Iru vs Seasoning Cubes, Post-Harvest Loss, Female Farmers, & Sustainable Food Systems w/Chef Moyo
Uncooked WomenPlay episode
Show notes
Why did an imported seasoning cube become a kitchen staple across West Africa while Iru aka dawdawa, the umami-rich fermented locust bean used across West African cuisine, never got the same shot?
In this Season 2 premiere of Uncooked Women, award-winning food writer Adaorah Oduah sits down with Chef Moyo Akinbo, founder of the Atije Experience and winner of The Kitchen Season 1, and a researcher exploring sustainable indigenous West African food systems, to unpack that gap and what it reveals about how we eat today.
The conversation traces Moyo's path from culinary school in Switzerland to founding yAtije, a multi-course dining experience that reimagines indigenous ingredients and educates diners on the stories of the female farmers holding up West Africa's food systems with little support, and what "decolonizing the way we eat" actually looks like.
It opens up into the bigger story behind the inadequate agricultural infrastructure that leads to post-harvest loss and quietly costs West African farmers, many of them women, a huge share of what they grow before it ever reaches our markets or plates.
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