The Groundnut
From 2011 to 2016 I co-founded and ran a food project with Folayemi Brown and Jacob Fodio Todd - The Groundnut. The project explored our identities - between us we have heritage from England, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and South-Sudan. This exploration led to bi-monthly dinners in temporary and improvised spaces in South-London. At the dinners we would design and build furniture, tableware and a completely original set menu. Between thirty and fifty guests each night sit at long communal tables eating our adaptations of Sub-Saharan African food, served banquet style from communal plates.
Other highlights included workshops at the Albany theatre in Deptford, an interactive installation at Tate Modern Turbine Hall, talks at The Southbank Centre and pop-up dinners at Le Bal cafe, Paris. After 3 years of many dinners with a diverse audience, workshops and periods of travel we created ‘The Groundnut Cookbook’ which was published by Penguin in the summer of 2015 and later published in the USA by Ecco, Harper Collins as ‘Foods from across Africa’.