Perfectly situated between Windhoek and Swakopmund, Wilhelmstal Padstal is that much-needed stop to break the journey, enjoy a cup of coffee and a slice of Apfelstreusel (homemade apple crumble) or a mince pie – and purchase some biltong and droëwors for the road.
YouTube video: nearby Kwetu Cafe has a small parrot zoo:
Janko Meyer took over the popular padstal in March 2017 and has continued to supply quality meat products like braaiwors, mince, fillets, biltong and dröewors, which are made in-house with meat sourced from local farms in the vicinity. Janko says that he grew up making biltong, one of the many things he learnt on the farm.
A large selection of preserves fills their shelves – from Omaruru, Swakopmund and even Cape Town. And, if you’re lucky, you’ll find a bottle of delicious zucchinisalsa, made by Janko’s mom Ingrid Meyer, ideal as a pasta sauce or condiment for meat, bread and cheese. Other favourites include pickled onions, cucumbers and beetroot, chilli jam, chutney, honey, rusks, Schalensaft (lemon peel syrup) and prickly pear juice. Mid-year, bags of oranges are also for sale from the Meyers’ Albrechtshöhe Guest Farm, 25km away.
After good rainfall, at the beginning of the year you’ll often find people selling Omajowa – the giant termite hill mushrooms - outside the farmstall.
All good reasons to make a pitstop along the road at Wilhelmstal, Namibia.
Kalahari truffle (Terfeziaceae sp., known as Mahupu in Tswana): one of the most anticipated local food events in Namibia is the short truffle season that comes after the main rainy (January to March). Locally known as !Nabas, these desert truffles do not have the same flavour as their more famous and much-prized European counterparts. Fortunately, however, they are also more affordable. Their culinary uses are extensive in savoury dishes, and if vacuum frozen or dried, they can be preserved quite successfully. They are available only for a few weeks each year, and appear and disappear almost overnight.
Truffles, dubbed the ‘Kalahari truffles’ or traditionally known as "omatumbura" or "mavhumbura" - are nutritious delicacies that can bedazzle any plate and are much cheaper than you may think (depending on where you get them). The best time to find them is in March or April after the substantial rains.
These treats are washed several times, peeled, heated, and then added to a bowl of spices to make a perfect meal. Some people eat them ripe and raw as they come, but after a good boil in water, they also make a great addition as a side dish to your steak or fish. Thanks to their exotic taste and aroma, they’re unlike any other around the world; but similarly to those found in Europe, they are dug up from underground and have to be treated with absolute care. The most useful way of finding them is by spotting several cracks in the ground as the mushrooms are thick and potato-like, but it’s still not as easy as it sounds.
Truffles can be easily found on the side of the road in the northern or north-eastern regions, where they are sold at cheaper prices. Grab a kilogram or more and create your own recipes at home - truffle butter is a delicious favourite.
Truffles are Hypogeous fungi, that is fungi that have their fruitbodies growing below the ground. They exude an aroma that intensifies as they ripen, attracting animals to unearth them and disperse their spores. This centuries-old delicacy not only has forest fame but has also been sought after in the souks of Syria since time immemorial.
The desert truffle, of the Hypogeous ascomycete family Terfeziaceae, differs from its distant Tuber relative of southern Europe by favouring arid soil, and is found in arid and semi-arid areas of the world including the Mediterranean, Arabian Peninsula, North Africa and Namibia.
Referred to as manna from the heavens by the Prophet Mohammed, as well as by local Namibians, the desert truffle can be found growing in the Kalahari Desert in the eastern section of the country. Called both omatumbula in the north and the Nama name of !Nabas in the east, the Kalahari truffle, Terfezia pfeilii, is smooth like a potato and can be eaten raw as well as cooked in a variety of ways, from baking in searing sand to frying, and incorporated in speciality recipes concocted by creative chefs in the restaurants of Namibia.
Truffles can be eaten raw, sliced with drizzled olive oil and parmesan cheese or cooked and served as a starter or main dish. When in season, truffle ragout or truffle ravioli in a champagne sauce are well known specialities. Sautéd in butter with onions and a splash of white wine and pepper, the truffles have a nutty mushroom taste. Added cream holds the aroma and a few Swakopmund asparagus with a triangle of savoury seeded pastry completes the delicious dish. White wine or a rosé accompanies the treat, making the humble truffle a royal meal.
A rare delicacy, Kalahari truffles have a flavor somewhere between corn and asparagus with a light “mushroomy” perfume. The texture is smooth and firm (somewhere between a firmer mushroom and a soft potato), the flavor nutty, buttery, earthy - subtle savory perfumes and floral hints of bush grass are its essence.
The Kalahari truffle is beige to brown in color (matching its desert environment) and can be eaten raw as well as cooked in a variety of ways, from traditional baking in searing sand to sauteing in butter and incorporated in specialty recipes in a variety of forms (shaved, cooked, or blanched).
Kalahari truffles grow close to the surface and are visible to the trained eye of truffle collectors as cracks and protuberances in the red soil. Like the termite-hill mushrooms omajowa, they grow in the wet season but usually occur only when weather conditions are favourable, often later in the season. Their partner plant is not the oak of the northern-hemisphere truffle but the wild melon, with which the desert truffle forms a symbiotic relationship.
The history surrounding desert truffles stems back thousands of years. In the 1st century Africa’s truffles, dined on by Roman emperors, were described by Pliny the Elder as ‘the most esteemed’. Folklore amongst the Bedouins and North African Arabs holds that they appear without seeds or roots, especially in places where lightning strikes, and are swollen by rains and loosened from the desert sand by thunderstorms.
