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I'm getting all sorts of reminders that today, the 27th of February, is National Milk Tart Day. (I have a lot of South African sites on my feed.) Here are two links to recipes for melktert, or milk tart, a custard-based tart with a shortbread crust:

http://capemalaycooking.me/2014/02/27/national-milk-tart-day/

http://www.jacarandafm.com/post/happy-national-milk-tart-day/

Looks tasty! I think I need to try making this.

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From:

needled_ink_1975

(random stranger here, feel free to ignore)

I was just mindlessly scrolling along the LT page, and then there's the word "Voortrekker" in a picture = WHUT?! And ooh, melktert, which was also WHUT?! But yes, it's Melktert Day, and my wife informed me that she'll be bringing one home :)

If you make it, don't forget to sprinkle cinnamon on top, and it's best served chilled (kinda like most cheesecake, though I recently read a recipe for warm cheesecake. Did not compute c: ). Melktert is really really NOM, one of the few sweet things I eat, so if you make it, I hope you enjoy.

–N

From:

randomness

Neat! :)

If you make it, don't forget to sprinkle cinnamon on top, and it's best served chilled (kinda like most cheesecake, though I recently read a recipe for warm cheesecake. Did not compute c: ). Melktert is really really NOM, one of the few sweet things I eat, so if you make it, I hope you enjoy.

Thanks for the suggestions!

From:

r-ness.livejournal.com

I'm suspecting that it's Flemish if not Dutch.

Good call! It's Afrikaans. Wikipedia says some interesting things about the language:

The South African poet writer Breyten Breytenbach, attempting to visualize the language distance to anglophones once remarked that the differences between (Standard) Dutch and Afrikaans are comparable to those between the Received Pronunciation and Southern American English.

...

Modern Dutch and Afrikaans share over 90 per cent of their vocabulary. Afrikaans speakers are able to learn Dutch within a comparatively short time. Native Dutch speakers pick up written Afrikaans even more quickly, due to its simplified grammar, whereas understanding spoken Afrikaans might need more effort. Afrikaans speakers can learn Dutch pronunciation with little training. This has enabled Dutch and Belgian companies to outsource their call centre operations to South Africa.

Funnily enough, early this morning I had a commenter from South Africa (I think) on dreamwidth notice both the melktert and the "Voortrekker" in the photo, and comment. (http://randomness.dreamwidth.org/505167.html?thread=54607#cmt54607) He said his wife was bringing one home. I am envious. :)

In other detail about the photo, I noticed the classic Corning Ware Cornflower pattern on the pie plate. This made me happy. :)

From:

digitalemur.livejournal.com

We totally gotta make this. It's not too hard, and I already love making custard, as I think you know.

From:

r-ness.livejournal.com

Sorry, I misinterpreted your comment!

Call it racial snobbery.

That, or it's another example of the old saying that the difference between a dialect and a language is that a language has an army.

The interesting thing is that Wikipedia seems to consider Flemish a "dialect" and Afrikaans a "language". I'm under the impression that this is what most who study the languages think, if forced to say anything about it.

From the Wikipedia page on the Dutch language:

While "Dutch" generally refers to the language as a whole, Belgian varieties are sometimes collectively referred to as "Flemish". In both Belgium and the Netherlands, the native official name for Dutch is Nederlands, and its dialects have their own names, e.g. Hollands "Hollandish", West-Vlaams "Western Flemish", Brabants "Brabantian".

From the page on Flemish:

Flemish or Belgian Dutch (Belgisch-Nederlands [ˈbɛlɣis ˈneːdərlɑnts] ( listen), or Vlaams) is the Dutch language as spoken in Flanders, the northern part of Belgium,[1][2][3] be it standard (as used in schools, government and the media)[4] or informal (as used in daily speech, "tussentaal" [ˈtʏsə(n)ˌtaːl]).[5] There are four principal Dutch dialects in Flanders: Brabantian, East Flemish, West Flemish, and Limburgish. The latter two are sometimes considered separate languages.[6]

From the article on Afrikaans:

Afrikaans /ɑːfrɪˈkɑːns/ or /æfrɪˈkɑːns/[5] is one of the official languages of South Africa. It is a West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and, to a lesser extent, Botswana and Zimbabwe. It is an offshoot of several Dutch dialects spoken by the mainly Dutch settlers of what is now South Africa, where it gradually began to develop independently in the course of the 18th century.[6] Hence, historically, it is a daughter language of Dutch, and was previously referred to as "Cape Dutch" (a term also used to refer collectively to the early Cape settlers) or "kitchen Dutch" (a derogatory term used to refer to Afrikaans in its earlier days).[n 2]

Now, having been to each of these places I can definitely agree--as you say--that Flemish speakers consider that they speak something different from what Dutch speakers speak, regardless of what some people in some country they don't even live in think; and the Afrikaans speakers definitely consider that they speak something different, regardless of what some people in some far-off cold continent may think. I haven't heard myself what Dutch speakers think about either of the others, but I suspect they don't think about it much.

Like so many of these situations much of this is culturally constructed, and where one draws the line between dialect and language, and what either is called is also culturally constructed.

(I don't know if you've heard a Flemish person rant about Dutch people. It's a thing. A pretty impressive thing once you get one going. Alcohol seems to help :) South Africans, in my experience, mostly don't think about Dutch people except when they show up as tourists.)

That Dutch-looking Afrikaans word "voortrekker" is itself pretty culturally-loaded. There's even a monument, although I haven't visited it.

From:

r-ness.livejournal.com

I haven't been able to find anyone who sells them. Most of the South African shops in the States seem to concentrate on meat products.

But I've found lots of recipes! So maybe that's the way to go.

From:

r-ness.livejournal.com

Let's! I think that would be fun.

And you're right, it doesn't look that difficult.

My South African commenter has two suggestions: make sure to sprinkle cinnamon on top, and serve it chilled, like cheesecake.