Foraged After the Rains · Wild Amaranth Greens
Thepe (Wild Amaranth Greens)
Photo: Sharon the Bubbly Maker / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
Thepe only appears after the rains, so households traditionally dry and store the leaves to keep eating this morogo variety through the dry season.
The tender leaves and shoots of wild amaranth are picked, washed and stewed with onion, tomato and groundnuts into a soft, slightly bitter side dish. Around the Delta it's dished up next to bogobe or tswii, one of several wild greens gathered under the umbrella term morogo.
Why it's made this way: Long before commercial vegetables reached the villages around Maun, foraged greens like thepe supplied essential nutrition, and they remain more prized by many households than shop-bought spinach.
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Part of World of Street Food — 3248 dishes from 118 countries.
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