Ghanaian Cooking and Decolonizing the Food Industry with Chef Zoe Adjonyoh

Welcome to Chefs Without Restaurants. I'm your host Chris Spear. On the show, I have conversations with culinary entrepreneurs, and people in the food and beverage industry who took a different route. They're caterers, research chefs, personal chefs cookbook authors, food truckers, farmers, cottage bakers and all sorts of culinary renegades. I fall into the personal chef category as I started my own personal chef business perfect little bites 11 years ago. And while I started working in kitchens in the early 90s, I've literally never worked in a restaurant unless you count Burger King or Boston Market. On this episode, we're joined by Zoe Adjonyoh. She's a chef, writer, entrepreneur and thefounder of Zoe's Ghana kitchen, a West African food brand that she started in 2010. Zoe's been pioneering modern West African food in the forms of pop ups, supper clubs in London, Berlin and New York amongst other places, and she had her own restaurant in Brixton. In 2017, she released her cookbook, Zoe's Ghana kitchen, which was just republished and released in October. If you go to her website, Zoe's Ghana kitchen calm, you can get more info on the book, find recipes, purchase items from her spice line, and learn about our online classes. On the show, we talked about her background, having an Irish mother and a father from Ghana, and how it influenced her cooking. Our conversation revolves primarily around decolonizing, the food industry and who should be profiting from African food ways. We talked about gatekeeping and the importance of sharing opportunities and the stage with others even when it means passing on an incredible opportunity for ourselves. We discuss her podcast, which is called Cooking Up consciousness, and the upcoming anthology she's editing, serving up essays on food identity and culture. And I asked her if she identified as a cook or chef and what it means to be a chef these days. It's something I've discussed with a number of people in our community recently. And if you enjoy the episode, I'd love it for you to share it. And if you have something to add to the conversation, DM me on Instagram at Chefs Without Restaurants or you can comment on the episodes post when it goes up. But before we get into that, let's hear from this week's sponsors. As a grits enthusiast I'm honored to welcome our newest sponsor, Professor Torbert's orange corn. I've been buying their products for a couple years now so I can speak to the awesome quality of these products. Professor Torbert's orange corn is the result of its founders lifelong dedication to improving the world through science and agriculture. Over 20 years ago, Torbert set out to answer a simple but revolutionary question. Can you naturally make corn more nutritious? Could you deliver the benefits of a vegetable through a grain? Today, non GMO orange corn is helping fight micronutrient deficiencies in more than 10 African countries. The vibrant orange color comes from significantly increased levels of carotenoids. Torbert decided to see what he could do with it here at home. To his delight, he found that not only could American's eye health potentially benefit from its higher level have antioxidant carotenoids. But it also tasted unbelievably good. So when you choose Professor Torbert's you aren't just saying yes to better flavor. You're also helping deliver better nutrition on a global scale. Tastes good, feels good. All of Professor Torbert's products... grits, cornmeal, and cornflower are non GMO, gluten free and vegan. All their products are sold online at Professortorberts.com on Amazon and wholesale. And now through the end of November. Professor Torbert's is happy to offer all Chefs Without Restaurants listeners 10% off on all orange corn products. Go to ProfessorTorberts.com and simply use the promo code CHEFS10 at checkout. Did you know restaurants turnover employs four times faster than most businesses. What if somebody created an affordable and effective hiring solution for the restaurant industry? What if there were a job site that only focused on people looking for food service jobs? What if that site only cost $50 A year to advertise for every job your restaurant needed? Forget the big corporate sites like indeed and monster. Our sponsor savory jobs has a job site exclusively for restaurants. The best part is savory jobs only charges $50 for an entire year. And you can post all the jobs you want. And for our loyal listeners use the code savory10 and get 10% off. So go to savoryjobs.com and discover the job site shaking up the industry. And remember to use savory10 for 10% off. And now on with the show. Thanks so much and have a great week. Hey, good morning, Zoey, how's it going?

Good morning, Chris. I am excellent. And how are you?

I'm fantastic. I'm so glad to have you on the show. We've talked a couple times this past year, I think we were in some clubhouse rooms. I've been following you on Instagram. But now I'm really excited to have you here and get my own podcast episode with you. Well, I like to start the show kind of with a bit of your background. I don't wanna spend too much time there. But I think your upbringing is so you know, pivotal to how you got into food and cooking. So can you start by talking a little bit about your upbringing, maybe your parents where you grew up, and then kind of how that relates to food and cooking.

