 🙂
A bit of a ramble while one is dealing with other things, least of which, now, an extracted tooth. Will visit people’s posts asap.
Looks yummy but be careful of that toothache ~
It’s gone, thank heavens.
Really interesting way to work in the politics into the “recipe”.
Thank you!
Shame about the toothache. I hear it in the haiku.
Delightful and thought provoking write…the marmalade looks fantastic.
How do you think the political landscape would been more different much sooner? In what way?
Black people would’ve been incorporated into the political fold.
Would’ve been equal?
If Olive had her way, yes.
That is interesting.
I’ve done a quick search, look at http://www.litnet.co.za/book-review-the-worlds-great-question-olive-schreiners-south-african-letters-1889-1920/
The biography on her by Karel Schoeman, may he rest in peace, had her thinking differently in her younger years though, but one changes as one learns more.
The is res at Rhodes University named after her. A girl’s res. Some of my great friends lived there while I was studying.
I mean Olive Schreiner
If you can get hold of the biography by Karel Schoeman on Olive Schreiner I can recommend it. I learnt more about the true South African history in that book than from anything they taught us at school. In her letters, there’s an online archive, I was interested to see she wrote from Primrose Terrace, Berea, Johannesburg – I lived in a block of flats there
Sure. Will do so.