As you walk through the market, it’s hard to miss the colorful, joyful and inviting booth of Safari Samosas. If you aren’t drawn in immediately by the smell of samosas, you will be soon by Priscillah Finney’s warmth and exuberance for life. She starts each market with African music filling the air, singing to babies, and hugging friends and strangers.
Priscillah has been making and selling her samosas at the Prescott Farmers Market for 10 years. What are samosas? They’re like triangular hand pies–rich, unique flavor combinations inside a fried dough. Samosas are a delicacy in Africa, where Priscillah is from originally. Priscillah makes each samosa by hand according to traditional Kenyan methods. This means using fresh herbs and spices instead of dried ones and making each by hand. In Kenya, she says samosas are much spicier than the ones she makes here and almost always have a meat filling.
Priscillah moved to the United States in 1995 with her late husband, Dean. After making samosas for her church, family and friends, she and Dean decided to start a business to offer samosas to the Prescott community. Priscillah says that samosas are fried, but they’re still healthy because the ingredients contain vitality. She makes ten flavors of samosas each week for customers at the farmers market: beef, chicken, chorizo, mung bean, mushroom, curried potato, and veggie, kale, sweet cinnamon apple and wild salmon. If you’ve ever had one, you’ll agree with her, that it’s hard to have just one.
Samosas are available at both the Prescott and Prescott Valley markets, both frozen for reheating at home, or warm for eating immediately. Priscillah also makes a gluten free samosa, but only brings it to the market if requested. When asked what she would like people to know about her and her business, she said she needs the support of her community to keep this business going. That’s easy–enjoy one of her samosas at one of our markets.