So my father is Ghanaian. And my mother is Irish. And they were both fresh immigrants to the UK, in the 70s contextually speaking, you know, there was still a lot of signs around London saying no blacks, no Irish, no dogs. So the political climate wasn't the still not the most friendly to immigrants. And I grew up in southeast London. And, you know, I'm a third culture child, you know, so I was the first English person in my family. And so I kind of grew up always feeling like an immigrant and not having a real kind of security or attachment to England, like, it was very weird to me that I didn't really understand what English was. And because Ireland geographically was so close, and very cheap to get to at the time, and still is, I spent a lot of my childhood in Ireland. So like, you know, all the school holidays and half terms and things like that were always spent in Ireland. So I had this kind of lovely introduction to Irish and Irish culture. And I knew what that meant, and what that part of me was about. And I did not have that in London, like there was no Ghanaian family or community around me. And obviously, Ghana was much further away and more expensive to get to. And coming from a working class family that was just wasn't possible. And on top of that, my dad wasn't a very consistent presence in my childhood, which meant I didn't have that very strong connection to him either. So, you know, where does food fit into all of this? Well, the two angles are like on my mom's side as an immigrant, have my grandmother, my Irish grandmother used to send her these little lovely care packages, you know, food parcels with galtee cheese and soda bread and made lemonade and all the good stuff and Tayto crisps, which we adored and loved and were excited about receiving. But I could see for my mom that that was a very special thing that happened, right, even though it wasn't very far away, and she could probably get all of those things in England, to be honest, but it was filled with a lot of nostalgia and love in that moment of receiving those gifts. And for my dad, when he was around, he almost always had food from Ghana with him. So King K, for example, which is a fermented maize, though, that like a tamale, type flavor and vibe and texture, or shito, which is like a traditional hot pepper condiment made with smoked fishes. And then this is a variety of different textures, flavors and smells and what he was doing but he was very kind of focused initially on cooking that for himself, so it was really solitary moment where he would just be cooking this food. And that was a very curious child genuinely. And so I got curious about this food and the flavors and and I kind of could see that when he was cooking. The same thing was happening for him like it was taking him home to Accra. Um, and I kind of caught onto that. I was like, Oh, wait, this is how I can connect to Ghana right through the, through the food. So I guess that's the most important part of all of this is that there's a certain politics that informs my relationship with food and my identity, but also using food as a tool to be attached to my culture, my heritage and my ancestry became super, super important. And so I learned to cook kind of by osmosis, if you like through him, and as a latchkey kid, it was the 80s I'm in my 40s You know, so I would cook for myself and eventually other latchkey kids in my council estate, you know, we'd come to dinner at mine and most more often than not, I was be cooking ground that soup, which is really famous dish from West Africa. We called it peanut butter stew in my house, because just because it has so much peanut butter. And it's delicious, beautiful dish. And even now for me that dish. I love to cook is my favorite thing to cook still. And it's my favorite thing to eat still from anywhere in the world. Because it is just filled with that nostalgia and love. And it feels like first of all the flavors amazing because you have this pecan see this balance of sweet and spicy. It's just a beautiful combination of flavors, but also just in the eating of it. It really feels like you're enveloped with love. Like there's a hug the food is hugging you while you're eating. Yeah. Yeah, so I guess that kind of summarizes why food has become a pivotal part of my career before food. I did many other things. But that's another story how I got into food. But maybe you're asking me about that.

We do talk so much on the podcast about like nostalgia and nostalgic foods. And you know, it's really hard when you become a professional chef. Because does that food mean anything to your customers? Right? Like, there's things I'm very nostalgic about, that I get really excited about and I might serve to my customers and they're just like, you know, what's this? You know, similarly, like, I'm from the Boston area, we have baked beans, like it's, you know, so many people just open a can of Bush's Baked beans. But like for me, it was something my great grandmother made and it was from like, her great grandmother and I would love to cook that for people but I'm always afraid that someone's just gonna be like, what it's just like a bowl of baked beans with like some pork in it. But for me, it's it's very different than it sounds like the the ground nuts do. It's the same with you. Is that is that kind of like a gateway recipe like when you wanted to teach someone Ghana food? Like what's the first thing if they had your cookbook? If they've never had it? What would you recommend them making?

Oh, I mean, I think there's two types of people that this audience can reach, right. So there's going to be the diaspora, who may or may not already have a relationship with West African cuisine or Ghanaian food in particular. And so for them, I think it's really fun to go to the recipes that you grew up eating. So probably ground that is one of those red, red, probably one of those Jollof obviously. And the reason I say that is because a lot of people within the culture grow up also not learning how to cook the food, because there isn't this long history of that being a thing, teaching people how to cook. And also usually those recipes are passed down orally or just by sight, sound touch. So many people don't have a written reference for a lot of the recipes they grew up eating. So this would be a nice kind of guide. And then there's this other audience who probably have never maybe heard of Ghanaian food before ingredients, and are just adventurous eaters and adventurous cooks, or just want to explore. And for those people, it's really, I've made it as I tried to be as educational I suppose as possible about what the ingredients are. So there's this lovely kind of index at the beginning that talks about spices it talks about the staples such as the yams, not sweet potatoes, actually, the variants and plantain a lot of people will be familiar with plantain as an ingredient in the States, but maybe not so familiar with the process of what happens to a plantain of from falling off the branch to it's becoming extremely right and that there's 100 ways to cook a plantain in between zero and 100 Depending on its brightness and structure. So I keep all of these guides. And then there's a cheat sheet at the back, which has like your staples, the terms of your spice blends that your Jollof season in the calculations name, so your seasoning for example. And then there's this handy handy recipe for something called chili sauce, which is it kind of combines all of the elements of core flavors to more than 50% of the dishes that would be considered traditional. So more of your soups and stews based things like that. But that kind of shorthand the recipe you can use for Aqua soup you can use for groundnut CPDs, Jonathan, lots and lots of things. So I don't want to tell people go to this recipe first I would suggest read about the ingredients in the flavor and go with what speaks to you, right, because I think everybody has to, as recipe writers and cookbook writers, we have to invite the audience in a little bit and not presume too much. But I've just tried to make it as accessible as possible without watering down, I suppose. Or also the opposite of that without being too didactic about it either, because we have to give space for nuance and interpretation. And for people to be able to use what they have available to them, you know. So I don't like to tell people, you should try this. But there are definitely some really easy recipes like red, red, all day, easy recipe, it's just the bean stew essentially, the ground that is a really easy one pot dish anybody can make, it just requires that you have fun while you're cooking in order for it to taste good. And, you know, so many, even the John F recipe is pretty straightforward. And those kinds of dishes are the like, I think they've been staples on my menus at restaurants and supper clubs and wherever I've been in the world for such a long time, and they're always the most loved recipes that people can connect with. So probably would be saying start there. Yeah.

