Madalene Bonvini-Hamel

Madalene grew up in South-Africa, born into a normal working class family. Family gatherings involved enjoying seasonal food cooked well by experienced mothers and grandmothers who keenly passed their recipes down from generation to generation. Her grandfather a farmer, who moved to a smallholding in the town, experimented with growing anything and everything that was interesting. From avocado's, pecan nuts to paw paws and mangoes, however "normal" ingredients such a tomatoes and cucumber also graced his land where she got the `taste experience' of how tree and sun-ripen fruits taste like. As a child food gifts where given at special occasions for Birthdays and Christmas as money was a short for fashionable new man made clutter as her grandmother polity would put it. These gifts gave her the understanding and true meaning and value of homemade food gifts. Preserving, jam making and pickling featured heavily in the home and even the odd recipe of making soap and golden syrup was passed down thought the generations.