Founder, Kitchen Butterfly; Mississauga, Canada

Ozoz Sokoh is a food explorer, budding curator, and traveler-by-plate, for whom 'Food Is More Than Eating.’ In 2009, she began journaling about food on her blog, Kitchen Butterfly. Central to her work is connectedness through food, as well as the unearthing and celebration of Nigerian and West African food and drink history, paying homage to West African ancestors and their expertise, resilience, and creativity. Her research and documentation explore the impact of West African intellectual contributions to global development from the American South, through the Caribbean to Europe and Latin America. Her current project, “Coast to Coast: From West Africa to the World” traces the histories and edible trails of West Africa and its diaspora through ingredients and commodities - rice, black-eyed beans, okro, palm oil, and sugar cane. The outcomes include a series of films available for screening; and Feast Afrique, a site which includes an open access digital library of 250+ books from the 1800s to today, as well as a hall of fame, data-driven work on the role of food media in marginalizing West African voices, and more. This work explores memory as resistance, oral history, language, double consciousness, capitalism, culinary colorism, and challenges myths and assumptions about the presence and contributions of West Africans to the world. Ozoz has spoken at TEDx and at conferences hosted by The Culinary Institute of America. Her work has been featured in Smithsonian Magazine, Gastro Obscura, CNN African Voices, Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, and more. She is a professor of food tourism and food media at Centennial College and makes her home in Mississauga, part of the Treaty Lands and Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit. (Mississauga, Canada) @kitchenbutterfly   

Photo Credit: Ayobami Ogungbe