Well, and now it's kind of like finding the balance, I guess between quote unquote, authentic, but then accessible, right? Like, think about that when you're writing a book, you know, as someone who's never like, personally, I've never had the food really cooked with the these recipes? How easy is it for me to find ingredients here in the US? I mean, I know you can buy specialty things on Amazon. But you know, so when you're writing a cookbook, are you thinking about? Well, this is how it would be traditionally made. But knowing that a lot of people might not have access to the ingredients like here substitutes, like are you thinking about that, as you're writing the book, and I've looked, you know, I have the book. So I've kind of seen where it says like, you can use cayenne here or something like that, you know, if you don't have access to this,

you know, the this is a fourth edition of the book, and I wrote this book. Originally in 2014. When I wrote it, originally, there was a lot less accessibility in terms of these ingredients. And there, the publishing industry, as a rule at the time, were very cautious about talking about ingredients that people would think are hard to find. And so the first edition of the book, there was a lot of heavy substitutions and a lot of emissions in terms of things like dour, dour probably didn't crop up very often in the recipes and grains of Salem because they were very esoteric at the time. However, this edition of the book, I was really excited to get back into it, because over that time between its publication in 2017, and now I as a cook have grown and develop AI as a food writer has grown and developed. But also my political consciousness and my certain voices are cooking the world has also grown and developed. So I actually, I don't know if this is the wrong thing to say, when you're trying to sell a cookbook, but I actually put back in a lot of what I had taken out in 2017, because I really wanted people to have the truest experience of these recipes. Now, of course, there are suggestions for substitutions there because it's not going to be easy for for everybody. You know, I don't know how accessible these things are in the Midwest, for example, but there is a much more expansive availability online and not just Amazon. I mean, I have my own spice shop there is garden kitchen comm where I purposefully built a channel where people can could bridge the gap in that accessibility, right? So yes, because I want people to use it, there are substitutions. But I also want people to be mindful that if you you know, when you go overboard with the substitutions, you're kind of losing something, right, it's still going to taste delicious, but it's not going to be the same. So if you want the most authentic relationship with the cuisine is that you're going to have to Google where you're going to buy that or just come to my website and get it from me. But but you know, it's it's more important to me that people as I said, this isn't a bible of this has gone on in fear this is very much my avocation and celebration of these recipes and flavors and ingredients more than anything else and it's it's that I want people to have a relationship with so I'm really kind of encouraging people to go out of their comfort zone a little bit and try those ingredients tried out our try grains of paradise, Chinese grains of Salaam and those spice blends because while you're going to have a great time making these dishes as authentically as possible, you're also going to be able to use those flavors and ingredients and other things and just bring in the flavor of West Africa generally into your pantry and your cooking style and embolden your food you know, make it more vibrant.

So what's your take on fusion Cooking. I mean, you know, I know that's like a word that I even feel seems dated, but like using those, you know, kind of re mixing those dishes, what are your thoughts?

And it's usually such an unfortunate and ugly word, isn't it? And I had the real distrust of it. For the longest time back in the UK when people were trying to apply that to my more modern interpretations of this cuisine. How do I feel about it? Now? I think. I think it's still clumsy fusion, because I think what I'm doing isn't fusing so much as reimagining. So it's for me, you know, there is that there isn't a canon of West African cuisine yet. It's starting to develop now, right? We're starting to see more writers in this space, more cookbooks in this space, which I welcome and love. But in the absence of that, Canon, I think we have to acknowledge what is traditional big air quotes around that because tradition changes from house to house. But we do have to go back what it what is, or as close to as what as we can consider as authentic as possible, which is why I made that trip back to Ghana in 2013, to research this book. However, from doing that, I came back, I got a lot of license from the knowledge I gained there about just how differently people approached these recipes from region to region or from household to household. So with all this knowledge that I have about that, that's what I try to bring to talking about food and teaching people about this cuisine. I think I've probably lost what the original question was, because I'm waffling a little bit. So remind me what your actual question was

just how you feel about fusion?

Look, there are definitely cuisines where they are fused. Like I've had them definitely like New York is full of fusion protein, right? It's like China, meat, Savannah, Tokyo meats, Mexico, and they work really well. And I have no problem with that. But I'm not really fusing any. There's one section in the cookbook, which might be regarded as fusion right there has a section called Ghana get Irish. Where I'm celebrating some Irish flavors of ingredients alongside Ghanaian safe. Now that is fusion, because I'm deliberately telling you, this is what's happening. I'm bringing in Ireland, and I'm bringing in Ghana together to create this new version of the thing. So that's fusion, and that's okay. Everything else. And there's a lot of more than what the twists are. It's also a clumsy word twists. But you know, what it's really about me thinking, Okay, we have these amazing flavors and ingredients. This is what normally happens to them. But what else can we do with them? Like, how else can we experience Ghanian food in new ways? And that's really what that is. It's a reimagining of traditional ideas. And also just new ideas on how to use the ingredients and how to bring those flavors into your your life without it being too time consuming or labor. Some are intimidating.

Yeah. We jumped over a whole bunch of your stuff. So I want to go back a little bit too. I guess Zoe's gonna kitchen. What is Zoe is gonna kitchen. What have you done under that label? And kind of How did that start?

