YouSaid · the spoken record

Pierre Thiam

lines on the record: 51
first: 2023-09-21
most recent: 2023-09-21
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Right now, it takes five minutes Or you can even do it even faster. You get the chips, so it's a snack, so you just open a bag and you are changing the world, your own contribution.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As a side, there's been a series of circumstances that did help to spread the word. I think the timing also is good. People are more aware that we need to diversify our diet. We need to bring products that are not only good for you, but good for the planet and delicious. And Fonio was all of that. And again, it cooks in five minutes, so you can't beat that.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And there's these collaborations we're doing with other brands that are also similar to ours in terms of mission of bringing diversified food products into the market. So there's all these guerrilla type of approach that we are using to spread the world. In addition to, you know, I've been fortunate to get media attention through the restaurant or through my books. And so all of those creating awareness and more and more the world is coming out. But a lot of it is organic.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So that's really when he started. And Whole Foods people noticed that this grain is doing really well. Let's give it a chance on a second store. And then they gave us shelves on Union Square. And then on Time Square and then in Brooklyn. And then next thing we were in all the Whole Foods in the northeastern region and it kept growing like this. We also started to grow with a community of influences who connected with the food in different ways. Some were connecting with it because of the heritage aspect of it. So you have the African diaspora who could connect with this grain who is considered as the oldest cultivated grain in Africa. Others because of the nutrition aspect, you have this strong gluten-free community who just embraced Fonio and they are posting it on social media. We're using a lot of social media as well, our platform, Instagram and TikTok now. I mean, all of that is being part of it.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, yeah, it really started again, you remember when you mentioned Whole Foods, there was one Whole Foods that gave us a chance, right? It was next to my restaurant in Harlem. And that Whole Foods, I had to go in the place itself and do some cooking demos People taste, you know, like I made some Fonio salad, Fonia, and mango salad and kind of thing. And people would taste. And every time I would do that, every time I would do a demo, the Fonio bags would fly off the shelves.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“two tons per hour as opposed to one ton per day, it really changes everything remove the bottleneck that was really slowing everything. And now we can access Fono to not only the growing demand in the market here, but there's also the food industry that couldn't have access to Fonio because the processing wasn't at the standard called GFSI that you can sell to big food now. So now big food is looking to meet the sustainable development goals and Fonio is offering all of that and now we have access to it. So that's opened a whole other set of perspective. We can have Fonio flour for bakers. We can have Fonio Pilafs now. We have Fonio chips. That's a whole other different category we just entered now.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we went to a company that makes actually the best of the milling processing equipment in the world, actually. And we told them, hey, we have this grain and we need to figure out how to process it. And it has to be all automated and it has to be efficient. And they took a while to come up with. We had to send tons and tons of party for them to do the testing and now we figured out we have this machine that completely revolutionized everything. Now we not only eliminated the waste because at this stage of phonio processing we still had close to 50% of waste which is crazy and now with the machine they design a machine that not only eliminates that waste but it really is also processing at a much faster capacity we have.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, yeah, yeah. You see the African modern pessel, though. They like the big ones carved out of a trunk tree and with a big pillow and they pound it and they pounded the big pestle. And it takes about two hours to just have one kilo of Fonio. That was the time. And eventually it became mechanized. And actually a Senegalese engineer came up with a technique and Fonio was mechanized, which is the Fonio we're getting right now. There's a mechanized aspect, but it's still some manual. parts of it and we knew we had to fix it at some point. We knew we can now identify some great cooperatives that are doing a much better job than others to get us a good quality Fono, but we knew there's a moment as a demand grow that we had to figure out the solution for the processing.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. And Fonio, that's the only challenge you see. It's easy to grow, but it's hard to process. It has a skin that's inedible. And that's also one of the reasons why Fonio didn't make it big until now, because the processing was so, at the time, it used to be a motor and pestle.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like, yeah, we got to do it. Let's figure out a way to do it. And that's how we did it. We started working with Group of women cooperatives, they were getting the four processed for us and we would ship it by containers to woodlands and woodlands would package it under our Yole brand.