Scintilla Publishers

Reading through my diary I kept during our Cape to Khartoum African travels, I found this nostalgic entry I made in  Zanzibar.

As night falls, fires in little brazziers are lit and stalls with an amazing variety of food are set up alongside the water. We walked slowly through the long passage of stalls, savouring the delicious smells and trying to decide what to choose for our dinner. There were  long skewers with thick prawns impaled head to tail;  skewers with bite sized pieces of marlin, barracuda, kingfish, snapper and tuna lying in long rows on the table. In the stall next door were more skewers, this time of calamari, ariekriekel and mussels. Huge crabs and crayfish were piled on top of one another and circles of octopus tentacles lay in mouthwatering temptation in yet another pile.

There were stalls making mini Zanzibar pizzas from hand-sized thin pieces of dough which were rolled out with the flat of the hand and then expertly and rapidly stretched until they were paper thin. A filling of minced meat,  and sauce was added and then a raw egg was  quickly broken into the middle and mushed around. The dough was rolled closed with great speed and expertise and placed on a waiting skottel to cook while we salivated eagerly nearby.

Machines, that looked like the wringers of old-fashioned washing machines squeezed the juice from sugar cane while somebody turned the handle furiously. The last stalls were piled high with salads, samoosas, falaffels and sweet pancakes with banana and chocolate for desert.