Yeah, so he's got a kitchen is a brand of West African brand that I started in 2010, I suppose. And it was the first contemporary West African food concept in the UK. And it started outside my front door with a borrowed pot, in which I made this big fat essentially of brown soup for an over the course of a weekend where there was a festival in my neighborhood. And that's how it started. And from that moment in time, which is really just me being opportunistic to make some cash because I was a bit skin back in 2010. And from this moment, it created this wonderful like social gathering outside my front door. But also all of these questions were coming up around what the dish was where it was from, a lot of people didn't know where Garner was, hadn't heard of it, didn't know where it wasn't a map. And there were a huge number of ridiculous stereotypes people had, you know, things like this assumption about eating like bush meat being the only thing we ate and lots of notions about it being unhealthy and yada yada yada. So all these questions represented that in 2010 were like lodged in my subconscious but not once really, that I felt was my job to answer for people. Because that wasn't the trajectory I was going on at the time. I was doing an MA in creative writing and that was very my focus was was that However, because it was so fun, like I had a lot of fun feeding people, I decided to turn my house into a restaurant essentially. So then it became this space for a pop up restaurant. And I would suddenly be turning over 60 covers twice a night or one weekend doing like five or 600 covers. And then that turned into me doing catering and street food and all these other arms and pub residencies. And then eventually, I had a restaurant myself in Brixton, and the, the cookbook came out as well. And it's basically been like this project, I suppose, which I decided that because I've got so much buzz so quickly in this business, this brand grew organically stream, I can't tell you how quickly, it just rocketed off, really without me and I was kind of being dragged behind it. But when I decided when I could sort of pay attention and listen to the universe, instead of fighting all the time, I said, Okay, this needs to exist. And so why, like, why does this need to exist. And it was clear to me that people didn't have a relationship with that cuisine outside of the Diaspora outside of the communities, which cooked it inherently. And all of the amazing restaurants that did exist in London, and across the UK. And there were hundreds, were all kind of mom and pop shops, and they were places where the community went to eat, and they weren't necessarily concerned with inviting anybody else in. So I suppose I created the brand Zoe's kind of kitchen created this bridge, if you like, between, between those cultures, and trying to platform this cuisine in a new way that would put it on the same footing as Mexican food or any other world cuisine in London. And so it became about bringing African food to the masses and air quotes. And that was the mission statement. And that's why I did so many different types and styles of cooking, because all I was thinking about is got to get it to as many people as possible, right. And so yeah, like catering, weddings, catering, corporate events, going to festivals, where you're serving 1000s of people over a weekend and then doing residencies all over the country or across Europe and supper clubs, so any available way that you could serve food, I found a way to do it. And that, yeah, that's where we are now. And now it's always gonna kitchen presently, as a consequence of the pandemic kind of killing most aspects of my business because it was so focused on events. We're now operating as an online spice shop. So as I mentioned earlier, like I wanted to close the gap between people's access to the ingredients. And I wanted to be able to write recipes, where I didn't have to substitute the ingredients, and people had somewhere they could trust to buy it from. And also, to be able to educate people, not just on that the ingredients, but on supply chain issues and like the wider concerns around the growing and selling of these ingredients. And why it's you know, why being mindful of supply chain matters, and why being mindful of wider ecosystem around your food matters. So I guess, you know, God kitchen continues to be a West African food brand, what it will be in 10 years, I don't know.

What do you want it to be? Let's say next year, 2022. COVID has kind of leveled off, we can go back to indoor dining events gathering, what do you what do you want to be doing, as soon as you can do whatever you want?

Well, if I had the investors tomorrow, I would make Ghana kitchen, a neighborhood restaurant with a grocery store attached to it. And in that grocery store, you'd be able to buy cookbooks from across the African continent, and you'd be able to buy the ingredients from across as many parts of West Africa as possible, and you'd be able to have affordable good food, you know, I'd be really happy with that a small, 40 seater, you know, neighborhood place where people came and learn about food and had uncelebrated food and had a great time. You know, it might have a little dive bar up at night beneath it as well.

I'd show up for sure. How do you identify? Do you identify as a chef as a cook? I know we've talked about this a little before in other places. And I guess to add on to that, what does it mean to be a chef these days?

Yeah, it's a really interesting question. And you know what, I changed my mind about it almost all the time lately. Like when I when I got into food. I don't have a culinary background, not culinary trained. I didn't come up through hospitality in the same way that most people have in the feed industry. I very much went out on my own and did my own thing. And I'm very happy to have done it that way. Obviously So I was never concerned with the label chef or cook like I was just doing it. So the label didn't become important to me until other people were applying it. And then the other question consistently in my early years was like, Are you a chef or a cook? Are you I cannot, I honestly couldn't understand why it was so important for people. And I was very happy to be called either or. And that was more comfortable. I suppose once I got into, like hospitality as an industry, I was more comfortable initially being called a cook, because it's like, Well, I haven't done that path in that route. Right. So I'm not sure that it really applies to me. But also, I don't think I understood then the weight of the word. Do you know what I mean? Like how much credibility it might give you. So other than all of this stuff? Anyway, so fast forward, I don't know, let's say I've cooked maybe, I don't know, 100,000 meals at this point over the course of like, eight or nine years. And it's like, actually, yeah, I'm a chef. Like, I've run a restaurant, I run a food business, I have a catering like, Yeah, I'm feeding people professionally for a living, and teaching other people how to feed people personally, for a living, I'm running hits, you see, I'm a chef. And so I felt comfortable then to wear that as a new coat. But even now, like recently, I know we talked about this with Jenny Dorsey did a panel on clubhouse about it. And then it became like this friction of me asserting myself as a chef, because the industry didn't want me to assert myself as a chef, right? So then it became about pushing back on the kind of hierarchy in food and who gets to be equipped with what sense of value about what they do. But right now, I honestly couldn't give a flying F, whether anybody calls me a chef or a cook. I just honestly could. But having said that, because of that conversation with Jenny Dorsey. And she's saying that when she put the word chef in front of her name on her email signature, she suddenly received a different tone and a different kind of interaction from potential clients and things. And I took the advice. And so I've changed on my email and on my Instagram to say chefs on your journey, so people know immediately that that's what I do. But I could lose that tomorrow. And I wouldn't lose a bit of sleep about it, you know. So it's just become a label that kind of doesn't isn't important to me. And right now, technically, I'm not running a restaurant, and I'm not running any catering. And I'm not, I'm not in the profession of being a chef so much. You know, I mean, I teach online, and I teach in person, I do demos and stuff like that, but I'm not selling food. And I'm not in the industry of selling food right now. So it's kind of neither here nor there. For me, you know, I'm a food person. I love to cook, and you want to call me a chef. Great. And you don't I don't give a

