Anna Trapido
Dr Anna Trapido is an anthropologist and a chef. She trained as an anthropologist at King’s College, Cambridge, completing her PhD in the department of community health at Wits University, Johannesburg. She qualified as a chef at the Prue Leith Chef’s Academy in Pretoria, and uses both disciplines in her work. She has won gold at the World Gourmand Cookbook Awards three times (for To the Banqueting House - African cuisine an Epic Journey, Hunger for Freedom – the story of food in the life of Nelson Mandela, and Eat Ting – lose weight, gain health, find yourself).
Food for thought

Food for thought

Food taboos exist in virtually all societies as beliefs and practices prohibiting the consumption of specific ingredients (or combinations thereof) for religious and/or cultural reasons. Violations unleash strict social sanction and often fear of supernatural...

In the hands of a few

African elites: multiple pathways By Anna Trapido ‘‘History is a graveyard of aristocracies,” the Italian sociologist Vilfredo Pareto famously wrote. In fact, Pareto introduced the word “elite” to the social sciences. In the early twentieth century he argued that a...

Lionesses need historians more than fish need bicycles

Lionesses need historians more than fish need bicycles

The African story abounds with great women whose achievements are often reduced to prurient anecdotes Until lions have their own historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter. So, says the Igbo proverb, which became a rallying cry for a generation of...

Africa is the new Asia – now what?

Africa is the new Asia – now what?

African food entrepreneurs need government support to protect the value of their heritage products When it comes to international food fashion, Africa is the new Asia. So, say über-influential, absurdly chic London food design studio Bompas & Parr. Their 2018...

Anna Trapido
Dr Anna Trapido is an anthropologist and a chef. She trained as an anthropologist at King’s College, Cambridge, completing her PhD in the department of community health at Wits University, Johannesburg. She qualified as a chef at the Prue Leith Chef’s Academy in Pretoria, and uses both disciplines in her work. She has won gold at the World Gourmand Cookbook Awards three times (for To the Banqueting House - African cuisine an Epic Journey, Hunger for Freedom – the story of food in the life of Nelson Mandela, and Eat Ting – lose weight, gain health, find yourself).
Food for thought

Food for thought

Food taboos exist in virtually all societies as beliefs and practices prohibiting the consumption of specific ingredients (or combinations thereof) for religious and/or cultural reasons. Violations unleash strict social sanction and often fear of supernatural...

In the hands of a few

African elites: multiple pathways By Anna Trapido ‘‘History is a graveyard of aristocracies,” the Italian sociologist Vilfredo Pareto famously wrote. In fact, Pareto introduced the word “elite” to the social sciences. In the early twentieth century he argued that a...

Africa is the new Asia – now what?

Africa is the new Asia – now what?

African food entrepreneurs need government support to protect the value of their heritage products When it comes to international food fashion, Africa is the new Asia. So, say über-influential, absurdly chic London food design studio Bompas & Parr. Their 2018...