The bokkom story

What ARE Bokkoms?

Considered a 'delicacy',Bokkoms are one of the products found only on the West Coast and nowhere else in South Africa.

They are salted and wind-dried fish, usually "haarders" (sardines) or "maasbankers" (horse mackerel), which formed an important part of the daily diet in the Cape, where fresh fish was not always available. They are layered in a container, salted liberally with coarse salt and left overnight in a cool spot.

The next day they are taken from the salt, rinsed lightly, tied in bunches with twine threaded through the heads and hung outside to dry in a cool spot with enough dry air circulation. When dried and crisp enough for your liking they can be eaten as a snack food like biltong.

The reason that they are made only at Velddrif may be a combination of two essential factors, namely an abundance of the 'haarders' (mullet) or maasbankers, in the Berg River estuary, combined with the dryness of the region.

Alternatively, it could be just a typically west coast thing - a taste harking back to the time when bokkoms were always part of food consignments sold to the Dutch for the colony at the Cape.

Soon after his arrival at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652, Jan van Riebeeck made contact with the Cochokwa of Saldanha; and these people, whom he called Saldanhars, traded regularly their sheep and cattle for copper plate and tobacco at the Dutch fort in Table Bay.

In September 1652, Van Riebeeck sent a boat to Saldanha to investigate the trade potential of the area and soon realised that the French were making extensive use of the bay as a halfway station to their Asian colonies. In fact, prior to the arrival of Van Riebeeck, most of the important bays and waters of South Africa, and particularly along the south and west coasts, were well-known to European navigators.

Although the first fishing by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and Free Burghers took place in Table Bay and the waters of the Salt River, a variety of reasons - including a shortage of fish - drove attention up the southwest coast to Saldanha Bay, where fish were plentiful, and where the roadstead was well enclosed within the large bay affording good, safe anchorages and many landing places.

In 1658, a group of Free Burghers - the Saldanha seafarers - obtained rights from the Company to fish the waters of Saldanha and ferry their catches to the Company's now permanent trading post at Table Bay.

The Saldanha seafarers had sole rights to the lucrative fishing until 1711, and established small huts for the storage of their nets. One fifth of the catch had to be delivered in salted or dried form: and so bokkoms were made!

Along the banks of the Berg River is a dirt road that is regarded, unofficially, as a national monument. Here large schools of harders are netted and turned into bokkoms. Bokkoms are harders (mullet) or horse mackerel that are salted, then strung into bunches and hung up to dry. They are unique to this part of the West Coast and no visitor should leave before visiting this trail.

All along this road there are rows of fish strung on ropes under reed shelters. Here women sit, with needle and string, tying up the little fish before salting them and hanging them to dry in the wind. Small fishng boats with oars, used for setting the haarder nets, lie alongside dilapidated old, wooden quays, adding to the quaintness and chanrm of this area.

Bokkoms are synonymous with Velddrif. These dried fish are the biltong of the area. This unique, traditional delicacy is highly prized by initiates and best enjoyed with white wine, or with bread, apricot jam and black coffee.

Although they are considered a West Coast ‘delicacy’, somehow the word suggests a dainty kind of food with a fineness of texture, which bokkems are definitely not. Only in Veldriff are there people who actually like bokkoms – dried and shrivelled silvery harders.

Rarely do the little fishing boats need to go out to sea - they catch enough of these slippery little fish in the mouth of the Berg River - but never, astonishingly, manage to fulfil the local demand.