I'm with you know, you know, like, I'm a personal chef. Now, I have a culinary degree. You know, just five years ago, I was running a huge kitchen with hundreds of employees. But I had a guy come on my Instagram a couple weeks ago, and say, if you don't have a team under you that you're leading, you're not a chef, you can call yourself something else. And you know, I again, some troll, right? Like, I don't care either way about this guy's opinion. But it was a really interesting conversation. And he went so far as to start harassing everyone in my community, like going on their Instagrams and DMing them, and being like, really arrogant and rude about the fact that like, Chef literally means to lead a team in a kitchen. And if you are a solopreneur, or not doing that, find a new word. And I just thought was so funny, like, how does it affect this guy, right? Like, we're on opposite sides of the country. Like, if I call myself a chef, like, does it matter? Like, I don't understand why people get so tied up in these things of how other people identify. It's just really interesting. But yeah, I know, we were part of this conversation this summer with Jenny, I thought was interesting. But I know people always change their mind. So I thought I just kind of see where you are at these days. I change all the time. Like I've I've never had anyone call me chef, like in the kitchen. I didn't want my cooks to say chef, I'm Chris. Just take Hey, Chris, can you help me out here? I was not a Yes, Chef. No chef guy. It was like, I still don't even feel comfortable with it. But if someone says what do you do? I say I'm a chef, you know?

Yeah. I mean, it's easy, right? It's also it's just the handy labor. Sometimes labels are really cumbersome. And, and this word is it can be cumbersome and heavy and loaded and create rage for people when they think it's misappropriated. But it also is just easy in conversations, but I really do Yeah, I'm a chef and a writer and everything else multi hyphenate human that I am. But it tends to come first because that's what I've done for the longest time most recently. You know, I don't know I mean, I tried to wear that Yes Chef bit for a minute because I thought oh, how? Because also like when Yeah. As someone who hasn't been through that whole process, and in that the brigade system and all of that there was a period of time of a short period of time, when I thought maybe I need to be more like that in order to get this kitchen team motivated. And yeah, the other, but it didn't last for very long. You know, it's like, because because it just feels like so much. It feels so forced to me and who I am to have that kind of, you know, I don't even wear whites when I could I zoom in, it's like, I'm sorry. You can commit. So if you want, but you could also call me so you know. So? Yeah, I don't really I just the whole hierarchy thing and the aggressiveness that comes with how you then assert yourself in the kitchen. Like, none of that was very attractive to me. So I suppose like, off camera off the record, and we're on the record right now. But I mean, in life, I'm probably just more comfortable just being so he cooks. But I understand that for the industry. And for recognition in the industry, they need a label, that means something so I use the label that if I need to, for it to mean something for them more than it means to me. Does that make sense? It definitely

does. Again, it's just especially an easy conversation. I think a general person who's not in the industry understands, right, like you're at a party and someone says, What do you do? I'm a chef, like they get it right away, you know, you don't need to go through this big long thing of like, what you actually do, you can just say, I'm a chef, and we're overthinking it too much. This could be a very deep thing. And I'm leaving it a little broad. But like in general, what are your thoughts on the state of the food industry right now? And that could be like anything, I just kind of want to, like, what are you spending time thinking about? What are some of your concerns? Where do you think we're getting it? Right, like, Do you have any? I'm sure you have thoughts? Cuz I know you're talking to industry all the time. But is there anything right now that is really important to you?

Oh, there's so much. Such a big question. You know, like, a lot of my whole concern, as regards the food industry is around this theme of decolonizing. It decolonizing the food industry and trying to unpack for people what that means and define it. And there's so many, like, the food system overall is, gosh, he's in trouble, right? Like, there's so many parts of it that are in trouble, whether we're thinking about how the hospitality industry operates, how the workers in that system, seen heard, acknowledged, valued paid, you know, you can consider that without thinking about then who, the suppliers us, right, so restaurants and hospitality, and then the concerns around supply chains, and the concerns about sustainability and agriculture and biodiversity. And these are all still ongoing, large, large issues and problems that we're only just kind of scratching the surface of talking about, let alone really addressing, and then mental health, right, and how do we all work in a capitalist structure without killing ourselves to survive? And cultural appropriation? I think my biggest headache with food is that topic is cultural appropriation. It's probably the bit I am most passionate about. But also increasingly, I fear, and it's, I feel sad to say this, that's the it's the least likely battle to be won. Because there is this ever expansive global cuisine. Right, which I'm not against, actually. Right. Because bringing in the flavors of the world, is what I'm part of doing is what I do. So I'm encouraging people to do that on one level, right? But there is this really specific notion about who gets to benefit when they write about food when they develop an ingredient or something for a shelf in a supermarket? Who are the people who are being excluded and who are the people who are benefiting? It honestly feels like the tidal flow against what I'm trying to say about that. It's so Big and so overwhelming that it's almost impossible to counter at this point. Because how do you take on Trader Joe's? How do you take on? You know what I mean? It's like they're all doing it now. And once they've started what? Why would they start? Because they know right people like me. And many, many others in this food space have been talking about West African food and West African cuisine for years and years and years and years highlight 12 years counting. And to be completely an often dismissed me in the UK, when I've spoken to r&d companies at supermarkets, and they're like, oh, West, African food isn't saying it's not trending, it's not going to cross over. And now they're all putting out right their own versions of a Jollof sauce, or SEO blend. And as our white famous male chefs putting it in their cookbooks. Some of them don't even know that they've got this recipe in a cookbook. They don't actually write the cookbook. And it's just this huge tide, which is counter to what I believe and I believe that chefs and the food industry needs to start respecting the cultures that these ingredients and flavors and recipes come from and decolonizing the food industry, how can you right? How can you even be colonized industry when we're perpetually in the Cloakers? You know what I mean? It's like, it's such a hard battle to fight. And yet I'm still here, trying to fight it. So I think that is my biggest concern is I'm still concerned about the colonizing of cultures for them for purposes of profit over people's inclusion, and the possibility for them to actually benefit from their own culture.

