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Sally Andrew, Tannie Maria and the milk of human kindness

Henk’s Favourite. (Photo: Ed O’Riley)

7 Feb 2025

Like her detective novels, Sally Andrew’s cookbook (or is it Tannie Maria’s?) does more than solve mysteries. It inspires and delights, and makes you think about the meaning of life, while reminding you of the enchantment of a life under the Karoo sun.

Tannie Maria really is a genius if you think about it. In fact, you don’t really need to think about it. She has thought about it for you. And having done that, she wrote it all down in a book.

Even in the very first pages of her cookbook — yes, not a detective yarn, this is a cookbook with love from Tannia Maria to you — she deceives you into believing one thing and then quickly dispels that, bringing a smile, and making you understand that life really is worth living. Isn’t that amazing?

Yes, yes, I know: we say “Tannie Maria” when what we really should be saying is “Sally Andrew”. They are interchangeable. Could one even exist without the other? No one knows. But we do know that they have both become as indispensable a part of South African Karoo life as tamatiebredie and vetkoek. Both of which are named in Afrikaans in Andrew’s (Maria’s) cookbook. And the names ring true.

Talking of which, the title of the book is: Recipes to Die Live For, a Tannie Maria Cookbook, and underneath all that, simply: Sally Andrew. So both women are attributed. So maybe we should just accept that they really are two individual human beings. (Like, you know, Pieter-Dirk Uys and Evita Bezuidenhout. I happen to know both of them and I can assure you they are two identifiably different people.) I have never met Tannie Maria, however, though I have met Sally Andrew. I am determined to meet her one day, and I have questions for her.

In this unexpectedly different turn in the Tannie Maria saga/s, Andrew has seamlessly transferred her fictional character from the pages of her detective novels into a cookbook which, Tannie Maria tells us early on, “is what I wanted to do all along, but murders kept taking over my stories”. As they have a habit of doing. (I was preparing a roast chicken the other day when my cat, Sky, walked into the kitchen with a bird in her mouth. She played a game with it, and then I saw that it was one of my beloved Cape robins, and I winced, and I tried to understand the mind of my loving cat and the nonchalant cruelty behind that purry face. A murder had taken place and all I did was continue cooking supper.)

Well, only Sally Andrew could confirm the veracity of Tannie Maria’s claim that all she’d really wanted to do was write a cookbook. Presumably she would consult Tannie Maria. We can never know, and some things should remain among life’s mysteries. But thank goodness she has, because her book is a thing of beauty.

Almond cake with an Amaretto glaze, left, and Tannie Kuruman’s melktert. (Photo: Ed O’Riley)

I love the first double-page spread. It contains only one word: MEAT. But no meat is visible to the human eye in the picture. Only the veld and koppies of the Klein Karoo, presumably near the author’s home in the Ladismith area. But what the spread seems to be saying is: look! This is what your Karoo lamb eats, and this is why it tastes so good. To me, it says: love your sheep, love your lamb. Just as the sheep farmers I know (because I live in a sheep farming area) love their stock, even if they are ultimately headed for… let’s not say where. But first they are loved.

I know that if I were to write to Tannie Maria about this, telling her that I was torn over the fact that I love sheep and also love eating them, which means they have to die, she would have a wise and kind explanation, and would soothe my guilty conscience. But since I don’t know Tannia Maria, only Sally Andrew, I suppose I must just accept that I will never be able to unravel this deep Karoo mystery. She is a very nice person by the way, coming to my rescue late last year when I was battling somewhat to get to year’s end. Sally, that is. Maria was nowhere in sight.

I have been enjoying Sally Andrew’s book (and let’s call it hers now that the above confusion has been dispensed with) since the turn of the year, for the simple perfection of the recipes to the delight of every letter Tannie Maria answers in between the recipes. At the same time, we are contemplating our move away from the Eastern Cape Midlands back to Cape Town. And it is complex. I can never truly leave the Karoo; I will always be pulled back. It is in my soul now. I suspect that this book will be among those I will treasure and hold close once we’re back in Cape Town.

