Fran Osseo-Asare, MSW, PhD, is an internationally recognized authority on African food and culture, a sociologist, blogger, founder in 1997 of BETUMI, the African Culinary Network, culinary professional, and author of numerous books. She has written for the Oxford University Press, Greenwood Press, Gastronomica, Food, Culture,and Society, Sojourners, and b.spirit! plus taught, consulted, and lectured widely (e.g., Rodale’s test kitchens, Epicure Row (the Miami Book Fair), the Culinary Historians of New York, the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C., the BBC, in Abuja, Nigeria, and for the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts. She represented African cuisine as a TED Fellow in Arusha, Tanzania in 2009. Called the “godmother of African food writing”, Fran Osseo-Asare has made information about African food and culture accessible to Americans for over 3 decades. Her latest book, The Ghana Cookbook, with Barbara Baëta, received a 2016 1st place Gourmand World Cookbook award.
