On this episode, Zella interviews personal chef and caterer Chef Benjamin “BJ” Dennis. Dennis was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, and infuses the flavors and culture of the lowcountry into his native Gullah Geechee cuisine, bringing a new taste to an ever expanding culinary palate of the southern U.S. What differentiates Chef BJ’s food from his contemporaries in “southern” cooking is the homage he pays to his Gullah Geechee heritage, a culture formed by enslaved West and Central Africans in the coastal regions of South Carolina and Georgia known as the lowcountry, as well as parts of Florida and North Carolina.

Dennis infuses the techniques of his ancestors, learned from four years of study in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, as well as the lessons of his grandparents about eating from the land, to create fresh interpretations of local dishes focusing on in-season, locally sourced vegetables and seafood. Recent trips to Trinidad and Tobago, Haiti, Barbados, Dominica, U.S. Virgin Islands, Angola, Bahamas, Benin, Togo, Senegal, Gambia, and Cameroon brought his work full circle. He has been featured on the Netflix award winning series "High on the Hog" and "Chefs Table," as well numerous newspaper and magazine publications. BJ connects the people and cultures of the African diaspora through food, bringing back a true taste of Gullah Geechee culture.

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On this episode of Culture & Flavor, Zella talks with Dr. David Katerere, Research Platform Chair of Pharmaceutical and Biotech Advancement in Africa (PBA2) at Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa. He is the Co-Director of the recently established CSIR / TUT Cannabis and Hemp Research Centre. In this capacity, they provide contract extraction and formulation services for farmers and entrepreneurs in South Africa and the SADC region. He is the co-inventor of the nutraceuticals Niselo and Synmba, which promote wholesome, evidence-based nutrition and are commercialized for the market in Botswana and South Africa.

More recently these products have been licensed to BiaGo in Scotland for entry into the UK and Kenyan markets. David is also the Co-Editor of several books including the African Herbal Pharmacopoeia (AfHP), Ethnoveterinary Botanical Medicines (T&F) (2010), Systems Analysis Approach for Complex Global Challenges (Springer) (2018), and Traditional and Indigenous Knowledge for the Modern Era (T&F) (2019). Dr. Katerere teaches and researches across the pharmaceutical and biotech value chain, including product development from medicinal plants (for food, nutraceuticals and medicines) and clinical testing of botanicals, cannabis, medicine, and pharmaceuticals.

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On this episode of Culture & Flavor, Zella talks with Tunde Wey, a Nigerian social practice artist using food, finance and investment capital to address economic disparities across geographies and demographics. His work engages systems that create material disparity, focusing particularly on how economics and finance impact working class Black people globally. Wey uses performance and installation, film, food, writing, and finance to confront disparities in material conditions and attempt interventions to address these socially constructed inequalities.

Wey’s work has been featured in The New York Times, NPR, GQ, The Washington Post, VOGUE, Black Enterprise, Food and Wine, as well as Oxford American, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Roads & Kingdom, and a couple cookbooks/anthologies. His docuseries is a 2024 CANNESERIES Official Selection. He is a recipient of the Monroe Fellowship from Tulane University (2023) and the Ford Foundation Just Films Grant (2022).

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