Remembering Sydda Essop, who turned recipes into a social history of the Karoo

Detailed summary

Through recipes and intimate stories, Sydda Essop documented the people, hospitality and cultural crossings that shape the Karoo’s distinctive food ...

Through recipes and intimate stories, Sydda Essop documented the people, hospitality and cultural crossings that shape the Karoo’s distinctive food heritage.

We had a friend in Beaufort West who once compiled a great Karoo cookbook. It was a perfect symphony of interesting food and immersive storytelling. But her life and achievements went way beyond the book.

We last saw her more than a decade ago and learned that she passed away in 2024. Her story, which we captured after her book launch, will live on in the annals of Karoo heroes. And here it is, fresh and relevant as ever.

Everyone in Beaufort West in the Central Karoo knows the Essop family of Beaufort West. Sydda, daughter of Amina and Solly, became best known for her remarkable book, Karoo Kitchen, first published in 2012.

Her father Solly used to be the famous one in the Essop family. He was a retailer, the maker of the locally famous cooldrink called Sonsap, and a fiercely committed anti-apartheid activist from the 1940s through to his death in 1984.

The Essops’ big house on the outskirts of Beaufort West hosted many well-known politicians.

“Nelson Mandela often held me on his lap when I was a baby,” Sydda Essop told us with a shy smile.

We were visiting her at her mother’s house in Beaufort West in 2012, for a profile that would be published in Country Life magazine.

Essop told us she would travel with her father when he was going around the countryside campaigning for farmworkers’ rights.

Opening of the article, excerpted from Daily Maverick. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.