The weekend saw me return to the deep country – ostensibly to look at the wild flowers, but it happened to be the “Vleisfees” in Calvinia. So it had to be done.
“Vleisfees” (or Meat Festival) is an annual orgy of meat eating in this Karoo town – more specifically of lamb eating, for this is sheep country. The festival has the fest queen, vintage cars, dancers and singers, stalls and a remarkable pen where about 20 different kinds of sheep are penned. This is the united nations of sheep, from England to Arabia. The pen also had spots for llamas, goats and pygmy horses.
There was also dancing to the “boeremusiek”, but the main reason people came from far was to eat. And lots of it, for at R5 for a few pieces of braai meat and R1 for a sheep’s tail, you could dig in. Yes, sheep’s tail was one of the standard items, along with sheep’s head, otherwise known as “smileys” for the way the teeth grin when the lips pull back in the cooking process.
Unfortunately, the smileys were all sold out by the time I got there. I did get to try a few other delicacies other than the, rather excellent, chops, ribs and leg of lamb. These were:
Skaapstertjies – sheep’s tail: supposed to be well grilled to roast the fat, these were a little on the undercooked side, so mainly fat.
Kastaiings – crumbs of fat: rendered until crisp, the ultimate fat-lover’s treat.
Peertjies – testicles: glands of a particular flavour, very rich and not too edible in the large tub for R5 I had.
Lewerwors – Liver sausage: delicious and savoury, with a delicate texture.
My cholesterol test is again delayed.
Kastaiings are chestnuts; you must mean kaiings.
Yes, thanks, you are right, a slip on my part. Any particular love for kaiings?
Mmm, no. I just know it as the bags of crispy batter droppings (viskaiings) that poor people used to buy at the local fish ‘n chips shop (5c/bag while a chiproll was 25c). In my youth I had a few friends who also would wax lyrical about crispy fried entrails as ‘kaiings’ – salty and crispy, I imagine it worked as a kind of soulfood.