A meal in Accra or Johannesburg can carry more information about a country than a day of guided touring — that's the argument driving a new wave of African women building food businesses that double as cultural archives.
Chef Abbys, a Ghanaian culinary entrepreneur, and Mokgadi Itsweng, a South African chef, food writer and storyteller, are two of the figures at the centre of this shift. Both see food as a way to introduce travellers to a country's history, farming and everyday life — not just its restaurants.
For Mokgadi, the turning point came partly from travelling abroad and seeing how confidently other cultures celebrated their own ingredients. Her response was to put indigenous African ingredients and her grandmother's recipes at the centre of her cooking, and to work directly with local farmers. She also made visible choices about identity: instead of a traditional chef's hat, she wears an African head wrap. At the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2010, she was one of five chefs cooking at the final gala dinner. Facing scepticism from other chefs about whether she belonged, she served African dishes rather than adapting to expectations — and the guests' enthusiastic reaction proved her point.
Chef Abbys frames the issue as one of ownership. African ingredients and food traditions have inspired global cuisine for decades, but the communities behind them haven't always shared in the value created. Her position: African entrepreneurs should own the businesses, the intellectual property and the profits, not merely supply the inspiration. She's candid about the obstacles — financing gaps, weak infrastructure, limited resources and the constant need to prove a business case that elsewhere would be taken on trust. Mokgadi adds a layer of race and gender, describing an industry where Black women were often placed at the bottom of the hierarchy and African food itself was undervalued.
The stakes go beyond individual kitchens. When a woman-led food business succeeds, the money spreads: a chef buys from a farmer, the farmer employs workers, a producer supplies the restaurant, a photographer builds the brand. Culinary tourism, done this way, becomes an economic ecosystem rather than a trend to be consumed.
That's where travellers come in. The invitation is to eat more curiously: ask where ingredients come from, learn the story behind a dish, seek out women-led culinary businesses, and treat a meal as a point of access to a place rather than an afterthought between sights. It also means recognising that African cuisine shouldn't need international validation to be taken seriously — much of the value already exists in indigenous ingredients, regional recipes and generations of knowledge.
The message from both women is ultimately confident rather than defensive. African culture is an asset, the stories have value, and global relevance can be built from home turf. For anyone planning a trip to Ghana or South Africa, tracking down chefs and producers who work this way is one of the more rewarding ways to travel — and it keeps the value of the meal in the community that created it.
