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Watch – Retro Karoo Food: 80 Nostalgic South African Recipes

Retro Karoo Food: 80 Nostalgic South African Recipes (Penguin Random House South Africa, 2026) is the cookbook Daily Maverick's food editor, Tony Jackman, has been quietly building for years – 160 pages of recipes that shaped South African kitchens long before anyone was plating things on slate.

Tony Jackman
Karoo house (Photographer: Sean Calitz) Karoo house (Photographer: Sean Calitz)

Skilpadjies. Boontjiesop. Tamatiebredie. Waterblommetjiebredie. Ginger chicken roasted in a potjie. Tipsy tart. The dishes your grandmother made but never quite wrote down.

Yum.

This isn’t a book chasing food trends. There are no spheres, no foams, no tweezers. Just proper recipes – traditional, adapted, and invented – from Jackman's Karoo kitchen in the old Garob. The kind of food that belonged in cookbooks all along, gathered in one place… before it disappears.

If you would like to buy Retro Karoo Food: 80 Nostalgic South African Recipes, it's on the DM Shop now!

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