I'm making food anyone can really have a go at

Published date10 July 2021
The 26-year-old from London is also the self-proclaimed Roux King - "I'm just really good at making roux" - a cheese lover despite being lactose intolerant ("I've not accepted it"), and while his professional kitchen experience amounts to a "gruelling" stint on the grills at Nando's, he now has a cookbook, also called Big Zuu's Big Eats, to match the series.

"It's a beautiful moment," he says.

"Not something I expected to ever do in my life, is write a book! And I've done it.

"Oh, my god, I was gonna cry. I didn't. But I had tears in my eyes," he says of holding a finished copy in his hands for the first time.

"To see that final product, like, 'Yes, I've done something here. I've put in some work to make this'. I was really proud of how far I've come in terms of the stuf f that I do. Having a physical book in front of you, it made me feel like, yep, this is all worth it. I'm working hard to make this happen."

T" hat hard work started at home, supporting his mum. Mumma Zuu - Isatu Hamzie - who sought refuge in Britain afterfleeing war in Sierra Leone in 1995.

"Basically, my mum was a good chef, yeah? But she wasn't the best chef in the world," says Zuu with an affectionate laugh, explaining how he got into cooking when his little brother was just a bump, and Zuu himself, still a kid.

"Mum was a preggers individual and I thought, 'Ok, how do I help around the house? What can I do?' One thing was cooking."

It became an obsession, and although it's ended in a show on Dave and a cookbook, Mumma Zuu doesn't always appreciate him being so blunt about her cooking.

"Sometimes she's like, 'Does everyone have to always know your roots of life?' She feels I tell people too much about myself. Which sometimes is true," admits Zuu. "But she knows there's a cause, a reason why we do what we do. So she has to come to terms with that a bit more. Before she was [like], 'Everybody knows my business', now she's like, 'Ok, Jonathan Ross show, eyy!"'

Fortunately, Zuu also pays homage to "the incredible individual she is", sharing her recipes for jollof rice (""hat recipe has energy!"), okra soup and fufu ("Beautiful").

How and what he cooks can be traced in part back to her too, from always playing music in the kitchen ("It's part of the vibe"), to the recipes that draw on his family's African heritage.

As a child, he remembers wanting Western dishes but as he got older, getting "more in touch with my African roots, understanding what it meant to be African and what it meant to...

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