​Join BEM to celebrate food scholar Ozoz Sokoh's debut cookbook Chop Chop: Cooking The Food of Nigeria

​Chop Chop celebrates classic and traditional Nigerian cuisine through the lens of home cooks, complete with historical context and deeply researched essays to underscore the ingredients, flavors, and textures that make it not only beloved but delicious. From smoky beef suya to egusi stew, jollof rice, puff puff, and more, Chop Chop illuminates the rich diversity of Nigeria’s food, with over 50 languages and 250 ethnicities shaping its culinary landscape.

​We'll host a beautiful meal, co-created by Ozoz and Chef Nana Araba Wilmot, to bring the world of Chop Chop to life. Abosede George will join Ozoz in conversation for the evening to dive into the history, lore, and techniques woven throughout the book.

​Presented in partnership with Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck, this event will take place in the Hudson Valley during their Food & Memory conference.

​This dinner is sponsored by Oona Wine, Brooklyn Supported Agriculture, and Glynwood Center for Regional Food & Farming.

​If you're not able to attend the event, order your signed copy today to ship to your door!

​​***Please note: all attendees must register on the conference site here. ***

​---

​More about the book

​In Nigeria, the word “chop” is all about food and feasting and “chop chop” a nickname given to someone who loves to eat. And it’s no surprise Nigeria has an entire vernacular dedicated to eating—with more than 50 nationally recognized languages and 250 ethnicities, Nigeria’s food is as rich and diverse as its people. Think smoky spicy beef suya skewers, egusi stew rich with wild greens, restorative pepper soup, jollof rice studded with tomatoes, soft puff puff dough bites fried until golden, and sweet-tart hibiscus drinks. With ingredients that include nuts and seeds, greens, grains, and cereals (especially in the north), roots and tubers (favorites of the south), and affordable proteins, they come together on the plate in the form of hearty soups and stews, steamed puddings, salads, rice dishes, fritters, and more.

​Despite the foodway’s incredibly flavorful complexity, its recipes have never been gathered in one place. Until now. Author, culinary anthropologist, and Nigerian native Ozoz Sokoh celebrates classic and traditional Nigerian cuisine, through the lens of the home cooks with explanations to underscore the ingredients, flavors, and textures that make it not only beloved but delicious. With headnotes that give cultural and historical context, illuminating sidebars, ingredient profiles, and stunning photographs, Chop Chop will bring Nigeria’s food-loving spirit to home kitchens everywhere.

​More about the participants

​Ozoz Sokoh is a Nigerian food writer and educator. A geologist by training, she began documenting her food journey on her blog Kitchen Butterfly in 2009. Central to her work is connectedness through food, food sovereignty, cultural identity, reclamation of food systems, and the joy of eating. Her research and documentation explore the roots of Nigerian and West African cuisine, the impact of West African intellectual contributions to global development from the American South, through the Caribbean to Europe, Central and South Americas, and the connection to the Afro-diaspora.

​Nana Araba Wilmot is the Chef/ Owner of Georgina’s Private Chef and Catering Co. and Curator of Love That I Knead, a West African dinner series. Chef Nana has worked for numerous culinary luminaries including Wolfgang Puck, Iron Chef Jose Garces, Stephen Starr and Chef Daniel Rose at Le CouCou in NYC, which won a James Beard Best New Restaurant 2017 and a Michelin Star in 2018.

​Chef Nana’s culinary focus is on celebrating foodways across the African diaspora, using her dishes to explore her identity and help others “find their way back.” Spanning locations in Philadelphia, NYC, and Accra, Ghana, her work has been featured in numerous publications including Bon Appétit, Forbes, New York Times, and Eater.

​Abosede George is a historian of modern Africa based at Barnard College and Columbia University. Her areas of specialization include West African history, most specifically the History of Lagos, the history of Youth and Childhood, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Urban History, and Migration History.

​Her book, Making Modern Girls: A History of Girlhood, Labor, and Social Development, was published by Ohio University Press. It received the Aidoo-Snyder book prize in 2015 from the African Studies Association Women’s Caucus. Her writings have appeared in the Journal of Social History, the Journal of West African History, Meridians, Women's Studies Quarterly, Scholar and Feminist Online, The Washington Post, and the Bloomsbury press series, A Cultural History of Youth, among others. Her current research examines how migrant diasporic and refugee communities reshaped notions of citizenship and belonging in 19th century Lagos.

​More about BEM

​BEM | books & more is a literary destination at the intersection of food and Blackness. Established by two sisters in January 2021 as an online bookstore, BEM is proud to serve as a home for readers, writers, cooks, and eaters passionate about Black cultures in all their diversity. Taking an expansive approach to the nexus of food, literature, and culture, BEM celebrates Black food by bringing works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry for readers of all ages into conversation with cookbooks and culinary studies to explore how what feeds us defines us.

​​Join our mailing list and follow us on Instagram @bembrooklyn for book, event and brick & mortar news, and shop our collection online at bembrooklyn.com.