المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

Building dreams of
The public place;

Slogan - we can be

Vision ; FOOD INTERGRITY AND SAFETY IN KENYA,AFRICA AND BEYOND;

MISSION; MARRYING AFRICAN AND ESPECIALLY KENYAN STAPLES WITH WORLD FLAVOURS TO MAKE THEM FEATURE IN THE WORLD MAP AND ALSO REDUCE CIVILLISATION DISEASES BY EATING HEALTHY.
CORE VALUES;
INNOVATION
CREATIVITY
INTERGRITY
TALENT DEVELOPMENT

GOALS;
PROMOTION OF OUR FOODS BEYOND OUR REGIONS.
GOING BACK INTO UNITING COMMUNITIES AROUND WHAT WE EAT.
OCCUPYING OUR SPACE IN THE GLOBAL CULINARIES.
INNOVATING SIMPLE HEALTHY RECIPES FOR USE BY OUR LOCAL COMMUNITIES.
VALUE ADDITION
WEALTH CREATION

About myself & my work;
Am a Kenyan by birth, brought up in the remote village of kingallani in Makueni County, Kenya.
Having been born and brought up in a humble background were even a single meal was never a guarantee I desired to grow my career in the hospitality profession and specifically in kitchen operations and management because I know how important it is to have access to simple health foods.
I pursued the career without any relevant skills and knowledge for sometime before raising enough resources that enabled me to undertake a formal training in the same.
I have worked locally and also traveled a lot when I worked with a cruise ship meeting so many people, cultures and different types of food. In my travels I realized that little is known of African foods, including some of my friends who have never been to Africa asking me what we eat in Africa.
It took so long for my bosses to have real trust in me and my work and until the time I left I still felt that there was that doubt that black Africans know how to cook those international menus, actually in the whole ship there were only Kenyan Africans and Mauritius Africans who are a little bit exposed due to the location of their country.
Once I realized the gap I asked myself of what can we do to promote our foods beyond Africa? How can we join the rest of the world by integrating our foods with other international cuisines?
The question am trying to answer as I contribute to world development is “why is Kenyan and extensively African foods not widely accepted in the world as other internationals” and why can’t the world reason together in food matters and secure hunger and famine.

What I am known for?
I have mastered the art of developing simple, pocket friendly, no complicated and organically based food menus which have brought transformation in most of the restaurants I have worked with.
I have mastered cooking known recipes differently and getting a better result.
Training fresh graduates how to innovate and be creative on developing products using traditional ingredients as most are only equipped with modern cooking because there is no training school interested in pursuing that line.

HISTORY OF FOOD;
History tells us that we were all nomadic group of people (east or west) who lived by hunting, fishing and gathering wild sources of food.
Life in nomadic society wasn’t bad, and in fact, studies show that they were in many ways healthier than humans who lived in farming communities later. They were strong and had better bones and teeth.
But 12000 years ago, humans began to ditch the nomadic lifestyle in favors of a different one that of agrarian society. People ate the same type of foods. It’s argued that its only with the emergence of agriculture when people started to accumulate resources that inequality emerged.
Comparisons of diets;
European, North America and South America diets have shifted less than the diets of the rest of the world.
Most Middle Eastern diets changed more than the global average.
Asian diets have also undergone drastic change, consumption of meat have increased fortyfold.
African diets;
Diets have changed most drastically in Africa embracing international diets and dropping most of their traditional cereals like sorghum, millet and barley.
Even in remote municipal towns you find small restaurants selling international cuisines in the name of fast foods e.g fish and chips and I always ask myself do you mean there are no simple African fast foods that can be done with some fair, what if we stuffed mandazi or topped chapatti or Kenyan scones burger. Those in major towns that specialize in traditional foods are usually too expensive for the locals to afford yet they are just simply made and even getting the ingredients is a major task. The reason as to why I major this project around value addition to our foods.