Now that we are planning to leave our Karoo home after 10 years in Cradock, I have been contemplating writing to Tannie M. But how? It occurred to me that maybe I could leave a letter poste restante at a shop in Ladismith next time I drive through — just marked “Tannie Maria” — and maybe somebody would deliver it to her, or she’d spot it next time she came into the shop. I would ask her if I would be okay in the big city again, and would my heart remain behind in the Karoo?

I turned a page in her book, and suddenly I no longer needed to leave that poste restante letter and hope it got to Tannie M. “Heart-Torn Lady” had written to say she had left Calitzdorp years before and had “left her heart there”. Tannie Maria replied: “Do not leave your heart in a place. You must keep your heart inside you and keep the place you love inside your heart.” That is so sweet and kind, and so insightful. And now I know what I need to do. So, even through the pages of her cookbook, Tannie Maria has somehow managed to help me. That is a rare gift. I will take my Karoo heart to the city with me, and hold it close.

Maybe they really are two separate people? We will never really know. Ai tog. Such are the mysteries of Karoo life. Even in the Klein Karoo.

Anyway, this being a cookbook as well as another forum for Tannie Maria’s wise advice, there are of course many recipes in it. You may expect that they would all be typically Karoo recipes, but this is not so. There are some of those recipes that you might expect — vetkoek, Karoo lamb pie, tomato bredie et al — but there is also moussaka, which is of course Greek, West African Chicken Mafé (a dish of chicken and sweet potatoes), and cheesy nachos.

And then there are cakes, and Tannie Maria really seems to come into her own with these luscious delights. The Mechanic’s chocolate mousse cake and honey-toffee snake cake; pineapple butternut cake and almond cake with an Amaretto glaze, and Venus cake with its chocolate and coffee, cream and peanut butter, all in a chocolate-smeared heart shape. Oh and who could resist Candy’s cheesecake.

Candy’s cheesecake. (Photo: Ed O’Riley)

And then there’s the wonder that is weerligkoek, and for that I’m afraid you’ll have to buy Sally’s book. Or Maria’s book. (Look, just buy two and give one to a friend.) And there are many good reasons to buy it.

If you survive the pages of cake recipes (Venus cake alone fills four pages), there’s an avalanche of “treats” to follow, including Aunt Sandra’s malva pudding, Pikkie’s pumpkin pie, Tannie Kuruman’s melktert, and an intriguing Amarula pot pudding.

And then… yes, there’s more. Would you believe, Van der Hum liqueur? Nothing sings of the old Cape and the old times like this liqueur steeped in the early traditions of wine and later brandy at the Cape. It is also used in the pudding she calls “Henk’s favourite” which of course is also in the book. Other oddities include “Port biltong” (“As padkos, lasts 2 people 2,000 kilometres”), biltong butter, and, lest I forget, pot breads and roosterkoek.

Henk’s Favourite. (Photo: Ed O’Riley)

It’s clear now that if ever I did stop in Ladismith to visit the creator of Tannie Maria and her artist husband Bowen, it cannot be guaranteed that I will make it out alive, if indeed Tannie Maria is also there to feed me all of this wonderful fare, all of which I would be too polite to turn down. Because that would be just rude — in the Karoo, when you are offered something, you smile and accept it, and it is very rude to leave something on your plate. And Karoo people are not rude people.

So, these are among the many things I will miss when the day comes soon when it is time to trek back to the city and leave all this behind. I’m heartsore already. But I will take Tannie Maria’s cookbook with me, to remind me of all this. DM

Recipes To DIE Live For. A Tannie Maria Cookbook (PRHSA, 2024) has been shortlisted in the International Gourmand Awards in two categories. These awards are like cookbook Oscars, with entries from 222 countries.

Buy link: https://www.sallyandrew.com/buy/

Tannie Maria is a fictional character created by Sally Andrew in a series of cosy murder mysteries set in the Klein Karoo. Tannie Maria is an agony-aunt columnist obsessed with food (and also interested in love and solving murders). Her replies to letters contain a little advice and a lot of recipe.

The cookbook draws on the recipes from the first four award-winning books in the Tannie Maria series. Recipes for Love and Murder, Tannie Maria and the Satanic Mechanic, Death on the Limpopo, and The Milk Tart Murders.

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