My Maketaan, your %$# Waatlemoen

Yes, there is a colloquial name for this fruit? Vegetable? But you must know your audience before you use it. I shall stick to Maketaan. It does not matter really; it is still delicious.

What is pertinent, is that in all my homestead/farm visits, there was always a jar of this preserve on the table, and long long stories about the hours and hours spent preparing the preserve.

In fact, I did join in on the prep once, many moons ago.

So, it was with a little trepidation that I accepted this gift from a neighbour. But horse’s mouth and all that, I worked up the courage to tackle the preservation process.

First of all, get together a band of assistants.

In this case, The Husband, Mate 1, and Mate 2.

Then have your instructions ready. Inevitably, some of the assistants may feel they have the ear of sergeant at arms, and come up with other ways of prep, but take no heed.

My friend told me to first skin the Maketaan, so that is the noticeably clear instruction I conveyed to team A. There was a fair amount of mumbling and grumbling, from the gallery, but it was done in the end, and very well if I may say so.

Next step was to remove the flesh inside. While a Maketaan looks like a watermelon, unlike a watermelon, the flesh is not a hot summer afternoon treat. Not even the chickens seemed to like it. You only want to remain with the thick rind, which is cut into cubes.

Phase two can be fun. It can also be stress relief. It does require additional resources, and Mate 2 joined the fray to puncture/prick the slices of rind thoroughly.

I have heard of paddles being constructed with protruding nails to make the job go easier. However, we just stuck with stabbing the slices with a fork over and over, and over. Hence “stress relief”.

A carefully constructed template was placed in the middle of the table, for Team A, phase 3, to cube the rind into bitesize pieces resembling the final product.

All this should be done perhaps in the afternoon, or early evening of day 1, because then the pieces of rind need to be soaked in lime overnight. Proportions you ask. – It took me back to basic school beginners’ algebra to work it out. I will leave that up to you to work out for your Maketaan.

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The fellow team members gratefully exited their casual labour contracts, and then it was the time-consuming job of washing the cubes thoroughly, boiling them in hot water (adding a few pieces at a time so that the water never stops boiling), then straining them. By them, I mean the cubes, not the team assistants. Maybe 10 or 15 minutes.

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In the meantime, prepare the sugar syrup, of course with some lemon juice and fresh ginger.

Now you boil the cubes in the sugar syrup until almost see through. Again, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Bottle in clean jars, and there you have it. Beautifully preserved Maketaan, to be enjoyed with blue cheese, or on toast, or on camembert sprinkled with nuts and syrup, or…. straight out of the jar.

Final step, reward all contributors (Maketaan providers (Thank you Susan), Recipe and advice givers (Thank you Engela), “Darn it, I don’t have enough jars” emergency response team (thank you Sjelda), and of course the “Oh stop complaining and just prick” team assistants (thank you Fanie, thank you Herman, thank you Elode) with a jar of time-honoured golden goodness.

I have a few jars left, let’s talk bartering….