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, no, actually it was. Started with friends and family, really So we did one thing. We knew the logistic of it was going to be something we didn't have the means for. So we reached out to a company called Woodlands who have been importing food from 60 plus countries around the world, interesting flavors. And we knew they would get that. And they were intrigued enough to decide to send a few executives from the company to Kedugu, Senegal, with us for them to see what we're talking about. And they came and those guys are like these Chicago executives who never been to Africa and now they're going into not only Dakar but like in this deep south you know six seven hours drive through like dirt road and stuff so it was quite a trip but once they got there they were all transformed and they felt so at home and welcome and they ate so well as well and they came back and”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yea to me it was, you know, something needed to be done and we shouldn't expect help to come from anywhere but from ourselves. And I was like, Fonio is actually the thing. It's growing here and this could be desired and bring income. And that would just help. So this was the thing I was talking about in that paper and Philip read it. And he reached out and we met and we talked. And I was like, yeah, actually, you know, let's do it.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah. And actually, we have two versions of the story, but he remembered reading an article where I was talking about Fonio. The article was really a call, really, for I was so distraught by the stories of these young people. It really is a tragedy, if you heard or may not have heard about it, but for a decade now, there are kids who are dying in the ocean because they're taking the guard boats, fishermen, dugout boats to trying to travel from Dhaka to Barcelona. Thousands are drownings and many make it. That's just amazing. Just imagine the journey. Many of them make it, but thousands are drowning every single”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So he had eaten because we didn't mention he had eaten, he had opened a second restaurant in New York. He'd eaten there. This is called Le Grandacar. And you kind of, or somehow you start to talk to him about Fonio and it intrigued him and he thought, hey, there's something here.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Correct. That's correct. And a lot of the food we were serving, we couldn't be doing it at boom without the ingredients, the access of Din and the Lucas.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right. That's right. He worked at Dinand de Luca. So if you remember Dinand De Luca, they used to bring all these interesting flavors. And me, when I was working in Soho, we oftentimes shopped at Dina Lookup.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was thinking both. I knew it was nutritious and I knew that there was a demand for that here. Ancient grains, nutritious, gluten-free. Fonia was checking all the boxes. So I was like, this is what we could do. Let's brand it. Let's brand it and create a demand for it. I knew I needed a partner and I looked into someone who also had an experience in actually doing it really. And Philippe Tevreux, who's a veteran in the food industry, who actually had worked with bringing quinoa in the 80s.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sexy, and this is going to walk, and these guys are going to have a dignified living with something that grows in their land that's been growing in their land for 5,000 years. And that was just how I was thinking. And I just went for it. I was like, let's do it.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Looking for jobs, they able, they're willing to work, they're risking their lives to go find a better life. And I'm like, if this grant can become a world-class crop like quinoa has become, this will change the situation here. So this really was my thing. I felt like I could bring something I could, it could be my contribution. I thought I was uniquely positioned being a chef from this part of the world in the food capital of the world. And if this plan works, it wasn't much of a plan. But if this plan works, you know, this is going to bring jobs. And to me, there's one thing I got right I knew it needed to be branded. Those French, they branded their baguettes. That's why we still eating it. They branded this broken rice to us. And now I'm going to brand Fono and I'm going to make it.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Very important. I'm like thinking I'm a chef in New York. I've seen how Quinoa did it. It was not, I mean, a non-grain. And then today everyone is quinoa. can do it if Kino can do it. And all I'm going to do is take the grain and introduce it to my fellow chefs because they're all looking for new products, new food, new flavors, and they'll embrace it and then they'll serve it on their menus and the customers will ask for it and then the supermarkets would require. I mean, that was my thinking very naive, like I said, right? But really the impetus was one of my travels in this part of Senegal called Kedugu where Fonio is king. And there you realize the level of poverty. The people in Kedugu, I mean, it's only pretty much all people living there, you know, the youth they left pretty much, they're all trying to make it to the city or to Europe.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People stop growing phone, you know, you had to go to KDUGU and Kazamas. That's the only place where you would see phone.