And nobody really cares about your food until it becomes popular. And then you know, it's like, it's just interesting, my best friend's Filipino, and we went to culinary school together. And you know, 20 years ago, we're talking about, he said, you know, nobody's ever going to go out to Filipino food. It's too weird. It's not mainstream, you know. And then Filipino people wouldn't go out for it, because they're just gonna make it at home. And now you look at like one of the hot cuisines, right. And it's not always necessarily like Filipino people opening these restaurants. And the same with any of those cuisines. Like, we go through the the flavor of the week. And once something hits, for whatever reason, it seems like everyone jumps on board, and then you've got it starting to spread everywhere. And that's great. If you're someone who grew up with a cuisine and this is something you're passionate about, I don't know that I should be opening a Ghanian restaurant here in Maryland. But

please, please do if you're going to hire like a Ghanaian head chef and your staff are going to be West Africa, and you know, you're gonna run a restaurant model where they get equity out of this concepts, you know, like, then yeah, do it.

Yeah, but I shouldn't be the head chef for that or write a Ghanian cookbook?

No, no, no, I mean, and that's the thing, I think it's, I think people are starting to be more sensitive to this concept, this idea, but there is such a long way to go with it. Sometimes it does feel defeating, you know, it's like, it's such a huge wave to constantly swim against. But yeah, we have to, right, if we don't talk about it, if we don't highlight it, we don't flag it when it's happening, then we've kind of participated in it. And I think, you know, my conscious just doesn't allow me to do that. And Jeremy, like, I have to, even if the greater task, which is to decolonize, the food industry, it's probably going to take 500 years to get us back to zero on that, right. And the reality is, we can't ever go back to zero because we will speak English. And, you know, we all it's already happened, like, some of it, you can't reverse. However, if we're not, if we're not participating in discussions about how to unpick parts of it, it's never going to begin like the process will never start and we'll never get to any kind of level playing field. So I think you and I, and you've been in conversations and people like us who care about the food industry and care about the people in it. And as I say that, that's from you know, the, the home cook in, I don't know, the hi to the immigrant in New York, all of these people, they need other people to help them have space, right? And we, I suppose, could now be considered as some kind of a gatekeeper, right, because I have a certain amount of profile and yada yada. So I have a responsibility to show them that they are valuable. Therefore voice and opinion does matter. And there are people in the world who are working to fight for their right to exist in these spaces and to be able to financially thrive off of their concepts, ideas, words, and the work they do to uplift and share their culture. For me, it's like the long good fight. You know, it's like all of this stuff. Every conversation might be a micro chip, literally, at a massive rock, but we have to chip, and eventually we'll get somewhere.

And I think about, you know, me personally, how I can both use my platform, but also opportunities to, I don't know, help the the bigger picture, you know, I didn't really think about this stuff growing up, you know, I went to culinary school and just wanted to be a cook and a chef. But you know, looking back at things like star chefs has had me come to their conference in New York and write editorials about their workshops. And a couple years ago, they asked me to write about Eduardo Jordans. And I went, and I did it, and it was on chitlins. And, you know, he's, that's a whole nother thing there. But, you know, I didn't grow up eating chitlins. It's not from my background in my culture. And was I the best choice for that, you know, in hindsight, probably not. But you know, I was given this opportunity, it was amazing. I, you know, it was a chance for me to show my professional writing and do some cool stuff. But today, I would like to think that I would maybe say like, I'm not the best person for this, is there, an African American person, someone who grew up eating that, like, I had literally no ties to that, you know, I think I did a good job. But for me, that's kind of where I'm at is kind of thinking about, where I sit in the bigger picture of things and sharing maybe opportunities as best I can with other people.

mean, yes. And that's a beautiful start. And that's a beautiful position. And I wish more chefs would be like that, and not just food writers and whoever else is involved in this funny old game. But yeah, even I have to do that. And it's like, you know, in the UK, I became like, the spokesperson for West African food or like the leading voice for that. And increasingly, it became uncomfortable because it meant that I was now being the only black face talking about this stuff, right? And for me, it was like the moments where you introduce somebody else into that conversation. In the UK anyway, what would happen is, there just wouldn't be space for two voices. So one of you gets paid, and one of you doesn't, right, so then it's about survival. Yeah. And so that had an impact on how much you can bring up other people, as they say, but, you know, as I said, in more recent years, and like the last three or four years, I've kind of made it my agenda to, even if I am broke, like, even if there's unlucky as well, I can write about a lot of different things, not just food, I can write about politics, I can write about yada, yada. But perhaps there's somebody like recently, today's show asked me to write something about a specific thing like Kansa, which is like the bird rice on the bottom of rice. Rice is considered a delicacy in Ghana. And it's like, yeah, I know about that. But I'm not the best person to write about it, actually, because I don't cook. Like that particular thing has never been in my repertoire, my armory, like I wasn't taught about it to make it, it wasn't something I ate growing up. And so I recommended somebody else I knew who was more into the very traditional, you know, in order to give them an opportunity to talk about that with the passion and integrity that they have about it. If I had written about it, I would have done a good job. Right would have been educational about the topic. But I know that it's not my it wouldn't be my true experience of it. So I don't want to lie either. And I don't want to take up space on a topic because as niche as people think Ghanaian food is it's an expansive culinary range, right? Not just Ghana is a big country. It's not as big as America. But it's a huge country. And you know, the UK could probably fit into Ghana, I don't know, 30 times. And there's such a variance in the landscape, between tribes, between regions and traditions. And I certainly don't know about everything that's available to a person in Ghana in terms of diet, I'm constantly learning and I have to know that they acknowledge it, and step out of the way when there's people that know more than me, and even step out in the way. Sometimes when it's not about them knowing more than me, it's about they need an opportunity. Some people just need an opportunity. And sometimes I'm able to provide that without a cost to me, right? I think here's the new balance. It's like balancing the opportunities you give yourself against opportunities you create and give to other people in a way that we're aware we can all thrive. And we don't have to feel like we're in competition with each other. Because this is the other problem that the industry can create for communities like mine is it pits us against each other in terms of because of, oftentimes there isn't space for more than one voice on a topic or a type of cuisine. And there isn't more space for a number of writers to talk about the same kind of ingredients through different lens, you know. And, you know, I'm going to be honest here, actually, I've even recently found myself withdrawing a bit like I have a column for today, on the ingredients of West Africa. And a friend of mine, one day also has a column, much more fancy column for The New York Times. And I've noticed that she started writing about those ingredients. And I kind of started withdrawing a bit thinking like, oh, I don't want to be writing about the same things as that person, because I don't want us to, like being competition about it. And then it's like, and so many people have said to me recently, it's like, well, thanks, forget, like you have your own perspective on it. And I had to be reminded from other people, right? It's like, oh, yeah, like, I can write about this at the same time as somebody else writing about this like, because I have a completely different lens and experience and perspective and voice. So it's, I don't know, it's constant work, trying to balance it all to make space, create space, not take up too much space, but be visible enough to be inspirational, right, and do the work that you need to do and get paid. It's a constant challenge.

Yeah, with the podcast. I mean, I have a lot of guests who are on other shows, but we all come at it from different vantage is different experience. I try to listen to previous podcasts that they've been on so as to not repeat the same thing over and over and just kind of how can we put a different spin on this? How can we have a completely different conversation? You know, you've been a guest on a lot of podcasts, you you know, you also host your own video series. I see you do these long videos on Instagram, you've covered so much ground already. So how do we have a conversation that's still slightly different?

Yeah, I mean, Dana, just recently did then accountants podcast, but I always try to make each conversation different, because I always tried to. And it's Dana, that pointed this out to me, because she done a lot of research, before she did the podcast with me. And she noted that, as many times as I've been interviewed, I don't give the same interview twice. And I try not to because, in fact, I'm not really trying is because I come to it, that I'm talking to a new person every time right, and I don't know what that person or their audience know about me, my background, my relationship with food, or any of the other things I do, and I do a lot of other things. So I can pull out of quite a large pot in conversations. But I do think it's important to be able to Yeah, to be able to do that to have consistently have conversations with your community and people outside of your community. Without competition being the basis of engagement. You know, I mean, it's like about that, that working collaboratively is really at my core. It's weird thing to say, but sometimes I feel like that's what I was born to do is to be a collaborator, like a co creator, like, I can do stuff on my own, and I do. But when I'm doing stuff, if I have an idea where it brings a lot of people together, like the energy and inspiration that gives me, like fires me up so much more than when I'm doing something on my own. Yeah, I just think intrinsically, I'm built to collaborate, and I'm built to collaborate around big ideas. The more people who benefit the better.

Oh, me, too. I love collaboration. I mean, right now, the podcast is a solo thing. And my business is a solo thing. But I really need to figure out how to bring more people into the mix. And you have a podcast to write.

I thank you for mentioning that. Yeah. My podcast is called Cooking Up consciousness and the motivation for me creating it was my fascination, I suppose of people's journeys and who people are and how, how they come to be who they are, right, because we have this vast Myriad's of experiences where like he just said, like, he tried to collaborate and but then trust is broken, or it's not the right fit or, and just people have amazing journeys behind what they do, that people don't see. Right, because people think everybody's an overnight success. Doesn't matter that you spent 12 years like in the coal mines or 20 years in the coal mines, and then somebody gives you a book deal, right? And I wanted to share because so often people say to me, Oh, you're so inspirational. You're so this how do you do it? To me, I don't know what you mean, really? Because I'm just being me. You know, I don't know how I do it. I'm just living. But I've been through this process of unpacking. Okay, what how? What is my motivation? What makes me tick? And what has been my journey to sit to now? What have been the pitfalls? What have been the successes? What knows were really a great Yes, later on and what yeses were, I should not have taken, you know what I mean? And I think sometimes people can get a lot from understanding people's background and people's journey so that they feel better about themselves and where they are. And so I wanted it to be like that, like this kind of tool to help people understand that, wherever you are in the world right now, it's absolutely fine because you're in a journey, like it's a process and we all get there in the end, as long as we believe in ourselves and have faith in ourselves and trust ourselves, which is not an easy thing to do. But I guess that was, you know, in it's a bit esoteric, I suppose. But some of it as I'm talking to people in the FIE community, obviously, people like pretty mystery and Rima sell who clear inspirations around what they do and talk about, but also people who aren't in food, necessarily, but who I find to be inspirational characters, or have inspirational careers or stories behind their careers. So it's a lot of like triumph over adversity, I suppose. hoping, hoping to motivate and inspire people a little bit.

Well, I think that inspiration is because you come off as so authentic and honest. And it's unfortunate that that seems like a rarity these days, right. But like you, you tackle some of the big issues head on. It doesn't seem like you are someone who has trouble telling it like it is but also in a way that's, you know, clear and comes from a point of view and not necessarily aggressive. You know, I I really love listening to you talk about things that I've never even thought about and the way that you can verbalize that in, you know, like, an easy to understand way and just kind of but like trying to get at the root of an issue. Does that make sense?

Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I appreciate that means a lot. Yeah, again, you know, I think it's just, I don't know that I have that much control over it. It's kind of whoever I am. Now, as a consequence of the process. I've been through free living, you know what I mean? Like, there are like touch points, per se, like politics and social justice that just ingrained in me. And whenever I see injustice, I'm going to tell somebody about it, I'm going to shout it out. And it doesn't matter whether it's food or anything. It's like, this is not okay, right. This is our planet. We're all humans on this planet. We all deserve to be here. And we all deserve equal love attention, and guidance and success. And whatever our hearts dream of, we all deserve it. And so when I see people being oppressed, or any injustice is just like, it's just natural for me to want to talk about it or do something to change it. And I'm not fucking perfect. Like, I've been my I've had a roller coaster of a life. But I think this all of my experience in the world feeds into, you know, what I say? And how I say it, and I suppose I've become increasingly fearless. You know, I think there's a real power in letting go of being scared to be yourself. That's the big thing. It's like, that's what I want for everyone on the stage is to be able to be really comfortable being yourself, because this is what I do all day. I'm just being myself. I'm not pretending I'm not lying. I'm not hiding anything. Probably some stuff I should hide, honestly. But I'm an open book. And I think that's probably why people gravitate to me is because they can see I'm not there's no filter, like, you know, like this is what you see is what you get. And what if I'm talking about it, it's because I care about it. I don't have small talk. It's not available to me, and helping

other people be more open and honest and sharing. And I guess that kind of also transitions into a little bit. You have another book serving up coming out soon that you're working on right now. You're doing a kind of crowdfunding, right. Can you talk about that? A little bit?