Besides being a nutritious meal, desert truffles have been used by the Bedouins as remedies to cure ailments ranging from stomach complaints and open cuts to eye infections. Today, modern medicine is exploring their antibacterial and antiviral properties.
These treasured fungi, although thankfully not fetching the same exorbitant price of the more aromatic European variety, have been valued for centuries by desert-dwelling people. They have fed villagers through times of famine and have been sung to by harvesting Bedouin girls on sandy desert soil. They combine with Namibia’s cuisine of rich game meat and fresh Walvis Bay oysters, to provide a rare culinary treat with their singular scent and distinctively Terfezia taste.
A mushroom or toadstool is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground, on soil, or on its food source. Toadstool generally denotes one poisonous to humans.
The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus; hence the word "mushroom" is most often applied to those fungi (Basidiomycota, Agaricomycetes) that have a stem (stipe), a cap (pileus), and gills (lamellae, sing. lamella) on the underside of the cap. "Mushroom" also describes a variety of other gilled fungi, with or without stems, therefore the term is used to describe the fleshy fruiting bodies of some Ascomycota. These gills produce microscopic spores that help the fungus spread across the ground or its occupant surface.
Forms deviating from the standard morphology usually have more specific names, such as "bolete", "puffball", "stinkhorn", and "morel", and gilled mushrooms themselves are often called "agarics" in reference to their similarity to Agaricus or their order Agaricales. By extension, the term "mushroom" can also refer to either the entire fungus when in culture, the thallus (called a mycelium) of species forming the fruiting bodies called mushrooms, or the species itself.
Leccinum aurantiacum is a species of fungus in the genus Leccinum found in forests of Eurasia and North America. It has a large, characteristically red-capped fruiting body. In North America, it is sometimes referred to by the common name red-capped scaber stalk. Some uncertainties exist regarding the taxonomic classification of this species in Europe and North America. It is considered edible.
Подберезовик | Leccinum scabrum
Leccinum scabrum, commonly known as the rough-stemmed bolete, scaber stalk, and birch bolete, is an edible mushroom in the family Boletaceae, and was formerly classified as Boletus scaber. The birch bolete is widespread in Europe, in the Himalayas in Asia, and elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere, occurring only in mycorrhizal association with birch trees. It fruits from June to October.
Мухомор | Amanita muscaria
Amanita muscaria, commonly known as the fly agaric or fly amanita, is a basidiomycete of the genus Amanita. It is also a muscimol mushroom. Native throughout the temperate and boreal regions of the Northern Hemisphere, Amanita muscaria has been unintentionally introduced to many countries in the Southern Hemisphere, generally as a symbiont with pine and birch plantations, and is now a true cosmopolitan species. It associates with various deciduous and coniferous trees.
Arguably the most iconic toadstool species, the fly agaric is a large white-gilled, white-spotted, usually red mushroom, and is one of the most recognizable and widely encountered in popular culture, including in video games - e.g., the extensive use of a recognizable Amanita muscaria in the Mario franchise and its Super Mushroom power up - and television - e.g., the houses in The Smurfs franchise.
Лисички | Cantharellus cibarius
Cantharellus cibarius (Latin: cantharellus, "chanterelle"; cibarius, "culinary") is a species of golden chanterelle mushroom in the genus Cantharellus. It is also known as girolle (or girole). It grows in Europe from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean Basin, mainly in deciduous and coniferous forests. Due to its characteristic color and shape, it is easy to distinguish from mushrooms with potential toxicity that discourage human consumption. A commonly eaten and favored mushroom, the chanterelle is typically harvested from late summer to late fall in its European distribution.
Chanterelles are used in many culinary dishes, and can be preserved by either drying or freezing. An oven should not be used when drying it because can result in the mushroom becoming bitter.
Сыроежки | Russula
Russula is a very large genus composed of around 750 worldwide species of ectomycorrhizal mushrooms. They are typically common, fairly large, and brightly colored – making them one of the most recognizable genera among mycologists and mushroom collectors. Their distinguishing characteristics include usually brightly coloured caps, a white to dark yellow spore print, brittle, attached gills, an absence of latex, and absence of partial veil or volva tissue on the stem. Microscopically, the genus is characterised by the amyloid ornamented spores and flesh (trama) composed of spherocysts. Members of the related genus Lactarius have similar characteristics but emit a milky latex when their gills are broken. The genus was described by Christian Hendrik Persoon in 1796.
Волнушки | Lactarius deterrimus
Lactarius deterrimus, also known as false saffron milkcap or orange milkcap, is a species of fungus in the family Russulaceae. The fungus produces medium-sized fruit bodies (mushrooms) with orangish caps up to 12 centimetres wide that develop green spots in old age or if injured. Its orange-coloured latex stains maroon within 30 minutes. Lactarius deterrimus is a mycorrhizal fungus that associates with Norway spruce and bearberry. The species is distributed in Europe, but has also found in parts of Asia. A visually similar species in the United States and Mexico is not closely related to the European species. Fruit bodies appear between late June and November, usually in spruce forests. Although the fungus is edible—like all Lactarius mushrooms from the section Deliciosi—its taste is often bitter, and it is not highly valued. The fruit bodies are used as source of food for the larvae of several insect species. Lactarius deterrimus can be distinguished from similar Lactarius species by difference in the mycorrhizal host or latex colour.
