A Sticky Story: The journey of mebos

The author supports Yeoville Meals on Wheels who distribute food parcels to the elderly and needy.

Close your eyes and imagine the definitive taste of Cape cuisine. Perhaps the creamy comfort of umngqusho comes to mind. Maybe it’s a coconut rolled koesister or snoek braais on the beach. For me, sweet-sour-salty cylindrical slabs of dried apricot mebos induce regionally specific drooling delight. 

Not everyone agrees. More than Marmite, mebos is a love it or hate it comestible. For some the robust, layered flavour profile of the brined then sun dried and sugared apricot is deeply disconcerting. Others argue that sensory confusion is precisely the point. Either way, mebos offers insight into the South African story. 

Fruit has been sun dried at the Cape since time immemorial. Renata Coetzee’s A Feast from Nature describes Khoi-Khoin traditional preservation methods for wild fluweelrosyntjie berries (Grewia flava) suurvy (Carpobrotus acinaciformis), t’samma (Citrulus lanatus) and !Nara melon (Acanthosicyos horridus) which were: “Cut into pieces and cooked without water until they melted down into a thick syrup. The syrup was then spread on a flat rock to dry in the sun for a few days after which it was sliced into sections and eaten as dried fruit roll would be.” 

Adding salt to sun dried fruit came with colonial conquest. Of all the trees that grew in the Dutch East India Company’s gardens, apricots were amongst the most productive but they also had the shortest fresh shelf life. They were generally preserved either in brandy or salt which Louis Leipoldt attributed to: “The limited access to imported sugar which was an exceedingly scarce and expensive article, whose use became general only in the 18th century.” 

The flavour of salt preserved stone fruit was already familiar to many of those at the Cape colony. Prunus mume is known in Japanese as “ume” and is often translated into English as “Asian plum” but is actually more closely related to an apricot. For thousands of years the Japanese have prized the medicinal and culinary properties of brined, fermented, sun-dried ume (known as umeboshi). Not only are they traditionally consumed as a condiment, infused into teas and distilled into startlingly strong spirits but samurai warriors also carried umeboshigan (umeboshi balls) – made by kneading the flesh of salted umeboshi, rice flour and sugar – into battle in order to counter fatigue, dehydration nausea and hangovers. Seeking umeboshi in South Africa? Order online from Tabu Food.  

Sun drying Japanese style umeboshi. (Photo: Supplied)

Lamb rump with mebos purée and pumpkin fritters by Chef David Higgs. (Photo: Elsa Young)