Chef Sherifah Yunus has established herself as a successful broadcaster and social media food influencer in Nigeria through her weekly online cooking show on Instagram. Wearing a niqab face veil while she cooks, she is also challenging stereotypes about Muslim women.
Sara Gasmi, bird story agency
Sherifa Yunus Olokodana developed a love for cooking during her pre-teen years in the 1980s when she and her mother would watch a popular Nigerian cooking show, ‘Maggi Kitchen’, hosted by Aunty Funmi (Princess Deborah Funmilayo Namabiri).
“It was Aunty Funmi that made me really love to cook. It is only funny that I’m doing something totally different from what Aunty Funmi did, she was using Maggi cubes and I definitely do not do that,” she said.
When she and her children started experiencing frequent hospital visits, Sharifa decided to make sure that their diet improved. She stopped using bouillon cubes and other processed foods and began exploring healthier food alternatives to improve her family’s overall well-being.
“I stopped tins, cans, and packaged food and turned to natural seasoning after learning about MSG (monosodium glutamate) and its many dangers,” she said.
Eschewing additives like MSG, Olokodana started looking for healthy alternatives. A lack of natural spices in the Nigerian market pushed her to learn to make them by herself, and she was delighted with the results.
“When I started cooking naturally. I saw how great it was in our health, we became less medicated.”
Although Olokodana was aware that her community was used to cooking with bouillon cubes, she was determined to share her experience, so she started online with a platform called Nira Land.
“I went to Nira Land and asked, ‘do you think Nigerians would be ready to eat food cooked naturally, seasoned naturally without using the regular bouillon cubes?’ And a whole lot of them were making fun of me,” she said.
Even with all the negative comments, one positive comment changed Olokodana’s world forever.
“The man said, ‘Well, you don’t know what would become of this. Don’t listen to the naysayers. Why don’t you try it, see if it will work? I mean, you don’t lose anything from trying. See if it works.’ And I decided to take that lone voice and work on doing that,” Olokodana added.
It was then that her online journey began; she started with Whatsapp, where she created group activities and free classes showing people how to cook using natural spices and even shared recipes.
“I started telling them how they could cook naturally, but people didn’t believe in that. They took every other thing from the class but not the natural spice recipes.”
To fully convince them, Olokodana devised what she would call a meet-up kitchen where she would invite people to her house to see what she was doing.
“I called it See, Taste, and Savour. So I will tell them you would see it when we make it together, you will taste it, you will smell it and then you will savour it, and people are like, wow, this is real. This is really nice,” said the chef.
What helped her convince people was ultimately her cooking show called ‘Cooking with Sherifah,’ which she started in 2022 and shared on her Instagram page. Although it was not her intention, it helped her natural spice business, Sherry’s Mama’s Delight (SMD).
“I specifically invite influencers and online celebrities to my studio kitchen to cook for them using the natural seasonings, so they actually taste the food. Our mission is to change the world one meal at a time,” she explained.
Online celebrities who’ve been invited onto the show include Rayo Ahenmokhai, an online public figure known as Lagos Housewife, and “Chris”, the host of YouTube Channel “Authentic Traveling”.
Sharing her content online has attracted a loyal following, including 41-year-old Layo Bankole from Lagos, who has been using SMD seasonings for four years.
“There is this lady I follow online, Lagos Housewife, she does a bit of cooking. I saw her mention it in a video so I thought ok let’s give it a try and I’ve been stuck on it since then,” Layo said. “It was really nice, the food would taste different from the ones you’re used to, it has a very natural taste”, she added. “For me right now it is very difficult to eat out.”
Isioma Ogunwale is another client that came across SMD online. Although she purchased the seasonings, she kept using artificial flavours at times until her doctor told her that she had high blood pressure and needed to make changes.
“It was then when I took it really seriously and I taught everybody in the house how to use the SMD natural spices,” Isioma said.
“It has been a good experience. I have experienced different spices and I was able to completely eliminate artificial seasonings from my diet”. She added.
Amrane Manel, a Nutritionist based in Biskra, Algeria, explains that although MSG, also known as E621, is not a completely toxic food additive, overconsumption can lead to serious health problems.
“It is better to go back to bio-based products, made with steam, home made spices and avoid canned food and preservatives.”
According to Amrane, there are two ways in which MSG can affect someone’s health: effects that appear immediately and others that occur over time.
“People who consume a lot of MSG are likely to have high blood pressure, excessive itchiness and excessive sweating, dizziness, and migraines”.
Amrane added, “What Sharifa is doing is a great thing because first, it creates employment opportunities, especially for stay-at-home women, secondly you are eating something handmade.”
Olokodana had many challenges in her journey, but the most challenging was the mistreatment she received due to her wearing the niqab, an Islamic attire some Muslim women wear. The abuse ranged from people verbally insulting her to people flipping her niqab off in public.
“It was very tough on me, I had serious and extreme anxiety attacks. I stopped going out at that time. I had to see a doctor,” she explained.
The mistreatment she received was why she refused to reveal her identity to her followers for a long time, despite having a large following.
“I never did any videos, I only did audios, sometimes I featured my husband and my kids, but I never showed myself,” said the chef.
“I was worried people would stop buying because I had customers of a wide range,” she added.
But it all took a turn in January 2021 when Olokodana finally decided to open up to her followers.
“I decided it was time for me to have the guts and audacity to show the face behind the brand and tell everybody that if you don’t want my brand you can go to the next one.”
Olokodana posted a 7-minute-long video of herself explaining her brand and journey to natural seasoning.
“I remember I was scared. The day I posted it I was practically shaking, I could barely go to social media”, she added.
But unlike her expectations, the response was mostly positive.
“Sincerely, it was fantastic, I got a lot of amazing words, people telling me they were very proud even non-muslims,” said Olokodana. “The growth in my business from showing the face behind the brand till now has been enormous, It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.”
For Olokodana, it’s essential to change the narrative concerning women who prefer to work from home and be housewives and Muslim women who wear the niqab.
“I wanted to change the status quo and say that I can be home as a housewife and run a successful business, being home does not make me useless.”
In early 2023, Olokodana was invited to attend Business Day, which recognises and celebrates up-and-coming small and medium-sized enterprises. During the event, her business, “Sherry’s Mama’s Delight,” was honoured as one of Nigeria’s 100 fastest-growing SMEs, making her the only woman in a niqab to receive the award that night.
bird story agency
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