The streets of Cape Town will be smelling fishy this week ahead of the big Easter long weekend where we will be having fish for breakfast, lunch and supper.
Maar is jou vis al in gelê?
The Daily Voice caught up with some aunties to find out how their Easter preparation is going.
Lovedalia Dean from Delft said that her fish has been defrosting since Sunday evening, ready om in gelê te word on Monday night "sodat dit lekker deur kan trek vir Vrydag".
Lovedalia says: “I will be having two sorts of pickled fish for Friday, one hake and one snoek. I also have seafood and might make a seafood paella mix but it depends."
She said that she bought one whole snoek for R280 by the mense on the bakkies along the road and five whole stokvis [hake] for R210 at a vis winkel in Airport Industria.
She adds: “I bought my fish, onions and ingredients including my pickled fish spice and vinegar last week already. The price of the fish increased because it is Easter. It is usually not this expensive, especially the snoek.
"The stokvis was a bargain and actually worked out cheaper because I wanted hake fillets and did not think they would have the whole stokvis but when we compared prices the stokvis worked out cheaper.
"Most people have made their fish by Wednesday but it is better when you do it earlier in the week then it has lekker time to trek deur. That is why I started my preparations yesterday so that all the spices and the mix can trek deur then it tastes lekker.
"We always buy our hot cross buns either on Thursday or on Good Friday because then it is nice and fresh. My family loves pickled fish so we will be eating this for the weekend and Sunday I will make a decent bord kos.”
Anneline Johnson from Elsies River said that she will start her pickled fish prep on Wednesday.
Anneline says: “I just bought a one-kilogram hake for R95 because snoek is expensive. It is now R300, other times the fish is about R120 or R150, so we did not bother with snoek. We bought our fish a while back because we knew the prices would increase by this time.
"I will only defrost my fish today [Tuesday] and make it on Wednesday. We have some snoek pieces left from the previous time in the deep freezer, I will bake that in the morning because you can’t have pickled fish for breakfast, die sooibrand.”
However not all families will be taking part in the Easter feast this weekend.
Faith from Elsies River said: ”We don’t have money, the prices of fish are expensive so it will just be a normal day for us.”
Last-minute prices in supermarkets
Pick n Pay
Fresh hake @ R114.99 per 500g
Fresh kingklip @ R179.99 per 500g
Checkers
Fresh hake from Fish 4 Africa range @ R169.99 per kg
Previously frozen snoek from Fish 4 Africa @ R150 per kg
Previously frozen kingklip from Fish 4 Africa @ R149.99 per kg