Fried dough · Roadside staple

Magwinya (Vetkoek)

📷 Closely related photo — Photo via Pexels/Unsplash — free for commercial use

The Afrikaans name vetkoek literally means 'fat cake', which is also what many Batswana call them in English.

Magwinya, also called vetkoek or fat cakes, are balls of yeasted dough deep-fried until golden outside and fluffy inside. Vendors, often women working from bus ranks and market corners, sell them for just a few pula apiece, and commuters grab them plain or split open with mince or achar.

Why it's made this way: Cheap flour, yeast, and oil make magwinya one of the least expensive hot foods a vendor can sell, and needing no plate or cutlery matches the pace of bus-rank commerce, where people eat on the move.