At ten to six the waterside at Creek Road is already loud. Canoes bump against the jetty, women shout prices across the planks, and our buyer Tonye is there with two cool boxes, a notebook and a torch.
He has bought for the Calabash kitchen since the first day. He chooses fish by the eye, clear and bright, and by pressing the flesh behind the gills. Periwinkle he buys by the paint bucket and tips a handful into his palm to check that they are alive and closed.
Relationships, not receipts
Most of what Tonye buys comes from the same eight sellers, some of whom supplied the chef's mother. Prices move with the season and the fuel price, and he pays by transfer before he leaves, so the sellers can restock that afternoon.
By seven he is at Mile One market for the rest: yam from the north side of the market, ugu and waterleaf from the women near the gate, dried fish and crayfish from a stall that has been in the same spot for thirty years.
Back by eight
Everything is in the kitchen by eight, before the traffic on Ikwerre Road builds. The fish is cleaned and iced, the periwinkle soaked, the leaves washed in three changes of water. By noon it is soup.
We print a small market report on the front page of this site each week, with example prices, so you can see what the kitchen is paying. It is also a reminder that every bowl starts with someone on a jetty before dawn.
