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Malay vegetable curry wraps

Quick, cheap, tasty and transportable, South Africa's street food is as varied as the people who sell it. From snacks to full meals, street vendors fill a gap in the market, selling lekker local foods that are often left off the menus of the bigger fast food chains.

Street food is an all-encompassing term that describes any sort of food, which is sold by a street vendor. Ideally these foods should be take-aways, which are quick to prepare and easy to eat - whole mealies roasted on the cob and sold on street corners are the perfect example. However, it's not unusual to see informal restaurants, with a couple of chairs, tables and possibly an umbrella or two, set up in and around South Africa's cities.

Traditional African foods are usually on the menu including uphuthu (stiff pap) served with savoury stews or morogo (a type of spinach), umngqusho (beans mixed with samp), and perhaps a selection of braaied meat. Local delicacies, such as skop or amanqina, may also be on offer. Skop is the skinned and boiled head of a sheep, cow or goat, while amanqina is the sticky and spicy boiled hoof of a cow, sheep or pig. Maotwana or chicken feet are another specialty; these are sometimes nicknamed walkie-talkies, and are boiled to remove the hard skin before being fried with a selection of spices.

Shavings of bokkom piled on thick slices of buttered bread are sometimes sold at street stalls along the West Coast. Bokkom is a local treat made by drying out fresh mullet in the sun, before preserving in salt, and the final product can be described as a type of fishy biltong.

Less adventurous eaters can enjoy battered fillets of fried fish, or viennas and chunky chips sprinkled with spices and wrapped up in newspaper. Affectionately known as parcels, these meals are commonly sold at street stalls in the Cape.

The ultimate street food is the kind where you can eat the packaging - usually some form of bread, dough or pastry forms an edible package for a flavoursome filling. Boerewors rolls and bunny chows, hollowed-out loaves of bread filled to the brim with curry, are a popular street snacks. Other great curry and carb combinations are salomies, curry rolled-up in a roti, and samoosas, those crunchy pastry triangles packed with a curried filling and deep-fried till golden brown. Vetkoek, fat pillows of deep fried dough, which can be sweet or savoury, and crammed with jam or mince, are another firm favourite.

Twisted koeksisters, drenched in syrup and exquisitely sticky, make a great dessert. Another classic sweet street treat, popular in and around Durban, is a length of fresh sugar cane, which is sugary, crunchy, refreshing - yum!

Street food, though undoubtedly delicious, can be dangerous. Poor hygiene practices by some vendors and lack of access to clean water and waste disposal can be a recipe for food poisoning. Use your judgment and don't indulge in anything that looks suspect.

Buying food from a vendor in the middle of a bustling city street is an experience in itself, but you don't have to visit a street stall in order to enjoy the fantastic tastes of street food, you can create your own at home using one of our great recipes.

Enjoy!

The food24.co.za team