{"id":32796,"date":"2017-12-29T13:00:49","date_gmt":"2017-12-29T18:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/?p=32796"},"modified":"2023-03-19T22:51:07","modified_gmt":"2023-03-20T02:51:07","slug":"man-mission-sudanese-food-ambassador-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/man-mission-sudanese-food-ambassador-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Chef’s Dish: Omer Eltigani is an Ambassador for Sudanese Food"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Photographed By Manuel Krug<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I<\/span>n a Berlin apartment, Omer Eltigani braids soft dough for a gooey goat cheese and honey pie. Hands covered in pastry, he playfully taps wrists with the arriving dinner guests\u2014folks from Germany, the UK, Australia, and the United States. Etta James crackles on an old radio in the corner. Eltigani is a Sudanese home cook turned food entrepreneur whose pop-up events across London, Khartoum, New York, Montreal, and more have been delighting new audiences from all walks of life over the past year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sudanese Kitchen dinners grew from a bout of homesickness. After moving from Birmingham, UK, to Manchester to study pharmacy in 2006, he realized how much he missed his mother\u2019s cooking\u2014and how unknown that same cuisine was to people outside of Sudan.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

From there, the Sudanese Kitchen was born. Today, Eltigani holds events (in venues from pubs and concert halls to art spaces and festivals) aimed at introducing a global audience to Sudan\u2019s foodways. At the heart of the pop-ups lies storytelling about the impact of Sudan\u2019s complicated political history on its cuisine, its gender and culinary traditions, and Eltigani\u2019s own migration and integration into new cultures.\u201cI felt too many people (were) missing out on this wonderful food. I wanted to do something about that,\u201d he says. So, in 2015, Eltigani took a short sabbatical from his job as a hospital pharmacist and traveled to Khartoum, Sudan, to see family, learn about national ingredients, tinker with recipes, and start thinking big about his plans to spread the word.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Sudanese<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Born in Ireland into a Sudanese family and raised on his mother\u2019s and aunts\u2019 home cooking, Eltigani lived in Khartoum from 1984 to 1990 before moving with his parents\u2014both doctors\u2014to Birmingham, where diversity has a big influence on society and cuisine. \u201cGrowing up in the UK defined my identity as a mixture of cultures,\u201d says Eltigani, who speaks four languages, \u201cand my work now embodies this experience\u2014one which I want to relate to and share with a wider audience.\u201d

Since college, Eltigani has been learning about Sudanese food via recipes and tales from his mother and aunts. The country\u2014the third largest in Africa by area\u2014is located in the northeastern part of the continent and is bordered by Egypt, the Red Sea, Eritrea, and Ethiopia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Years of colonial rule (from Turkey to Egypt to Britain) have played a role in shaping the food culture, as have times of scarcity. Sudanese women have always been central to meal preparation and presentation\u2014it\u2019s unusual to see a man getting his cook on in a Sudanese home. But when he left home for college, Eltigani recorded his family\u2019s recipes and began to tweak and polish them on his own, defying his culture\u2019s gender norms.<\/h3>\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

As a feminist, he aims to spread traditional and contemporary African recipes far and wide, while amplifying voices that aren\u2019t often heard. He emphasizes women\u2019s roles in Sudanese culture: \u201cWomen are the guardians of our sacred food,\u201d he says, \u201cand their work is often overlooked.\u201d

As the fragrant dishes arrive at the table\u2014steaming parcels of gooey cheese sambusa (a type of turnover), salad with local tomatoes and the freshest garden herbs\u2014Eltigani breaks bread, and we discuss the food before us and the traditions and influences surrounding it. While cheese might not be the immediate association with African cuisines (sumptuous lamb and bean stews, delicate bread, complex spice blends, and fruits often come to mind instead), dairy does play a role in Sudanese food, with young, fresh cheeses featured in many recipes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the meal, the honey and goat cheese pie makes its entrance. The cheese\u2019s gentle sharpness is complemented by the honey and set off by the cocoon of soft dough glazed with more of the glistening liquid. Our delight and sense of discovery as we eat\u2014along with our understanding as we listen to Eltigani put the foods in context\u2014suggest a way for people to draw closer to understanding each other despite our differences. \u201cThe world is going through…a seemingly endless array of social ills,\u201d says Eltigani. \u201cI\u2019m just saying let\u2019s all talk about this over some good food.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Entrepreneur and Chef Omer Eltigani brings Sudanese food to a global audience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":32804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3386,31],"tags":[870,34175,34174,2162,2161,2160],"coauthors":[2159],"class_list":["post-32796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chefs","category-recipes","tag-feta","tag-feta-recipes","tag-fuul","tag-omer-eltigani","tag-sambusa","tag-sudanese-food"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nChef's Dish: Omer Eltigani is an Ambassador for Sudanese Food - culture: the word on cheese<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/man-mission-sudanese-food-ambassador-world\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Man On A Mission\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Entrepreneur and Chef Omer Eltigani brings Sudanese food to a global audience.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/man-mission-sudanese-food-ambassador-world\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"culture: the word on cheese\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-12-29T18:00:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-03-20T02:51:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Omer-275-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"750\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Alexandra Pereira\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Chef's Dish: Omer Eltigani is an Ambassador for Sudanese Food\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Alexandra Pereira\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/man-mission-sudanese-food-ambassador-world\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/man-mission-sudanese-food-ambassador-world\/\",\"name\":\"Chef's Dish: Omer Eltigani is an Ambassador for Sudanese Food - 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