Braamfontein seems an unlikely mecca for artisanal food. The neighbourhood is populated by cafés trading tinned food, factory-made white loaves and uniform-shaped sweets in garish plastic wrappings. The only authentic locally cultivated substance is the fine film of dust that coats the shelves. These ubiquitous urban establishments serve students and workers from the area. They are conspicuous by their absence at the Neighbourgoods Market, a new trendy Saturday market in the area, which caters for a burgeoning desire for artisanal food – that is, hand-crafted products made from good quality or organic ingredients.
It’s affluent suburbanites in search of these speciality food stuffs who flock to this market and a similar one called Market-on-Main on the east side of Joburg’s inner city. The makeshift market environment seems a fitting place for these products as it evokes an old-fashioned and personalised form of trading that was eroded by the rise of shopping mall culture and mass-produced food. With a growing distrust of processed food, consumers now want to meet the people who make their food.
Despite its allusions to a bygone lifestyle, the Neighbourgoods Market couldn’t be further from a quaint countryside village market. It is hidden inside a building on the corner of Juta and De Beer streets, in the heart of the small pocket of gentrified Braamfontein where galleries and décor shops have recently sprung up. A handmade sign boasting the name of the market hangs above an alley.
But it’s a line of fresh pineapples suspended over the entrance of a car park that hints at the activity inside. Within the concrete shell are a plethora of stands selling all kinds of bucolic bounty from freshly picked mushrooms and organic vegetables to artisanal chocolate and handcrafted cheeses.
Stallholders offer stories about their products or pamphlets outlining their origins. They are not exactly “neighbourhood goods”, though; the pink oyster mushrooms that I purchase come from the Cape. The pork contained in a Toulouse sausage salami originates from an organic pig farm outside Cape Town, boasts the young lad in an apron behind the counter. These speciality foods come at a price: a ball of handcrafted mozzarella that hails from Wellington – “made only yesterday” – costs R50. It’s almost as much as imported cheese.
People are willing to pay a premium for these goods because they aren’t just buying the food; they are aligning themselves with a lifestyle and a new consumer ethic informed by green principles. People are looking for an alternative to the supermarket experience too, suggests Jacques van der Watt, of the Black Coffee clothing label. He is also founder and “curator” of the Market-on-Main, at Arts on Main.
“They want to hear relaxed music and have a cocktail while shopping. It is a reaction against mass production. People are looking for more individual experiences in this mass-produced age. Individualism has been lost and people are trying to get it back.
“People want to go somewhere special and speak to somebody. They like to talk to producers, they enjoy having that conversation. There is a general good feeling. It’s about leaving the rat race and slowing down; it’s nothing like quickly going into Woolies to do a shop in under an hour.”
The artisanal food movement isn’t a South African phenomenon; in the US, Britain, France and other European countries consumers have been jettisoning cheap mass-produced food in favour of locally made, high-quality food products. This has seen a return of local butchers, fishmongers, bakers and greengrocers who had, in the last decades, been driven out of business by large supermarkets – thus the cycle has come full circle. These traditional artisans take pride in their produce and, most importantly, are mindful of the provenance of their fresh goods, prompting the rise of the “locavore” – a person who only consumes produce from a 50km radius of where they live. It’s not only a mistrust of mass-produced food that has contributed towards this movement but a growing consciousness around carbon footprint – the damage inflicted on the environment due to the transport of goods.
Given that a large percentage of the food sold at the Neighbourgoods Market in Joburg (there is also one in Cape Town at the Old Biscuit Mill) hails from the Cape, the produce there doesn’t quite earn any green points. But I somehow sense as I push through crowds of Joburg hipsters – a term used to describe middle-class pseudo rebels – who populate this market that the authenticity of these foodstuffs is somewhat irrelevant. It brings to mind Christian Lorentzen’s observation that “hipsterism fetishises the authentic and regurgitates it with a winking inauthenticity”.
Lorentzen might have been referring to the manner in which this breed of youth culture cannabilises sub-cultures of the post-war era, but this remark could also apply to the manner in which this trendy set reproduce the façade of “honesty” attached to some of these food items. Of course, there is also the small matter of what an “honest” product might constitute? Is it based on the veracity of the information the producer relays to consumers, or is it characterised by the “honesty” of the ingredients? And who gets to decide – there is no authority which verifies authenticity?
In South Africa the artisanal movement intersects with urban regeneration – many of the markets in Joburg and Cape Town are located in up-and-coming areas in previously no-go zones of inner cities. Van der Watt suggests that this hankering to revive the inner city and inhabit it is linked to the artisanal food trend in that both evoke a return to a way of life that has been lost, and a sense of community that psychological boundaries in cities and mass-produced food eradicated.
The desire for old-fashioned food products is also rooted in a longing for a European past; the notion of the village baker or butcher evokes idealised scenes of pre-industrial European living. Many of the products at these markets are French and Italian or the inspiration behind many of these new authentic products can be traced back to European traditions.
While living in the French countryside, David and Marisa Evans observed the manner in which bakeries served as the heart of the community and were keen to transplant this culture to South Africa with an establishment offering handcrafted bread from good-quality raw ingredients.
“We fell in love with the lifestyle around bakeries. It is the heart of the town and visiting it every day is part of your daily routine, you buy your morning and afternoon baguette there. Every community there is anchored by a bakery,” explains David.
Upon returning to South Africa the couple met Mathew Repton, who had started a small bakery after being inspired by a trip to Vovo Telo, a small town in Madagascar, where he had observed how French gastronomy had been fused with African traditions. United by their shared reverence for handcrafted bread, the trio set up a business in Port Elizabeth named after the Madagascan hamlet where locals could savour authentic bread.
“It is no more complicated than flour, water and yeast – and wild yeast for the sourdough.”
