Illustration by Chuck Todd for Global Press Passport
Chef Cola, the founder of Dinners with Chef Cola, hosts 13 dinners a year. They’re intimate, exclusive and currently trending in Harare, Zimbabwe. They’re also vegan.
As one of the first black female vegan chefs in Harare, Chef Cola, whose full name is Nicola Kagoro, says her dining concept is actually more of a movement. A movement that includes challenging the notion that veganism in Zimbabwe is an exclusively white lifestyle. “If you’re white, no one will ask you why you are vegan. They will just say, ‘Oh, she’s white,’” Chef Cola says in her interview with GPJ reporter Kudzai Mazvarirwofa.
Chef Cola’s story is one that raises a lot of questions about the vegan lifestyle, in both Zimbabwe and in other countries around the world, and it’s the topic of today’s podcast, “Food for Thought”.
Join podcast host Kyana Moghadam in the fourth episode of the Global Press Passport podcast with GPJ reporters Mar García in Mexico, and Kudzai Mazvarirwofa, in Zimbabwe. Along with writer, model and vegan Nzinga Young from Vegan Outreach, in the United States.
Read the full story about Chef Cola in the Global Press Eats section here. And go inside the story with Kudzai Mazvarirwofa, in her blog post about what she believes to be the underlying reason the average Zimbabwean isn’t going vegan here.
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