Food Stalls and Their Deceitful Nature.

Food Stalls and their deceitful nature.

Many a times people buy food from restaurants and other places outside their home not because they cannot cook but because they just feel like eating a particular kind of meal say fried rice with chicken or pizza. Other people however buy food from outside their homes because they feel too lazy to cook. Interestingly, food and drinks that are sold outside on the streets are sold in different forms and at different places; whilst some people buy their food from restaurants, others may choose to buy from street vendors.

Some food vendors on the streets sell in basins whilst others sell in either wooden or metallic stalls. It is funny how the inscriptions on some of these stalls are written. Some food stalls are nicely decorated with all kinds of appetizing meals but most of them end up not selling all the meals they advertise on their stalls. A typical example of a nicely decorated food stall may have different photographs of foods such as fufu with light soup, banku and tilapia, rice and beans (waakye) , fried rice with chicken and  ampesi with palava sauce but upon a customer reaching there, he or she only gets to realize that particular stall has available only waakye. It is quite annoying isn’t it?

However, the rate at which wrong language and spelling is used on bill boards, posters, sign boards, food stalls and advertisements in general  is very appaulling. All sorts of wrong language filled with grammatical errors are displayed on food stalls of late. A typical example of such is the food stall displayed below;

Banku, meatpie and chips are sold inside the stall whilst different meals are advertised on it.

The next photograph also depicts that of a food stall that advertises for weddings, parties and funerals but then it is actually ROASTED YAM that is sold inside the stall. Like seriously? I for once never knew that roasted yam was served at weddings, parties and funerals. The language used also has a question mark “ we undertake”.

The advertisement on the stall does not tally with the roasted yam being sold in the stall.

Street food  as others may not know is ready to eat food or drink sold in a street or other public place such as the market by a hawker or vendor often from a portable stall. Emmanuel Delali a final year Bachelor of Arts, Economics student at the University of Ghana disclosed that he preferred buying food from street vendors because it was quite cheaper and was located at a more sociable setting as compared to foods sold in restaurants. “ As a student, I prefer to cut my coat according to my cloth by buying from vendors on the streets” he added with a smile.

The question as to who buys what and from where however remains rhetoric. This is because different people from all over the world buy food based on several different factors. In the short video below, Danso Agnes tells us what she looks out for before buying food from the streets or roadside.

In the  audio below, Patience Otoo also tells us the criteria she follows before making a purchase of food from the street.

Ayishetu Mohammed a food vendor in Osu who’s food stall attracts a lot of customers from the small corner where she operates indicated that though she did not have all the food nicely displayed on her stall, she sold quite a few.

Madam Freda Quartey who sells  only Ga kenkey with fish at Labadi said though her stall was nicely decorated with all kinds of meals, she only sold kenkey and people upon approaching her nicely decorated stall had no choice but to buy the kenkey just like that even though they did not intend to buy it initially.

The choice is yours however but the question still remains: Do you buy food from the street because  of the attractiveness of the stall or because you want a particular kind of meal? What then is the real essence of the decorations on food stalls if indeed those foods are not sold?

Till we meet again to delve more into the different kinds of food we eat its chaaaaoooooo…… !