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“After we got colonized, we started importing wheat, we started importing rice. We even had a rice culture in Senegal, but because of our connection with the French, we started importing broken rice from Vietnam. So that Senegalese farmers would focus on growing peanuts that we need for our industries. Colonization was a business. So the French Made Binnett a cash crop in Senegal, so the farmers started growing peanuts. It was a culture.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that tells you how foolish we are to rely on crops like wheat. I mean, first of all, the limited number of crops we rely on, our food system is wheat, rice, soy, and corn. And we ignoring crops that are much more not only resilient, like folio, and we need to integrate them. But the most crazy thing is continents like Africa, which have such a diversity of plant crops. And now because one part of the world is in crisis and the whole continent is suffering from it because the concentration of the supply is coming from Ukraine and Russia. It is mind-boggling. So it's urgent that we rethink it and we start integrating crops like Fonio. And not only it makes sense because for our food security, we need to make sure we have that, but also because those crops are so much more adapted to the environment, they're resilient, they're drought resistant. There's a lot of reason why we need to rethink it. And so your question, that's what happened.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Get colonized. Colonization came, and then there was a mindset that came with it. Crops like forno, millet, sorghum, which was our traditional crops, became the country people crop. We were branded with crops like wheat, you know, in Senegal, for instance, we love eating our baguette bread. We eat baguette bread every single day. We don't grow wheat in Senegal. We don't grow wheat in Cote d'Ivoire in many of those countries. But Africa now is like importing bringing wheat. I mean, and it's interesting that you ask this question because today with the Ukraine crisis, there is a serious shortage of wheat.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Good for diabetics. Exactly. So there's like, I mean, there's so much going for that grain. And I was like, I have to figure out a way to introduce it to my readers. Because my cookbook was Incomplete, I always had to think of substitutions for certain ingredients. And that's when the idea of yol, the business of bringing those crops to the market came to be really when that seed was planted.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. And when they harvest it, they just cut the top. The roots stay in the soil. And eventually it adds nutrients to the soil. And not only that for you as a nutrition powerhouse, like you mentioned, it's gluten-free and has so many properties, one of them being very important is it has caused a low glycemic index.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is guaranteed to grow. There's a nickname for Fonio. They call it the lazy farmer's crop for that reason. Because what the farmers do is when the first rain comes, they just throw the seed. They don't even tilt the soil. They don't really do any work to the soil. They just throw the seeds like broadcasting it. And then they can just go for two months and come back and harvest the folio. That's how easy it is to grow. And in addition to that, the most important part is... The agriculture of Fono helped to regenerate the soil. Because it has deep roots that have nutrients to the soil”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, Fono grows in an area called the Sahel, you know, Senegal is south of the Sahara. And it's dry and arid, but Fonio grows so easily there. It's like one of the fastest maturing grain that requires very little water. It's rainfall, but it just requires the first rain. And after that, even if there was no other rain coming or the rain is inconsistent, like it's the case right now with climate change.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Before we talk about the business that grew around this, because that would eventually happen, I want to ask you a few more questions about Fonio because it is this grain that is, I guess it's really high in protein and amino acids and... Also doesn't require a whole lot of water to grow.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's fair to say it has the size of couscous, it's tiger couscous and fluffy, it's even lighter than couscous because, you know, when you eat couscous, you kind of feel heavy after. But with Fonio, it's really, I mean, you can eat Fonyo and just go for a run right after it digests really easily. And it has nothing in STO, right? It's slightly nutty. And the other particularity of phonia, which is really great, is very neutral flavor. So that makes it very versatile. You cook fonio with so many different flavors. It adapts to so many different sources. My last cookbook was dedicated to Fonio. So I have lots of recipes from the whole journey of Fonio, from desserts to baking to savory dishes to, I mean, Fonyo sushi. so many ways to use Fonio.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I need We should ferment just stop and describe phonia because I said this before we started recording that I have made it. It's a little bit like and help me out here. It's a cross between couscous, like the fluffy lightness of couscous. And sort of a nutty, there's a nuttiness, but it's none of those things. It's not quinoa. It's not couscous. It's not a wheat, but it has that lightness. Is that fair to say?”