SC Connecticut News

Chef Selassie Atadika, a Ghanaian culinary expert and advocate for sustainable food systems, recently visited Yale University as the first fellow of the new Yale Global Table Program. This initiative is a collaboration between the Yale MacMillan Center, the Yale Schwarzman Center, and Yale Hospitality. It aims to bring culinary leaders to campus to explore connections between sustainability, health, culture, and community.

Atadika is known for founding Midunu, a dining enterprise that celebrates African culinary heritage by incorporating West African flavors and local ingredients. During her visit to Yale, she engaged with students and faculty through lectures, cooking classes, and discussions. She also trained dining staff on preparing her menu for the Rooted dining station at Commons.

Her lecture titled "New African Cuisine: Where Culture, Community, and Cuisine Intersect with the Environment, Sustainability, and Economy" was delivered at Luce Hall on October 1. In it, she shared insights into how losing access to childhood dishes influenced her understanding of food systems.

Atadika's background includes a decade as a UNICEF emergency specialist across over 40 African countries. This experience enriched her understanding of food access and cultural preservation. She highlighted key lessons from African cuisines such as plant-forward dishes and no-waste practices like utilizing cassava safely when cooked properly.

She expressed concerns about Africa's culinary heritage facing threats from inadequate policy frameworks and issues like soil depletion and rising diabetes rates. Her vision for improving African food systems includes documenting underutilized ingredients and investing in value chains.

Through her business model that integrates advocacy with unique dining experiences featuring Ghanaian cocoa chocolates and spices like dawadawa, Atadika believes in creating positive change. She emphasized the collective responsibility in understanding dynamic food systems.

“You create a business case with advocacy — if someone eats something that’s thoughtful and it’s delicious, the idea behind it works,” she explained.

“I think that each and every one of us has a role to play in our food systems,” Atadika said. “It’s important for us to understand our food systems… and turn them into something that is dynamic.”