Keen to educate and bring their clientele into contact with the authenticity of their products, the baking of the bread takes centre stage in their stores – they now have another three.
“We wanted to put the theatre of baking on display. Just to expose it. That the bread has integrity. Every loaf is hand-shaped. Everything is unique. Bread shouldn’t be pre-sliced in a packet,” asserts Dave.
Since establishing Vovo Telo three years ago it has expanded considerably. They have franchised the business, which now employs more than 150 people. Because baking skills have been lost, they have had to train their bakers from scratch. Former construction workers, car guards, mechanics and prison guards have been trained in the art of bread-making, a trade that can only be perfected over time and that depends on a nuanced understanding of how the dough responds to temperature and weather fluctuations, explains Marisa.
The only machines used in Vovo Telo bakeries are the ovens.
“We have no prover machine; the bread sits on a trolley outside while proving. There are no pre-mixed or pre-made sauces. We start everything we serve (in the cafes) with raw ingredients. As soon as you start compromising there is the temptation to do things like they were done in the past because it seems like it is economical,” says Marisa.
Given that mass-production methods are more economical, how likely is it that this food movement will impact on all food production?
Gerald di Pasquale believes that mass-production processes will be hard to break, particularly for industries serving large urban populations. Despite this, French-born Di Pasquale has bucked the system and established a small charcuterie, in Rivonia, where he sells a range of artisanal cooked-meat products from sausages to pâtés. He uses a good cut of pork – the shoulder – for his sausages, which only contain three ingredients; pork, salt and pepper – “you should let the raw ingredients speak for themselves”, the Frenchman asserts.
The authenticity of his products lies in the traditional French recipes he uses and, while he pays careful attention to the meat he selects, he says it is impossible to source quality organic meat in this country – unless you happen to live near a small cattle farm.
“The moment you need to cater for large groups of consumers then you need to raise large amounts of cattle. To be able to do that without them catching diseases off each other you need to pump them with antibiotics. You can’t get around that,” explains Di Pasquale.
He believes that traders of these so-called authentic, honest food products at markets aren’t upfront with consumers, who he says are largely quite ignorant about food production.
“There is a desire for these products but there isn’t the knowledge. Some people are trying to make a quick buck from the trend and they tell consumers what they want to hear. Essentially, we are not selling food but dreams.”
Di Pasquale might be disapproving of the fantasies attached to artisanal food products but he, too, is in the business of selling dreams at Petit Cochon. Adjoining his small deli is a modest bistro adorned with French posters. French music plays from loudspeakers and on a blackboard is a list of classic bistro fare. Like many other artisanal producers, Di Pasquale is selling an idealised slice of Europe. Mostly, his clientele are French expats, longing for a taste of home.
The market for artisanal products is limited, says Pasquale.
“It’s maybe 5 percent of the population. They are mostly white too.”
For this reason and the fact that mass-production systems are so entrenched, he is sceptical that this food movement will become mainstream. Many of its followers are selective in how they apply the ethos too, he observes.
“Some people come here (to my bistro) and they have a lot to say about ethical eating but then they go home and put on a pair of Nikes that have been made by a child in China.”
Overhauling the food industry to meet the demands of new ethical consumers will be a mammoth task but David Evans says change has been afoot within mainstream retailers for some time.
“The rise of Woolworths, a local supermarket where the stories around the food have become part of their selling tactics – such as the basil that is picked at Beaufort West – is evidence that things are changing. The rise of all these Impala Fruit Veg outlets is also evidence of change. They are all offering something local and good.”
Evans has a point; even Checkers, which catered for price-conscious shoppers, has been advertising free-range lamb.
The evolution of coffee products serves as a model for the shifts that have occurred to meeting progressively more sophisticated and demanding tastes, proposes Marisa Evans.
“In the old days it was instant coffee. Then the drip filter, which burnt the coffee. Then it was the rise of the cream cappuccino. French presses followed and espresso-based beverages. It eventually reached the point that Wimpy had to offer those kinds of coffees. You know when Wimpy has got to do it that it has become mainstream.
“Now everyone is into texturising milk and latte art and micro-roasted coffee. Bread is just coming out of the drip-machine phase, that is the journey that bread is going. Give it 10, 15 years and you will get this recreation of culture around bread.”
As Di Pasquale noted, sourcing “honest” organic ingredients to guarentee the authenticity of artisinal products is difficult. When the Evanses went in search of organic flour, they were only able to identify one large producer.
“The reality is, there aren’t a lot of mills left in the country. Most commercial mills generate lots of heat that denatures the proteins in the flour. The Eureka mill, where we get our flour, rotate crops and are doing things to maintain the goodness in the wheat,” observes David.
The artisanal food movement here parades the characteristics of a fad; it has taken root in transient retail contexts, consumers of it are more interested in the appearance of authenticity and it has been adopted by a young, fashionable set. However, it seems part of a wider post-industrial movement linked to a distrust of capitalist ideals and traditional notions of progress. So in many ways people’s attachment to these honest products is a philosophical and emotional one. People derive a greater sense of satisfaction from purchasing these goods because it affirms their stance.
“The industrial age was all about efficiency and it affected the production of everything but people realised that it is not fulfilling in the end. It is not relevant when it comes to everything,” observes Marisa.
l The Food Wine Design Fair is at Hyde Park Shopping Centre from November 25-27. The Neighbourgoods Market in Joburg takes place on Saturdays in Braamfontein. For more information visit www.neighbourhoodgoodsmarket.co.za.
The Market on Main runs on Sundays at the Arts on Main Complex in Joburg. Visit www.marketonmain.co.za for more information.
For a list of Vovo Telo outlets visit www.vovotelo.co.za.
Petit Cochon products are available at its store at the corner of Rivonia Road and 1st Avenue, Morningside.