African cuisine

And you really can sample from around the world.

Empanadas, the Kusina Pilipina is there, and if you've, uh, got Emi's African Cuisine, El Sazón Dominicano.

Like, those are some that just jumped out.

MKE Bento.

This week, foo-foo for beginners.

The rise of African food in Australia.

People forget, you know, Africa is not a country.

We've got 54 countries and from our surveys we could pick up 43 countries represented somehow or people attending from Africa.

Fatmohamed is the director of AfriCulture, Sydney's largest African community festival.

It's grown from a gathering of around 1,800 people in 2009 to more than 40,000 in 2025.

It's a figure that could scarcely be imagined by the small group of volunteers and organisers who dreamed up that first ever event in the late 2000s.

So we all met in Auburn one day.

But I think Africa...

One thing I'm seeing because I live in Cape Town is a lot of African food becoming popularized because it's very healthy and vegan.

And I know Cape Town, there's a whole culture of like being vegan.

But especially if you go to the biscuit mall.

Like there's corn fritters or like black bean fritters.

It almost looks like a corn dog, but it's not.

So I think there's really interesting African food that's becoming popularized now in Cape Town because of its health benefits.

Yeah, because it's vegan and tasty.

We, of course, turn our focus to this conversation that we'll be having on this Heritage Day special edition of Power Business.

We're looking at the place of African and township cuisine in South Africa's commercial food culture.

From Uhuru to the Kota, these are foods with deep roots in communities across the country.

They're also part of a growing number of organized food and cultural experiences.

Of course, those are my guests this evening.

So we'll start off with you then, Sidwell, because you are in studio with us.

And to kick off our conversation, I guess, Sidwell, let's start with the kota itself, because we are talking township and African cuisine.

What does this food sort of represent then within Soweto's history and township culture beyond simply being an affordable meal?

Hmm.

So if you go back to the antebellum period, you are going to see enslaved African women and their descendants hawking gumbo, hawking freshly prepared pralines and calas, sugary rice fritters, in the street.

I mean, you would be going up to these people and ordering prepared foods right then and there.

Uh, they were able to do so through these interesting loopholes in the local law where African American people who were enslaved were actually able to accrue some profit from-

Mm-hmm

... uh, the foods that they sold.

And often they did this on Sundays, which was a typical day of, quote-unquote, "rest," but it was a day for these individuals to come into the city and, and make these prepared foods or sell, uh, produce that they had grown in their own garden plots.

Hmm.

Would

you guys ever do, like, African cuisine? Like, any ethnic? Oh, yeah.

Have you guys done any African? We are

supposed to.

It's been

The book is celebrating contemporary black cooking, highlighting the food, culture and history and stories and recipes.

The book covers the diverse contributions and traditions that influence black cooking and American culture from African continent to the Caribbean and U.S. We have a lot to talk about the process of creating the book, naming it, The Rise of Black Cooks and the Soul of American Food.

Why did he write the book? How did he decide this was the next book that he wanted to do? So he's here, y'all.

Please welcome to Money Making Conversation, Chef Marcus Samuelsson.

Let's talk right there, because the diaspora, I hope I said that correctly, has been a type of meal that is suddenly appearing across this country.

I will tell you, I was first exposed to it when I used to take my family down to to Disney World in Orlando.

And they have a menu that's completely an African menu.

In fact, they have a buffet.