Last weekend was the annual Mayor’s www.thamesfestival.org. A free festival, held, as the name suggests, along the Thames, with music, art and food. It is huge, stretching along the Thames walkway from the London Eye to Tower Bridge. It is so colourful and fun. Of course my main focus is the food. I LOVE that they make Southwark Bridge, all 800 feet of it, into one long dining table, with music and food stalls. 
SO FUN!
I visited the Festival on both the Saturday & Sunday. On the first day, I returned to a food stall at the Southbank I’ve visited a few times this summer read post here www.spinachandagushi.co.uk on the 2nd day, after doing a recky of all the vegan food on offer, I discovered www.sundiafood.co.uk
Their table was so colourful and the dishes had exotic ingredients that I’d never seen before. Always keen to try new flavours, the cassava leaf stew was the draw. I bought a salad box for about £6 and my happy server generously filled with a bit of everything they had on the stall. It was SO VERY GOOD. There were 3 salads and 3 stews, with a sprouted ,raw almond hummus. The textures and flavours all so defined and different, yet complimentary to one another. Clean food that hit every spot!
| Sadly my photo’s do not do the food justice…..I was in a rush to expeience the flavours and had a mighty hungry queue of folk behind me. |
Being the obsessive that I confess to being, I wanted to know more about these rainbow of ingredients and the wizard (or wizardess) behind their creation. So, I Google Sundia and LIKED them on their Facebook page SundiaRaw and sent a gushing email and requested an interview. Chris Massamba, who declared himself to be the culinary genius behind Sundia, happily agreed.
Chris is a fascinating chap; a storyteller as well as an imaginative chef.
| The Founder of Sundia Food - Chef Chris Massamba |
I asked Chris about his vegan story.
When he lived in his native land of Congo, meat was rarely eaten, only at celebrations would they have small amounts of chicken, so his diet never relied on animals for sustenance. At the age of 7 his family moved to Europe, into a suburb of Paris. It was rich with an amalgamation of many cultures and their ethnic cuisine. The dishes celebrated wondrous vegetables and used spices and texture to make aromatic, tasty food. Meat was expensive in Paris, so his diet remained mainly plant based. When he reached his late teens his family moved once again and arrived in Hackney, England. It was here, after the outbreak of foot and mouth disease, Chris decided to make the change to a vegan diet.
‘How long have you been cooking professionally?’, I asked him.
His route to food was not direct. His first career choice was as an Engineer that took him into the world of IT. It didn’t take him long to realise the corporate world was not for him and he took a job as a kitchen porter. In the background, his life in Hackney and his time in Paris had influenced his food knowledge and his roots in Congo grew out to encompass the foods from the diversity of cultures he lived amongst. Turkish, Jamaican, Bengali, Asian, African…they all were teaching him about ingredients, flavour and the love of food. After a time Chris began to realise that his future lay in cooking, tired of the stressful atmosphere of the professional kitchens, he took the leap and set up on his own. Sundia was created.
What does Sundia mean?
It is a mix of English and Congo language. Dia means to eat. Sun..well, you know what that is. Sundia is to EAT THE SUN.
What were the dishes I had at the Festival?
Cassava leaf stew - pounded leaf cooked with coconut milk, plantain, sprouts, galangal, lemongrass and more.
A Moorish inspired butter bean stew with paprika and garlic.
Salads where flavoured with sprouted legumes, orange-marinated plantain, mint and onion seeds. He also used fruits and kale, cauliflower and spices to add depth and layers of flavour. His raw sprouted almond hummus was AWESOME, the nicest I’ve tasted.
I asked him about the use of cassava leaves and its origins in cooking. Apparently the cassava leaf is used in celebratory food, Saka Saka being the Congo’s National Dish (Chris has VEGANISED it). Full of essential nutrients; protein, iron, calcium, vitamins and minerals, the dish meant ‘happiness making’ to the Congolese. The cassava is more widely known for its use of its tuber as an ingredient, to make flour and used in stews (or chips/crisps…Waitrose sell VEGAN cassava crisps from Hale & Hearty v.v.good). I am going to source out a local supplier of the leaves so I can experiment make my own leaf stew. Keep an eye out for the recipe..one day.
So Chris, what is your favourite vegan food? Boo! (says me) I immediately saw what a crappy question this was and hated that I’d asked it of him…(I couldn’t choose between all the amazing vegan food out there, so why should he!), so I altered it to..’if you were cooking a celebration meal for your family, what would you prepare?..(phew..that’s better)
He came back with such a colourful, considered answer. Chris is enthralling, as he shares his cultural experiences and geographic history. He talks like an author writes. I felt I wanted to keep on turning the pages of his life to uncover more. I fear I do him little justice here, in such a short post. Anyway, he considered his answer then decidedly told me ‘tagine… tagine or cassava stew. ‘Why?’ ‘Because they take time to prepare and cook slow’, he answered in his easy tone. ‘The tagine can be made in an external oven and the flavours develop over time’. How refreshing and almost romantic, like he shows his ingredients with such respect and love. A paradox from our current hurried attitudes to food and cooking - meals in minutes, 30 minute suppers, food in a flash (well, I made that one up) etc.
Sadly, I could not keep Chris from his business for too long. The sounds and voices in the background, on the other end of the phone, reminded me that this man has work to do (though to him, it feels very unlike WORK).
At the time of writing their website is being updated and will be relaunched, bigger and brighter by the beginning of October 2011. You can go and experience Sundia yourself at Petticoat Lane (I love that name) Monday-Friday and at Brick Lane on Sundays. Both areas of London well worth a wander if you are in town.
I squeezed in two more questions.
What is next on the event agenda?
Sundia Foods will be at the Festival of Life a vegan gathering of food, music and workshops on 24th September in Holborn, London. They regularly do events around the City and private catering too. VEGAN WEDDING?
What is your vision for the future of Sundia?
Chris is keen to promote healthy foods with amazing flavours, he plans to open a cafe/deli in the future and develop his own brand of products so you can enjoy Sundia wherever you are. I look forward to that!
I really enjoyed my chat with Chris, he is an inspiring guy with a very easy nature. I guess that is reflected in his food. Dear God, I’m hungry…perhaps I’ll be booking a trip to Petticoat Lane very soon.
i just saw your posts on one of my blog posts.. thank you so much for the comment… the picture was not mine… i just found it in the internet so please do go ahead and use it.. thank you so much for your advice… i do enjoy reading your blog too… thanks again for that comment.. it does help me…
What a fun festival and a great food find! That’s so many cuisines I haven’t even tried yet. And very nicely done interview.
@chow vegan
Hi Chow, I know it is mind boggling and tummy filling!
@Amy..
Hi Amy, thanks for commenting! Good to hear from you. Thank you. Happy Blogging! x
Great Post!!