Jos Baker: Food critic, glamorous eccentric and slow food champion

Jos Baker gave me the look. Those Victorian eyes above the gently red-lipped smile could stare you down. She took no prisoners. All I had said was, "Peach Melba."

We were food and wine buddies, so we talked about things like ice cream and canned peaches, which equals Peach Melba. But we were more than that. 

The fact that she and her husband David lived in a house that could have been a set for an Italian opera was part of our connection: (food and wine) culture, (architectural and fashion) history and, yes, whiffs of nostalgic romanticism.

When Jos died peacefully in her bed in that very house, Klein Zoar, on 21 April, her fully lived life came to a soft, fade-out conclusion. On 25 November this year, she would have been 88. 

There was merely a stage whisper of her exit over in Brooklyn, or “Yzerplaats”, as it was known when the first walls of their cottage were built from the lagoon edge’s ferrocrete.

But two score years earlier, and even before that, madame, with her jewels and curly locks, was the belle of the ball. The world of fashion was her oyster. 

She knew style and she lived it, always aware that touches of eccentricity and simplicity in, say, a piece of jewellery or hair-do was what made style stand out. 

As the then editor of The Buyer, her influence had an impact. She travelled to shows in cultural capitals such as Paris. She had clout to the in-look.

Part of this internationalism took her to restaurants and chefs, and soon she was a skilled critic and observer of the fine dining table. 

Jos’ journalistic streak brought her close to the action, whether it be the fashion designer, five-star chef or prima winemaker. And she kept tabs on all – sharing when it could contribute to a better understanding and appreciation. Always important was the back story and history.

Despite all the international glamour, there was a reason she lived in a rather simple cottage dating back to the 1700s or so.

Her photographer husband, David, was a fan of the dusty past of buildings. Their cottage, with its peach pit floor and stone walls crafted by hand, genuinely chalked, and its thatched roof made from indigenous reeds, was named Klein Zoar. It came with a delicious history and legend: the Cape Dutch farmer Wolraad Woltemade, who died while rescuing shipwrecked sailors, once lived there. In 2009 Jos wrote a book about the cottage’s restoration.

In 2007 she was honoured with the Eat Out Lifetime Achiever Award for her contribution to food and wine journalism, honouring a career of eating out and compassionate, yet honest reporting on chefs, their eateries – high and low end – and the food fads that come and go. 

A lover of wine, she was familiar with the best and also with those who made the best. It was her enthusiasm for their craft that made her a friend.

Her stylish appearance, often harking to a bygone, more elegant era, saw the younger foodies teasing her with the status of a “living legend”. She enjoyed the compliment.

All of this contributed to Jos becoming a leading light in the Cape for that unusual food body politic that was rearing its Italian head as Slow Food.

Started in the Italian town of Bra in 1986 by the dynamic activist-journalist Carlo Petrini (turning 75 in June), it is now a worldwide “real food” movement with clout. 

A decade or so later, the trend spread and we in South Africa were drawn in.

One of Slow Food’s achievements, and also its appeal, is the acknowledgement of the local, indigenous, regional and site-specific uniqueness of different foods. We took up that South African challenge with glee. Jos’ eyes sparkled.

Under the Slow Food Ark of Taste project, small heritage food items are listed for protection. (Officially, South Africa now has a remarkable 82 in the Ark, including my favourite, Blinkhaar Ronderib sheep of the Limpopo.) 

The Peach Melba story – 25 years ago 

We were on our way back from Italy where, at the famous Slow Food Salon del Gusto in Turin, as members of the international panel of judges for the Slow Food awards, we had hoisted the South African flag in the form of a wine-tasting.     

We’d started a local chapter of Slow Food and Jos – as the obvious local Slow Food leader – was doing a newsletter. I was to write something. I’m a peach person. We probably had some remarkably delightful local Italian ones at the Salon.

Somehow the idea of Peach Melba had always fascinated me, as did the pleasure and deliciousness of canned peaches and ice cream as the ultimate dessert.

As a boy, the white peaches of grandmother’s garden in Wellington and the story of how the orange Prunus persica Kakamas (also known as Oom Sarel) was specially cultivated for canning (in nearby Paarl) were the magical ingredients of lives well lived and happy Sunday desserts.

Simplicity itself, Péche Melba was “invented” by the great Escoffier in honour of the soprano Nellie Melba in 1893. Pure Victorian lunch table indulgence, it too is a story for life and living.

Yet despite my romantic suggestion of an ode to Peach Melba in the newsletter, Jos would have none of it. 

Our Slow Food mission was about local being good and lekker and to be celebrated, so bringing Melba and Kakamas together, despite the glory of real vanilla ice cream (painstakingly created by my friend Cherylle Cowley’s The Nice Company), did not get approval.

Thinking about it now, it’s easy to associate everything that Peach Melba conjures up with a young, glamorous Josephine ‘Jos’ Jayes and her long creative life. DM