Ficksburg - There was curry and rice on the menu but it was the sheep’s head that drew my attention.
We do not normally cover events beyond the borders of KwaZulu-Natal, but given that many people from the Free State holiday in our province I thought I would return the compliment by attending the Ficksburg Cherry Festival this last weekend.
For someone living in a city, agricultural shows and village fairs are a good way of reminding us where the food on our plates comes from. And the people are different – one can see that their lives are tougher, trying to make a living from the land.
And they eat different things. Aside from the usual fastfood-type meals from stalls and trailers, there was an outlet offering sheep’s head, tripe, sheep’s tail, liver in fat, curry and rice, sosaties and boerewors.
I was tempted to try the head but knew I would not have been allowed near our group of friends, who were having drinks in the Roundtable-managed beerhall, while watching various singers entertain the crowd. Instead I sneaked a photo of a couple that was brave enough to try it.
The Cherry Festival is a big deal in the Eastern Free State and crowds of people poured through the gates into the festival grounds, while the Gabriel Wings Aerobatic Team in their Pitts Specials did some awesome stunts overhead. Earlier in the day runners from all over the country had taken part in a marathon and various walks, in honour of the festival.
Outside the town are several large cherry farms and the festival is all about celebrating the cherry.
In a huge marque on the grounds there were stalls selling a range of goods, from clothing to jewellery, furniture, homemade liquers, beaded artwork, kitchen appliances and all the other bric-a-brac one associates with fairs.
But the cherry farms also have their stalls and here they offer tastings of their cherry liquers, of jams, chutneys and brandied fruit. These were the most popular stalls, with potential buyers standing five or six deep, waiting to taste the merchandise. By mid-morning the cherry liquer afficianados could be cheerfully ticking.
A funfair for the kiddies was popular while elsewhere an appreciative crowd wondered how a clown had been able to whip off a young volunteer’s underpants without anyone seeing.
SAB had parked a large truck and trailer, designed as a stage, next to a large concreted slab, under roof, where hundreds of plastic chairs faced the musicians who would entertain them from mid-afternoon into the night.
Our group had plans to watch the Boks play Italy back in our self-catering accommodation in Clarens and we left before the music on the main stage got going. On our way out we collected the boxes of cherries we had bought from the local Rotary club. This was an excellent initiative, leaving festivalgoers free to fill their hands with all sorts of other shopping before returning to exchange their receipts for the boxes of cherries.
The cherries were very tasty.
Independent on Saturday