Tannie Maria’s recipes to live for | Afternoon tea with Sally Andrew

Sally Andrew’s recently launched recipe book at the Franschhoek Literary Festival is more than just a recipe book. It’s a visual delight combining comfort food with photographic brilliance that celebrates the Klein Karoo’s eccentric quaintness and local scenery.

For those who know me well, there are three female characters I would choose to internalise as my feminine default: Tannie Maria (from Recipes for Love and Murder by Sally Andrew), Donna (from Suits) and Dorcas Lane (from Larkrise to Candleford). So, when the 2024 Franschhoek Literary Festival issued an invite to have tea with Sally Andrew on the launch of her cookbook inspired by the recipes in her four mystery novels - and gain some insights into her darling protagonist, Tannie Maria - I RSVP’d immediately. 

Sally Andrew arrived at The Barn at Lacotte Farm in her ‘vellies’ and we spent an hour drawn into her and Tannie Maria’s antics, a hilarious conversation about gecko poo, and their Klein Karoo idyllic existence (“where trees make good neighbours”).

Just an aside; for those who have read the novels, Tannie Maria becomes way more than a fictional character; her balance of gentle vulnerability, disarming toughness, amateur detective skills and unapologetic love for food are just some of the reasons she creeps into your heart.

How did the character of Tannie Maria come to Sally Andrew? The answer is quite romantic: it was while she was sitting under a Kameeldoringboom in Namibia. All that remained was waiting to hear Tannie Maria’s voice.  

And that voice charmingly and authentically made its way into her stories: 

▪︎ Book 1 - Recipes for Love and Murder

▪︎ Book 2 - The Satanic Mechanic

▪︎ Book 3 - Death on the Limpopo

▪︎ Book 4 - The Milktart Murders

(Although each is a standalone novel, I do suggest you read them in order as the compelling thread of the main characters’ backstories and personal journey progressions are interwoven throughout the series).

I adored all four novels. In each one there is a murder which takes place in or around the Platteland town of Ladismith. Integral to the plot, character development and the solving of each murder is the Klein Karoo setting and Tannie Maria, cooking, baking and giving agony aunt advice to letters accompanied by an appropriate recipe. 

It’s all perfectly South African, quirky and logical. 

From her kitchen and her stoep, Tannie Maria teaches us about life and how to relate to life. 

“A turtle dove was calling. I finished my last sip of coffee and a mouthful of rusk and spread out the letter on my stoep table. I had chosen it from a small pile I’d brought home from the office of the Klein Karoo Gazette.”

For Sally Andrew, the obvious follow-on to the novels was an idiosyncratic and mouth watering recipe book filled with the (red veldskoen) footprints and heart of Tannie Maria. 

The pages are jam-packed with the most beautiful food styling images, scenes of the Klein Karoo (you will wonder why you're not living there), the recipes, of course, plus some of the letters, down-to-earth advice and profound Tannie Maria aphorisms. 

Here is an extract from a letter and a snippet of Tanni Maria’s advice:

“Dear Tannie Maria. 

I lived for some years in Calitzdorp, but had to move to Johannesburg for work. I left my heart in the Klein Karoo…The kudu and ostriches in the veld. The small towns and friendly people. The big yellow moon rising over a koppie…

Can you help me with my heartsickness? 

Heart-torn Lady”

“Dear Heart-torn Lady. 

You really need Ouma’s Karoo Lamb Pie and I will give you the recipe. But there is something else you need to know. It is your heart that you are missing. Do not leave your heart in a place. You must keep your heart inside you and keep the place you love inside your heart…

WIth warm wishes from the cold Karoo, 

Tannie Maria.”

The novels are more than just local ‘whodunnit’ murder stories. 

With a heroine in her 50s who takes to amateur sleuthing, each book is a masterful, yet sensitive commentary on the cultural, political and social nuances that make up South Africa’s people and landscape. Sally Andrew does this - with the help of Tannie Maria - with pathos, humour and flair. 

The Tannie Maria cookbook is more than just a recipe book.

It is a visual delight combining comfort food with photographic brilliance that celebrates the Klein Karoo’s eccentric quaintness and local scenery. From the famous Venus Chocolate Cake (filled with a layer of apricot jam and peanut butter) and Pineapple Buttermilk Cake to Ouma’s Karoo Lamb Pie with Sour Cream Pastry (“where you can taste the Karoo veld and sunshine and the sweet wild herbs the lambs eat”) and Grandma Pikkie’s Pumpkin Pie (you’ll need the Spekboom Ice-cream recipe to clear your palate), you are in for a hearty dose of South African food, colloquialisms and wisdom. 

Fans of Tannie Maria and her crime-filled small-town adventures and relationships will be delighted to know that Sally Andrew has just completed the first draft of Book 5. We cannot wait. 

For now though, I’ll leave you with this Klein Karoo quote, because Sally Andrew and Tannie Maria both have a way with words and a special way of sharing the love and making us slow down in order to see the world a little differently:

“We have more stars here than anywhere else in the world. If you look and look, you will see that there are more stars than there is darkness.“

Thank you, Sally Andrew, for bringing Tannie Maria (and her recipes) into our lives.

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