Queen of ‘Snuffelkos’

I met up with Loubie Rusch on a bright summer’s day in the Company’s Garden, right in the heart of the Cape Town.

For many chefs and foodies, she is the Queen of foraging, so I felt privileged to share some time with her to chat about food, environment and of course foraging.

‘Food has always been a big part of my life and even during my childhood. My Belgian grandmother cooked us many dishes without a cookbook. Food is one of those things that can bring people together and that can promote healing, it can be incredibly powerful.’

‘The tip of Africa is very interesting, because it has been on the spice route for centuries, collecting and dealing with foods and spices of value and then taking them back to Europe. Jan Van Riebeek didn’t realise there was already so much ‘food’ here. He created these Company’s Gardens, so that the garrisons had fresh produce to keep them healthy and fit, but actually there was already so much here, he just didn’t realise it. And so that was the beginning of transposed foods. Because for millennia, people ate from the land here.

Cape food for me is many things, it is food that came with slaves, French, Dutch, Portuguese, Malay, Indian, Chinese, a whole range of different food cultures have become blended here. But the original foods that have been here for ever, are actually the least present. And a lot of my journey here is about just that, to revive the use of them, and revive them to be regenerative for our environment and so to reclaim a lost identity.’

Read the full interview in our book : Cape & Karoo Cooking