What Is Easter Without Pickled Fish?

Growing up as a child I often had pickled fish and hot cross buns at Easter. Almost everyone in Vrededorp — Malay, Muslim, Christian in Vrededorp — had pickled fish at Easter. I didn’t know why it was so popular at Easter. In fact, if it wasn’t for Easter eggs I would hardly have even known that it was Easter.

When the Group Areas Act had relocated different communities to their race-designated areas our family was moved to Lenasia — an Indian suburb where the shared cultures that we had inherited from Vrededorp slowly also faded away.

Pickled fish also disappeared from most Muslim households at Easter time because some fundamentalist imams associated eating pickled fish at Easter with Christian traditions. I wasn’t going to forego my love for pickled fish so I just made sure my Christian friends remembered to save some for me in their mum’s Tupperware.

In later years I began to make my own pickled fish during Easter and any other time when I had the craving for it. When I relocated to Witbank in 1996 I had a colleague whose wife and Belgian mother-in-law loved pickled fish just as much as I do. He hated the sight, smell and taste of it though. I’d often make a bowl for his wife and mother-in-law too and they would sneakily eat it over the weekend when he was outdoors.

When I moved to Grahamstown/Makhanda I introduced my late colleague, Lynette Marais, to pickled fish. Oh boy! How she loved it and yearned for that glass of red wine but she was going to resist the temptation of the latter. Lynette was a devout Christian and wine was one of those lovely nice things that she gave up at Lent and often sometimes up to early May.

There was never shortage of pickled fish at my home in Grumponia. I made large amounts for me as well as for friends whom I had over the weekend. A second large bowl of pickled fish was added almost every year to my table as a gift from my driver and his wife. In the week before Easter they would seek out the best and freshest hake and make their pickled fish with absolute passion. When it was brought to my home it always came enveloped in huge dollops of love from them.

I had always made pickled fish that had a bright yellow golden colour. In Grumponia I was introduced to pickled fish that had a golden orange colour. I learnt that instead of brown sugar which is usually added to the dish, a dollop of apricot jam could offer the same love, a richer colour and a creamier texture.

I relocated to Durban at the height of the pandemic so as you can guess for two years there was no pickled fish for me. One year, I planned for almost a fortnight to make pickled fish and to introduce some of my Durban mates to it. But alas, whilst I could find the best fish in Debben by da Seaside there was no Cape Malay pickling spices at any of the spice shops in Debben by da Seaside. I was not going to settle on Woolworths pickled fish either so I mixed my own spices.

The next year I was in Oudtshoorn at the KKNK festival. One night I invited two friends to join me for dinner at one of Oudtshoorn’s very good restaurants. There was pickled fish on the menu. No guessing that’s what I ordered.

This is my komvandaanstorietjie because in my mixed masala family, some of my cousins or their families will still be having pickled fish on Good Friday because it’s just bloody lekker.