In the evolution of global cuisine we learn that many food developments was as a result of marrying signature flavors and ingredients to create an entirely different world of tastes (cuisine mush ups) and this is the trend forward approach to global cuisine.
The reason as why African dishes don’t feature in the international tables is that it didn’t develop from what they used to have apart from being influenced to adapt few new dishes by the missionary cultures and Indian community working with the railway and even those that were adopted has also never developed any further.
We learn that most of the South American foods were highly influenced by the slaves but now owned by the South Americans but little is known of any African food development and influence but we have adopted most of the international menus in our hotels. Even colleges only train international menus and nothing local, those who travelled didn’t take initiatives with them to do something. In our early life of independence even up to this day cooking is seen as a job for those who never schooled well rather than talent hence zero interest from stakeholders
I strongly believe that African dishes can still be served internationally and there is still some room for development. It’s high time for some of us to take it to the world for sampling provided it’s done with some care to accommodate world tastes.
Mush ups;
All flavors can join forces as long as the chefs cooking them follow some basic principles. Most a times basic principles are same in cooking. We all boil at equal degrees, we all fry following the same procedures and even grill the same, the difference comes in the additions, marinates and process.
Successful cuisine marriages share common flavors and ingredients. Such marriages are cost effective.
They also encourage farmers to adopt new farming products due to new demands.
They also improve the product, most probably by adding some more value to a dish. Appreciation of African foods on the international table.
Simple way of mushing without complicating;
WII FM Factor “(what’s in it for me”) and trust influencers----- this can also be seen as what is it, what do I gain who else is doing it.
One of the ways people get the concept is by relating to something they understand, by this we will just use the current Kenyan or African dishes and develop them using the international methods and spices to make them accepted more locally and internationally.
By doing this we will develop all, unity all around food and promote all cultures.

Examples;
In east Africa we have githeri that you may never be able to find it anywhere in the world. So how can we marry it to attain an international taste? In Italy they have the minestrone Genovese that’s almost done the save for the pasta and corn, so what if we marry the two dishes by removing the pasta from the Genovese and including the white corn to make a githeri Genovese, the west has found ugali (an African meal) to be too heavy and tasteless yet nothing is added to normal milk yet they don’t find it tasteless, so what if we make light ugali and marry it with the American scrambled egg to make it scrambled ugali with even a better idea of adding chilled avocado dices.
We make beef broth (tumbukiza) in it we usually add potatoes, spianach and pili pili(chillies) ,the Asians also do make broths but in it they add vegs and noddle, so what makes it difficult for tumbukiza to be appreciated across the board and healthful dishes. Muthokoi-made from broken corn is just boiled and served so what we made the risotto way, imagine of the sour mursik fermented using local procees, skin grilled fillet of tilapia in a bouillabaisse sauce over muthokoi mushroom risotto and fried spinach. Pasua with tomato salsa for a ten o’clock tea, chapatti wraps, the Vietnamese pho for our kienyeji chicken pho and many more. Combining African or Kenyan staples with world flavours should happen automatically.
People trust influencers, so in the process we would wish to partner with major world organizations, research organizations, governments and any related institutions to advance better dishes.

The world cuisine;
I believe we should have a world cuisine that can be found in any corner of the planet. I am proposing to world organizations like the FAO to facilitate a world chefs forum from different member countries in order for different countries to come and show case their indigenous simple culinary for the world to adopt it as a world menu or facilitate the development of a website were different chefs can interact by posting their new discoveries and management of new simple world recipes. I strongly suggest and believe that the FAO should think of a worlds food tourism day were communities and tourists can meet at central places in the world to train how to prepare simple recipes guided by chefs and participate in cooking for the less fortunate and vulnerable in the society, I believe this should be done in conjunction with governments, world organizations, charitable organizations, institutions and other well-wishers, this will give an opportunity to the less fortunate to at least have access to some of the foods reserved only for a few and they will be able to appreciate the world more, this will also help the current generation that is too busy to access simple recipes from one domain, this will also bring the world closer, unify the planet around food and make us appreciate each other. It will be a hub Centre for research. People will also be able to learn more about each other and we will develop more interests towards different cultures and foods and I guess people would wish to travel more.

The ideas worth;
African foods have largely not been included in the world menu. The world needs to self-realize itself. Needs to be motivated to experience other cultural foods. Due to their wholeness of African foods they might be the next solution to the world civilization diseases especially if they can continue being used in their wholeness and well married to be accepted across the world. They will also help in developing the next generation. Bring more wealth to the world as we will have to plant more food ingredients hence creating more agri-business jobs and also increase tourism for memorable foods
Unity people around what they eat. Increase research and especially on medicinal plants in Africa that can be included in the world cuisines. It is also a career that has not been valued by many cultures and for that reason it’s the high time to let the young generation show their talents in this field. It is a worth idea

Chef; jonathan mutunga musau