Growing up, I remember my father giving me 50 kobo for lunch. With that money, I’d buy akara elepo in the morning from a woman by my school. There was a mallam with a small shack filled with sweets, chewing gum and biscuits; I’d buy some sweets, goody-goody or Trebor. I snacked on them ahead of the morning assembly. I’d still have some change to buy a sausage roll or a small rice during the second break, after eating my homemade meal during the first break. Those were simpler times of street food.
I have seen multiple videos on social media, memes, and the constant struggle to decide what to eat. Whether it’s a wife who’s tired of asking for food ideas from a husband who is also clueless, or the kid who resorts to eating instant noodles for lack of dinner ideas, we can all agree that thinking of what to eat daily can be quite stressful. But there is a far more daunting task that we do not talk about. Picture this: you get to work by 8 or 9 a.m., used up that morning rush of energy to deliver on most of your work tasks. By noon, you don’t need to look at the clock because your stomach is already sending signals to your brain that the energy from that scanty breakfast has depleted. So you decided to look for a quick meal to restock the energy.
What can you eat? Rice? That’ll cost at least 2000 or 3000 naira for a decent portion with a sizeable protein. How about yam? Also expensive. Swallow? Quite heavy for lunch. Beans? Definitely not. That’d be a snooze fest. What else can you buy that doesn’t cost much and is not too heavy but nice enough to be considered food? Can you think of anything? After racking your brain for a few minutes, you are left wondering, “Where have all the street foods gone?”
According to the World Health Organisation’s research, street foods are foods and beverages prepared and sold by vendors in streets and other public places for immediate consumption or for a later time, without further processing or preparation (WHO, 1996). They can also be referred to as street vendor food.
Aside from being a quick on-the-go meal, street food takes the shape of the society within which it is consumed, channeling local agricultural produce, spices, ingredients, and cooking processes. Foreigners can enjoy part of a people’s culture through their street food.
There are major determinants of what street food is and what it isn’t, and one of them is affordability. They are almost very affordable to anyone. They should typically be cheap. If you had street food 3 to 4 times a week, at the end of the month, you should still have enough money to allocate to transportation, housing allowance and other miscellaneous expenditures.
However, with the recent inflation and high cost of living, eating street food daily could typically dip your finances.
As of July 2024, the minimum wage is set at N70,000 per month. Depending on the city, your expenditure on street food could vary. In places like Lagos, you might spend as much as N3,000 on a meal. If you were to spend N1000 on a snack 5 times a week, that would total N20,000 for the month, leaving you with N50,000 to allocate toward expenses such as internet, transportation and housing.
Street food is intended to be widely accessible, allowing people to easily grab a snack without much thought about their budget. But today’s Nigeria will make you carefully consider every kobo you spend, as it could impact your ability to pay for more essential expenses.
Affordability is not the only criterion that determines what street food is, location also counts. Most street foods can be purchased from a food truck, a small shack by the road, or a customised wheelbarrow. But this is no longer the case.
Street food has not gone anywhere, really. They have just become so pricey that we can no longer call it street food. We can all agree that Nigerian street food like dundun, boli, akara and bread, popcorn and groundnut, suya, puff-puff, roasted corn, kuli-kuli, kunu, zobo, and many others are still available, but do they come at a stomach-filling portion? Or can you casually take a stroll and buy street food without feeling the weight of its purchase in your pocket?
I would say let’s bring back affordable street food, packaged in simple and environmentally friendly materials, and free from the elitism often associated with restaurant-like spaces. Let’s embrace the authentic experience of street food. I propose we call this the #BringBackCheapStreetFood movement.
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Feature Image by Kayode Balogun for Pexels