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so I had eaten for you on rare occasions when my parents would take me to visit my grandparents in the south of Senegal. So Fonio is grown in that region, in the south, in Kazamas and Kedugu. Those are like the phono areas of Senegal. But in Dakar, where I grew up, there was no Fonio. So I never had Fonio growing up. So I'm now writing this book many years later and we spent time with the women of my family really. This was where, you know, I was getting the inspiration and I wanted the book to be about that. And as I'm traveling in the south and I'm tasting all these different flavors and the fonio came back and it hit me and I'm like, oh, wow, this grain is so delicate. And in that part of Senegal, they still consider it, they call it the most delicious grain of all grains. That's like how they see Fonio. So I was like, I need to write about this grain. I need to bring this grain. I need to even include it in my menu.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. Exactly. You said the right words. Peanut sauce became my first dish in okra. And that one was so well received. I mean, there was a food reviewer who came to the restaurant and wrote an article about the restaurant that mentioned this one dish. It's like, I was like, wow, this is not to me it was like the top of everything. I mean, being mentioned in a paper here in the US. So that was really the thing that confirmed to me that I had to stick to this mission. So when I came back to New York, I decided to start a catering business. And eventually in early 2000, this catering became my very first restaurant.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Eventually, the restaurant was doing so well. We opened a new branch in South Beach, Miami, and guess what? They decided to send me to run that kitchen. And I'm like, wow, this is amazing. I mean, I'm like completely, you know, shocked but so excited because in addition to sending me to run the kitchen, I was told to even add some of the family meal specials into the menu. Into the menu.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, four or five o'clock family meal. Someone from the line is the one in charge of family meal. And when that's my turn, everyone was looking forward to it now because I got them used to this caramelized onion and lime sauce with chili over rice. I had them peanut sauce with cassava. I mean, I'm bringing those flavors now, eggplants and okra and all that. And they're like, wow, this is different. This is cool. And then, like, this should come as specials. That's how the ID started to come into me now. New York is calling itself the food capital of the world, but Africa is not in this world. I'm like, hey, no, this is going to be my mission. I'm going to start finding inspiration from that cuisine and bringing it. And I never looked back”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it studied really, it came organically. First of all, when I moved to New York, I was always craving for that food, the food I grew up eating. There was no restaurants really that's serving that food. At the restaurant, at Boom, the chef is interesting because he's doing a cuisine that's different. He's inspired by Southeast Asian cuisine. And that's new in New York. In the early 90s, mid-90s. has flavors that somehow taking me back home there's lots of fermentation there's lots of acidity you know there's that freshness you know that and the grain and all that and at times when that was my turn to cook family meal I would cook food for memory, dishes that my mom used to prepare. I mean, peanuts.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Relieved parents who knew that their son had found something that he enjoyed doing and they were encouraging. And I was like, wow, I didn't think my parents were cool like that. But it turned out there was nothing to be cool about. I was just doing a job that I like doing. But now I was free and I was free to become a cook and later a chef.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I am not going to school and I am cooking and I love this and my mom just you could see I mean she was very reserved but you could see she had this relief she was smiling I could feel that and then she said wow that's great what kind of cooking are you doing and she was curious about the food that I was doing and she started asking me questions and then she wanted me to give her some recipes and I was like wow that wasn't bad And she told my dad and my dad came to also he could feel the smile, but they were both amused but you could see that they were really”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It took me a while to do that. It took me a while. I mean, I was still very embarrassed. It was cultural. You know, you come from a culture where cooking is really a women activity. So this cultural thing was stuck with me, even though I was very interested. But I knew I was in New York and everyone in the kitchen were men like me. So it was in this world, it was fine. And I was loving what I was doing. I really love it. I was passionate about it. It was still difficult to tell my parents about it for a little while. And since I knew that, you know, it wouldn't be long until my mom find out and I had to tell them. So that's when I mustered all my courage and went to call and say, hey, by the way, I...”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This is chemistry, yeah. That was going on here. And I started to look at every reaction in the kitchen from a different angle now. I knew the theory of it. I knew what was happening. So it was really something of like, I dig this, I like this. I like the kitchen atmosphere. I like the camaraderie. This became my family.