Chef Wu keeps it spicy in and out of the kitchen. After running a successful Afro-Caribbean food catering business in London, she moved to Lagos to start Oùnję Co. — her hospitality consultancy firm. Braised ox cheek pepper soup, and plantain brûlée are some of the dishes she serves at private dinners, and on the side, she’s on a mission to make Nigerian hospitality better ‘One Bite at a Time’. She chats with Ada & Lamisko about moving to Lagos and standing on (food) business.

Cobi-Jane Akinrele wants Nigerian female farmers to get paid. She’s the founder of The Aké Collective, a health and wellness company that’s making fonio more accessible. After leaving the Cambridge countryside for Lagos, she planned to start an agri-tech business in Jos after completing her NYSC. But, when she met women growing and selling fonio for extra income, she changed plans and business models. Ada & Lamisko dig into her work to promote women’s wellness.

Jumoke Toyobo makes a delicious garri sorbet. Known in the kitchen as Chef TYB, she’s a private chef and restaurant consultant who serves immersive dining experiences with menus that match her diverse culinary background. From pub kitchens in Portsmouth to Michelin starred restaurants in London, and now recently back from a gastro-tour of North America, she joins Ada & Lamisko to chat about the art of eba and her journey to becoming a chef.

Inside Chef FT’s Toronto apartment, you’ll find him serving guests fusions like banga risotto with sea snails, and garri tostadas finished with a honey bean puree. What started as a barbecuing gig evolved into Lamuren Inc., his company that curates contemporary Nigerian dining experiences across Toronto, and most recently New York. Ada & Lamisko dig into his life as a product designer by day and chef by night, living and cooking in Canada, and his supper club responsible for putting rectangular akara on all our TikTok feeds.

Mosun Aderinokun, and her elder brother Dare, are the brains and bartenders behind Quacktails - a mobile cocktail bar and delivery service that’s refining the classics with fresh syrups and seasonal produce, while also mixing up signature cocktails like the Sapele ginger and the Okoroshi. Ada & Lamisko kick-back with co-founder Mosun who walks them through the ABCs of drinking, a brief history of cocktails, and how Quacktails was born.

Anjola Awosika has one of the most mouthwatering Instagram accounts in Nigeria. If you’ve eaten it, Anjola has most likely shot it. He tells Nigerian food stories through photography and film and is elevating West African food, one shot at a time. Ada & Lamisko dig their way into his journey from baker to blogger and finally founder of Ata Rodo Magazine.

Ada and Lamisko are officially back from sabbatical! Their kitchen, now under new management, presents the menu for this episode: Nigerian-Kazakh-Surinamese fusion origin stories, lightly roasted ex-business partners, and the podcast lore as the final apéritif. Enjoy!

When Nestle and Unilever introduced Maggi and Knorr bouillon cubes to West Africa almost 70 years ago, they took over an informal umami market run mostly by women. Before bouillon, we used fermented beans and seeds like iru and ogili, to deepen the flavours of our soups and stews. Today, both Maggi and Knorr market their seasoning cubes to Nigerian women as a means to the end of modern womanhood - a mythical destination where women can do it all in spite of the patriarchy on their necks. However, a closer look at the colonial histories that built these companies tells a different story - a story of marketing language co-opted and cherry-picked from feminist movements to advance corporate gain.

In Nigeria, street food means tasty portable snacks like Àkàrà and Suya, but it also means bowls of pepper soup and loaded plates of rice and stew served from the many bukas that crowd street corners. Street food culture is run by the city with the most streets - Lagos, the port city that used to be a center for international trade. These Lagos streets keep most of Nigeria's working population fed, but food in the country is getting more expensive than it has ever been due to rising food inflation. We sat down with Ayoola Oladipupo - a food writer that explores the cultural economics of Nigerian food - to talk about Lagos Island joints, the best spot to get amala in Ibadan, and also to understand why exactly Nigeria’s food is getting more expensive. 

Follow us on social media @uncookedwomen to keep up with our food adventures 

The West African jollof wars are friendly internet banter about an umami-rich rice dish beloved across the region. When we’re not fighting about who makes it best, we’re reluctantly agreeing that the region owes the recipe to Senegal, the real winners of the Jollof war. 

Food historian, writer, photographer, and all-round jollof connoisseur, Ozoz Sokoh, joins us to talk about the significance of West Africa’s favourite dish beyond the plate and across the region.

When a grain shortage in Senegal led Penda Mbaye, a chef in a colonial kitchen, to substitute barley for rice in her one-pot dish of tomatoes, vegetables, and fish, she would go on to make West African food history. Her dish was a reaction to a grain shortage caused by the French who were using the farms to grow and export peanuts - a cash crop that has made France a wealthy western power.  On this episode, we’re talking about the real Jollof war, the one between Senegal and France. 

Follow us on social media @Uncookedwomen to keep up with our food adventures.

Learn more about rice in Senegal here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/11/t-magazine/senegal-homegrown-rice.html