Yeah, thank you again, for mentioning that. Yeah, so serving up is an anthology of food writing from mostly persons of color, mostly women. But it's a collection of voices in food that I don't think ever. Well, look, we've already talked about this, there is a real lack of diversity in food writing. And so I've been gifted with the opportunity to curate and edit a collection of essays and voices and food and because again of who I am and how I operate in the world. I really want to have that be an internationally connected anthology because all of our stories are important and There's just not enough places for them to be platform, you know, so I've got a really gorgeous collection of people from a Persada herself Veals pretty mysteries in Remus hills in Ashton Barry's gonna be in there crystal Mac poor Abigail Spooner. It's a really, really diverse collection of voices with very, very, very niche perspectives sometimes, right? That don't get enough space in printed books. I mean, a lot of people have a sub stack or a newsletter these days. And that's amazing and good. And we need that, and I'm not, they should exist, very important. But also, wouldn't it be nice to go to a bookshop and have books that have these voices in there from all over the world. And I just think we need more of that. Because I think, the more we realize how similar stories are, across our experiences are, the more connected we can be right, the more we can see each other in each other's experiences, the more we can be in relationship, and therefore, everything just becomes more easier. I mean, I'm not trying to say that, like books like this, bring world peace, because they don't, but they give an opportunity to platform voices that would otherwise perhaps not get the platform. And it gives the opportunity for somebody in I don't know, a small town in Utah, who's in from an immigrant family having this specific experience, to recognize and see themselves being reflected, you know, and we can't they know the whole, the old adage is still true, you can't be what you can't see, you need to this is a really good example that is often quoted by like, motivational speakers and stuff, but the four minute mile, right? When Andrew Andrew paneling, when he broke the four minute mile, it hadn't been done before people thought it was impossible, the minute he did it, it's broken 20 times in like two months, because people could see that it was possible, so they can do it. And you can't be what you can't see sometimes. And I had that growing up. And I don't want that for anybody else growing up, you know, I want to see, I want everybody to know what's available to them. And it's everything, everything is available to you doesn't matter what color you are, where you come from, what your gender is, what your sexual orientation is, like, everything is available to you, your voice is in the world, an important voice. And that's why I'm crowdfunding this book.

And I'm still kind of old school in that I love a book like you can read amazing things online, I feel like it doesn't hold my attention. Like there's something about having a book in your hands, and just sitting down on the couch and like going through it. And I feel like it's something that's going to be around for eternity, like once the book is out in the world. So I'm super excited. I think the book sounds really awesome. Crystal Mac was one of my first I want to say like five podcast guests that I had on the show like we had just started. And what I mean, we talked for over two hours. And we did it in the same day in the same studio. Cat from just call me chef, we did it the same day. So talking about conversations we had like, Crystal right into her I talked for like four hours to the two of them. What an amazing day of conversations. It took me so long to kind of unpack that and go through everything we talked about coming out of a studio in four hours back when I used to do in person interviews such a great day. So yeah, I love you know, crystals, amazing. Cats. Amazing. But all these people have different perspectives on food I love anytime that you know, I see their work out there and people sharing their, their voice and work.

The same thing happened with me, Chris, that actually were supposed to be trying to catch up for like an editorial meeting for a long time. And when we eventually did, we spoke for two hours before we started talking about her. And I'm a talker, so yeah, she's Yeah, I mean, I'm so happy that all of the people who agreed to participate, have, you know, said yes. Because all these people are trying to earn a living as well. Right. And the sad part of this is, it's really hard. And you know, the budget I get to pay them wasn't very big. It's like the contributors gave 250 quid each, which is nothing. But most publications don't give you anything. And you're asking people to commit time, and their creative talent and their brain space because that's as a writer, I know that half the battle, but the writing isn't putting it on the page. It's all the bits in your head before it goes on the page, right? And I want to be paid for that time. And as somebody who wants to be paid, I can't then ask people to give up their time without getting paid. I just can't do it. So I've been here to cut losses which I managed to get them some money but at the same time it's not very much so anyone who has given up their time for this is really doing it because they love the idea of the project and they agree that this is an important thing that should happen in the world. And so really it's it's more of a donation that the payment is just kind of, you know, what you call it? an honorarium.

Yes. Yes.

I hate that word. It's one of my least favorite words. When it comes to being paid an

honorarium. I've received some of those for writing as well.

Yeah. What does that mean? covers the ink.

Just to make you feel a little better about it? Well, do you have anything that you want to leave the audience with, I feel like we could talk for hours. But any parting words,

I'm on my cookbook, to sort of say to people that this is a really kind of joyful cookbook. It's not one of those books, which is, you know, really strict about everything. It's, it's fun, like, I want people to have fun when they cook, want people to engage with it. And, you know, for that reason, there's soundtracks in their, their Spotify playlist to cook to, and lots of anecdotes about my time in Ghana, and the stories of people I met. Also my family, it's very personal, and I think is really great way for people to like, dip their toes into West African cuisine and start to get a flavor and introduction to what it's about. And then after that, all the new cookbooks should be coming out next year, and they're going to be plenty. They can build a quite inexpensive West African library quite soon, you know, and I'd love to be a part of it. So yeah, go check it out.

Yeah, I think everyone should check it out. I have an older version of the book, and then I have the new version of the book. So definitely go check out her book. I will link all that in the show notes. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Thanks so much, Chris.

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