The chef Tunde Wey, 32, set out to make egusi and jollof rice from his native Nigeria a hit in New Orleans. But it's more difficult to change people's tastes than he'd originally thought.
Taste Makers is a documentary series exploring the challenges facing young people in America who aspire to careers as chefs, farmers and food-industry entrepreneurs. The subjects are ambitious and driven, but their futures are by no means clear or assured. They stand alone and move forward on their dreams.
Few dreams are larger or more complex than the one Tunde Wey has for Nigerian food in America.
The 32-year-old immigrant, who has operated restaurants in Detroit and in pop-ups across the country, was running a food stall in the St. Roch market in New Orleans at the time of filming, calling himself a “Nigerian food dude” rather than a chef, and serving home-style egusi and jollof rice to people looking for jambalaya and shrimp étouffée.
“I’m just going to wait until the world comes to me,” he said, then gave us a fine, healthy-style recipe for jollof rice all the same.
