NIEU-BETHESDA NEWS — When you ask around Nieu-Bethesda who the 'Kweper' cooks are, little hands point towards the quaint blue home in Pienaarsig, where the children say 'Tante van der Fyn' lives.
This cheerful lady is well loved in the village and delights in working with the lemon-yellow, felty skinned quinces that ripen on the ancient hedges throughout the lands around the village around late March.
While the children refer to this industrious lady Tante van der Fyn, she is known to most as Caroline Swartz.
Caroline's beautiful little home is jampacked with treasures that she has collected over the 47 years that she has lived in Nieu-Bethesda.
The bright pink walls are adorned with a collection of mounted springbok horns, an antique print that the people from the old pottery gave her, a copper plate elephant from Zimbabwe and a tapestry saying 'God loves You'.
On entering Caroline's home one can't but help notice an oversized pot, filled with a glorious bubbling pink mass that fills the space with the unmistakably unique sweet-tart aroma of quince cooking.
Caroline speaks passionately as to how to make quince jam.
There are little tricks that you should know, like adding salt to the water as you peel and cut up the tough fruit to prevent it from going brown. There is a magical quality to a quince in that the longer you cook it, the deeper rosy pink hue it takes on. Preparing quinces is not for the faint-hearted!
You first have to peel the gnarled, fuzzy knobbles and then it takes quite some strength to chop the fruit into small pieces.
Before this, children are sent out to pick the golden orbs from the hedges which are high and often out of reach. The gigantic pot bubbling away represents hours of labour!
Caroline says that one should wait until the quinces are ripe, swollen and yellow on the hedges before harvesting them. If you pick them too green you have to add much more sugar to make a palatable jam.
Caroline giggles as she says, 'Ek bak en ek brou en ek gaan maar tekere met al die goed wat ek doen!'
Caroline loves to cook for the children of the village and they queue up for tamaletjie and jam on freshly made bread. She also dries quinces in the Karoo sun - that way they can be preserved and rehydrated in the cold winter when fruit is scarce.
She also sells her bottled goods and is a dab hand at baking smoky roosterkoek. Caroline's humble home is filled with colour, friends and grandchildren, the glorious aroma of quince and a potful of love.
Caroline Swartz's Kweper Jam (as told by Caroline):
- 6kg kwepers (quinces)
- 3kg sugar
- 12 cups water
- 2 teaspoons powdered ginger
Method:
Peel the quinces, place them in a bucket of water to which you have added 4 teaspoons of salt to prevent browning. Leave for an hour or two.
Drain and rinse the quinces with clean water.
Weigh out 6kg of the fruit, place in a large pot with the sugar, water and ginger (uncovered). Cook for 5 hours until the syrup is thick and the quinces turn a rosy red colour. Bottle when ready in sterilized jars.
Serve with warm, homemade bread.
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