Janice Tripepi

Many years ago my hubby together with gazillians of Tripepi relatives, all of us with little kiddies and babies, used to pack up the entire house and trek up the North Coast of Durban to Sheffield Beach.  We looked like an Out Of Africa expedition.  Gazebo’s, cooler boxes, portable braai, kids, umbrellas, swing balls, soccer balls, rugby balls, grannies, grandpas and old uncle tom cobbly and balls ……….. all this for a days outing!!  

We were, like most young families, struggling financially so had to find “cheap and cheerful” outings to entertain our children and babies.  A 30 minute drive with equipment literally tied to the rooves of the cars, and then a walk from hell down a steep steep hill to get to this beautiful beach, complete with rock pools like jacuzzi’s and rocks with refreshing waterfalls!!!  It was the “rocks” the Tripepi’s were after, armed with Mussel and Crayfishing licenses our husbands were decked out in old football jersies, steel work safety gloves and weight belts.   We called ourselves the fish wives!!! and we would order the menfolk to follow their primal instincts – beat their chests – bolster their testosterone levels and go forth and be HUNTER GATHERERS!!!!  They were not allowed out of the water until their bags were full and over flowing with seafood. 

With the contents of our cooler bags quickly eaten by the hords – they would be re-filled with mussels and crayfish.  The mussels were enormous – so enormous that we could make mussel shnitzels out of them - coating them in breadcrumbs and deep frying them to be serves with huge lemon wedges.  We made fresh Spaghetti with Fresh Mussel sauces Spaghetti alle Cozze.  Crayfish was prepared in a creamy brandy sauce and served on rounds of toased white bread.  The kiddies downed bowl after bowl of mussel soup!  For people who had no money, we sure managed at least two seafood meals a week!!!!  The late surf reporter and Durban Surfing Legend, Baron Stander used to refer to us as the “Tripepi Rock Robbers!”. 

We would get home, around 4.30pm – all sunburnt and exhausted from the day on the beach – the kiddies would be tired and this quick 5 minute soup recipe – would be ready by the time they all finished bathing and dressing in their jarmies!!!

I bought these beautiful New Zealand (Oi my carbon footprint!!!!) from Woolies yesterday.  They are farmed – so grown on ropes with is a bonus as you dont have to deal with sand and grit!!

Ingredients

1/2 a packet of smoked streaky bacon – chopped

1 Large onion chopped

1/2 punnet of finely chopped garlic

chopped parsley

1 chicken stock cube

2 glasses dry white wine

800ml fresh cream

lots of freshly ground black pepper

a dash of smoked paprika

In a nice large pot – fry the garlic, onion, bacon, paprika, pepper and stock cube unil lightly brown

check over the mussels and remove any beards – add to the pot

with the white wine, cover with a lid and cook on a high heat for 3 minutes

Remove the lid and reduce by 1/3

add the cream – check for seasoning

throw in the finely chopped parsley (a good bunch)

and serve!

You could add in some chilli for a bit of extra heat if you like.

Buon Appetito!