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And from dishwasher, I went to one of the prep guy is missing. They always call the dishwasher too and give you the knife and you start chopping vegetables and prepping. And that's how you learn your knife skills and how over time you become a prep cook and then you no longer a dishwasher. And then the gardener is missing and then they take you to the garden station and you start learning how to make the dressings and how to clean the leaves and the salads and stuff. And that's where everything changed for me because when I started to make dressings.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The rest one was French slash American cuisine. So the food was beautiful, you know, more beautiful than what I've ever seen before. And the fact that the chef was French trained too, he spoke a little French and he loved whenever I was in the kitchen he loved to practice his French with me. So there's so many things that got me very lucky really. And that chef offered to, you know, he knew my story over time. He knew that I wanted to make extra money because I was still hoping to save money and go to Ohio. I was like, New York is not for me this crazy city is crazy. And he said, okay, so why don't you come and do extra shifts in the kitchen? You know, you could be a dishwasher. And I'm like, sure, I'll do the extra shift for the money, but I don't intend to stay in this. This is too hard. And I hated washing dishes. I hated it so much. I hated it, but it was a necessary first step.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yes, it was ingrained in me without knowing it. My mom at an early age, I remember she had this collection of cookbooks, and as a kid, I remember that was a La Rusculine, a French collection, and I used to look at the photos of her cookbook collection, and I had no design. I just liked the pictures. It looked delicious. And now I'm here in New York City, you know, as a bus boy, I'm taking the dirty plates into the kitchen and I'm looking at this food that looks so much like the pictures of my mom's La Rusculinaire. And I'm like, wow.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, yes, absolutely. And it had to have happened. Now I look back and I'm like connecting the dots and I'm like, without that incident my life would have been completely different. I would have hugged that guy who robbed me. I mean, he changed my life for the best, I believe.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was horrified by Dakar. It's like a peaceful seaside city. And now I'm here in New York. That was completely different than what I expected to see. It wasn't what I saw. Happened to be working in a restaurant and they were looking for a busboy. The only job that required no particular qualification or experience and I applied I came and the bus, Richard, who's still a good friend just took me. He saw this desperate young kid and he gave me the job and that changed everything.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Three days, my friend lived in a place on 50th Street right near Times Square. And I'm not sure if you knew New York in 1989. It was a different place. It really was a scary place.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In Cleveland, in a small college, in a town called Berrie, actually, near Cleveland. I came here in 1989 and I knew a friend who lived in New York. So I had to land in New York and then take a bus from New York to Ohio. That was the plan. So he insisted that I stay in New York a couple weeks and that was a great opportunity. Everyone wants to see New York at least once and that changed everything. I'm still on my way to Ohio. I never made it there. I stayed in New York and three days after I arrived, I got robbed and I lost every single penny that I had. What you got three days after you arrived in New York in 1980?”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I know that you decided to at a certain point to go to the United States to continue your studies and chemistry in Dakar, but there was a nationwide student strike, and I guess you couldn't continue your study, so you ended up getting a visa to the United States. And you were supposed to study in Ohio, right?”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, yeah, I had all those flavors growing up. I was exposed to that, not to mention the local cuisine, which is also very, very interesting because my mom was from the south of Senegal, which is more lush as opposed to the north of Senegal than south of the Sahara and dry and arid. So that part of Senegal has a different type of cuisine with lots of seafood, which you see everywhere in Senegal, but also lots of citrus. Fermentation also is a big part of our cuisine. So my upbringing was full of flavors.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, like you said, Dakar is like a melting pot, really, because of its location. You know, it's the most western coast of Africa. So it became a natural port of entrance for centuries. It was the place where mariners would come before going anywhere in Africa. And over time, the French colonized Senegal, so we still have a strong French community there. And the Lebanese community has been there for generations now. And they brought their food culture. And you have obviously the West African community and the Vietnamese because the Senegalese and the Vietnamese had the same colonial past with the French.”
2023-09-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT