Valentine Cascarino
food
Rare, cheap, quantitative and qualitative traditional African dishes not found in up-market restaurants are now offered in street restaurants, drawing many diners to the pavement. But few restaurateurs bother about the surrounding filth and lurking dangers.
On our foray into the world of street food we’re led to an establishment along Wanderers Street in Johannesburg. Portia Mamela’s roofless restaurant is distinguished among clusters of pitched tents, some made of plastic bags and cartons.
Mamela has been plying her trade as a cook and manageress since her father retired in January last year. “Girls are brought from villages by their mothers or fathers to cook along the street. My father started selling at this same place,” she says. “Before retiring, he brought me here and introduced me to his customers.”
Among her inheritance are two little benches, an antique stove, a table, a couple of spoons, pots, plates and a dirty blue tent that shades customers from the worst of the climate.
Are the streets of Jo’burg paved with gold? “There is lots of money when one does street business,” she says. “On a good day I make not less than R250 selling pap, imifino rice, chakalaka, chicken and stew. When it’s not my day, I still go home with R170.”
In a group of more than 30 women selling similar food for R10 a plate, one has to be skilful in winning customers. Most customers are taxi drivers, street vendors and car guards.
One office worker, Sipho Makutu, says white restaurants don’t realise black people need food providing lots of energy. “Look at the type of hard work they do. If they eat rice now they will be hungry in 20 minutes. In a high-class restaurant, one pays quite a lot for eating almost nothing,” he says. The plate in front of him holds pap, chicken and chakalaka.
Another customer says he eats at pavement restaurants because traditional food, prepared by older women, fills him with nostalgia for his home in Pietersburg.
Male street restaurant owners mostly serve isibindi (liver) and amathumbu (intestines), which are roasted and sold with pap.
Most of the sellers are licenced. “I’ve been selling here since 1995,” says George Dhlamini, who comes in from Alexandra to roast meat along De Villiers Street. “When people learnt of the money I make, they started doing the same thing. This brought my earnings down. When I found out they had no licence, I threatened to call the council so they fled.” Assisted by his mother, he takes in more than R200 a day.
He has moved beyond pap and vleis, adding fried fish to the menu. “I buy a kilogram of fish, which is usually four for R10, coat it with egg and sell to people for R5 each,” he says.
Most beef roasters get their supplies from City Deep but few, if any, mind about the hygienic condition of what they buy. “I don’t care about hygiene,” he says, “since I get good discounts and none of my customer has ever complained of stomach ache.”
It is not unusual to find sellers keeping slices of meat and fish exposed to the atmosphere, attracting flies. “This might cause diseases like diarrhoea and dysentery,” warns one health worker. Some of the pigs’ trotters and goat meat carries a malodorous smell. Asked about foot-and-mouth disease, these restaurateurs tell you nobody has ever complained about the food.
Some beef roasters don’t even clean the roasting tray after they’re through for the day. Some fry fresh meat in the same old fat. “Fat is fat whether changed or not. I don’t change my fat because it adds taste to the new meat when roasted,” argues Dlamini.
In Hillbrow and Yeoville, Nigerians, Ghanaians and Mozambicans run most street restaurants, offering the food of their countries as well as South African food to pavement diners.
One Nigerian, Samuel Ojimo, who sells along Esselen Street, says he usually cautions his customers to eat quickly since danger always lurks in Hillbrow.
Pavement cuisine is not a phenomenon unique to South Africa. “In Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon and most West African countries, people eke out a living by selling food on the street. I was doing it after finishing school,” he says.
After hunting unsuccessfully for a job in South Africa, he reverted to his former trade. Sandwiches, rice, pap, stew and a host of West African dishes are served to customers from different parts of Africa. Even a scarce Ghanaian food called fufu, made from pounded cassava, is sold in these restaurants. Ojimo says he earns more than R350 on a good day.
Success doesn’t come without problems: police suspected him of selling drugs because many of his customers are white. “If this problem persists,” he says, “I will travel to Canada and continue my business. There are blacks in Canada, too.”