Selassie Atadika: Purveyor of fine African food
Chef Selassie Atadika brings some rather unusual experience to the kitchen.
Advertisement
After an undergraduate degree in geography from Dartmouth College and a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University, Atadika had wanted to go to culinary school and to become a chef.
But her lawyer parents would have none of that. So she joined the United Nations (‘UN’) instead and spent the next ten years planning and supporting responses to man-made and natural disasters.
She worked on demobilisation of children associated with armed forces in Liberia and South Sudan and on flood and cyclone responses in Madagascar. In Cote d’Ivoire, she assisted in the peace efforts after election violence. Her CV also includes stints in Angola where she would drive on “roads that had land mines on both sides of the road”, Central African Republic, Kenya, Senegal and Kosovo.
Atadika tells me she has been cooking since she was ‘probably four or five” and in elementary school would bake fresh bread for her parents to take to work. Given this passion, it is not surprising that while travelling across Africa – for work or pleasure – Atadika always made time to savour local dishes and to experiment with local ingredients.
Her love with African food
She fell in love with African food and was so much in love that she’d get upset when people were less than complimentary about it and she felt a responsibility to “show the world how amazing African food can be”.
Her push came when she had “one too many people” say to her “I don’t know about this African food”. She set off to prove them wrong.
While in Senegal, she started a cooking club with two friends equally obsessed with food to showcase Africa’s culinary delights. That drove them to go to culinary school – the world leading Culinary Institute of America (CIA).
After cooking school, the three friends started Trio Toque, a “pop-up” restaurant in Dakar which once a month served five-course meals at locations that were disclosed only to confirmed guests. It was so successful that they often had a waiting list of over twenty people.
Ghana was her next stop after Senegal. Since December 2014, Atadika has been setting up Midunu, her private and nomadic dining concept in a number of interesting locations in Accra to provide Ghanaians with an African fine dining experience which celebrates Africa’s culinary heritage in what Atadika calls “New African Cuisine” “It’s like opening a restaurant over and over again each time, with a brand new menu, new cuisine, new theme, new location and starting over again”.
Atadika tell me she “wants African food to get out of the ghetto and to be out there with the rest of the world”. And that is exactly what she is doing, providing Ghanaians with an alternative to what she calls “scoop and plop”.
She has been experimenting with local ingredients and re-presenting our local dishes in a way as to make them much more attractive, more tasteful and lighter.
My favourite is her rendition of the traditional mashed yam dish “oto’ – served in a tower of avocado (It’s so beautifully presented, it’s like a work of art), topped up with “Akpeteshie” braised pineapple with basil and ginger for desert.
The Midunu model
In addition to the nomadic dinners which she now organises each other month, Midunu has a bespoke event space - Midunu House in Tesano – a beautiful post-colonial family home filled with art from all across Africa which can host up to 30 people indoors and 300 in their garden.
Midunu also provides outside catering for special events and has a lifestyle and a retail arm. Earlier this month, she launched Midunu Chocolates, scrumptious chocolates with unusual alluring flavours that tell a story about Africa including the local Ghanaian spices ‘prekese’ and ‘hwentia’ typically only used for soups.
Atadika is still a humanitarian at heart and is passionate about food politics and food security. What keeps her up at night these days is whether Ghana would be able to feed itself given its high reliance on imported food.
At Midunu, her aim is to source 90 percent of the ingredients locally thereby supporting local farmers and her long term dream is to set up a foundation to contribute to the preservation of Ghana’s culinary heritage and advocate for sustainable food and agricultural practices
Atadika tells me her regret is that she didn’t get into food earlier. But as she herself would admit, her prior experiences and extensive travel across Africa have certainly enriched her repertoire in the kitchen.
More than a chef, Atadika is a passionate food advocate and a rare Ambassador of African food.