Meet the self-taught South African food creator Nompumelelo Nkosi, who makes cooking a delightful adventure with her quick and budget-friendly meals that are sure to inspire!

Heritage Month is about celebrating the past while embracing the present. How does your grandmother, uMaZulu, influence the traditional dishes you share, and how do you keep them relevant for today’s busy, budget-conscious home cooks?

My grandmother influences the dishes I share because she lives in each dish I can make today. I watched her make ujeqe (steamed bread) in different ways, some days without an egg and some days with iRama - all days the taste was just amazing. She took her cooking seriously and ensured that when she taught you, you listened. I had no choice but to learn! She prepared homely dishes, which have influenced many of my recipes. Fortunately, there are now plenty of ways to make cooking quicker and more enjoyable, keeping them relevant for today’s busy, budget-conscious home cooks.

Your grandmother’s influence is at the heart of your cooking. How do you use TikTok to visually bring those memories to life for your audience, and how do you see your role in preserving traditional South African food stories?

My TikTok followers get to bond over each meal I make because as we always say ‘the same person brought us up’ so everybody has a jeqe, bhontshisi (beans), mleqwa (hardbody chicken), samp, and mogodu memory that still lives in them even though the people that we are reminded of are no longer with us. Food is memories captured through taste, it’s nostalgic and each meal created brings us together to remember those who once cooked for us and taught us.

What is a traditional South African meal that you think every home should know how to prepare? Could you share the story behind it and why it’s meaningful to you?

I genuinely believe that every South African home should be able to prepare a delicious samp and beef curry for those chilly winter days, especially when the whole family is gathered. Samp is easy to make in large quantities, and pairing it with beef curry is sure to bring smiles to everyone’s faces.

With so many families now removed from their traditional roots, what role do you think food plays in reconnecting younger generations with their heritage, especially through TikTok’s visual medium?

TikTok has a way of reminding you of the foods you loved as a child. For example, in KZN, we love izibaca, which is known as amatabunga in other areas (flat dumplings placed in curry). I hadn’t had them since I was about 10, but one day I came across a TikTok video of someone making them with a delicious curry. In that moment, I knew I had to make them! It brought back memories of coming home after a long day at school, with the house smelling wonderful and eagerly anticipating the meal. TikTok truly keeps food culture alive every day. You don’t even need to Google recipes anymore—TikTok offers a visual guide for every dish you can imagine!

In celebrating South African heritage, how do you balance staying true to traditional recipes while making them affordable and accessible to a wide audience on TikTok?

Every dish that evokes a memory can be made using ingredients you have at home or can easily buy from the spaza shop. Growing up in the hood, we often bought R5 soup and R2 Knorrox to ensure our next meal tasted great. We can’t lose that connection, as it would exclude many people who love these dishes and want to recreate them but find certain ingredients inaccessible. It's important to balance our offerings by including the audience back at home where it all began.

In celebrating Heritage Month, what message would you like to convey to your followers about the importance of food in preserving cultural identity?

DON’T LOSE THE METHOD. We can always improve upon the dishes our grandparents taught us, but we must not lose sight of simplicity. Some dishes are best made with just salt, water, and onion—let’s keep them that way while we enhance those that can be improved. Inyama yangaphakathi (intestinal meal) should still taste like inyama yangaphakathi. Ultimately, we should always return to our roots and the ways certain things were taught to us.