Chef Tilly exhibiting her culinary skill during the 2nd day masterclass.
At the second day of the masterclass of 2025 GTCO Food and Drink Festival, Chef Tilewa Odedina fondly called Chef Tilly didn’t just exhibit her prowess of blending traditional African flavours with modern nutrition techniques, she analysed the nexus between Food and medicine among other things.
Newsconnect reports that Tilly showed the participants and guests at the masterclass how to make African flavours, African dishes in a nutritious way, without actually losing the essence of what food is meant to do .
In her own words, she said;
“Food is not just nourish you, but also excite you, something that you want to eat and you enjoy eating. So that’s what happened today.”
When asked about the nexus between food and medicine during an interview session, she said;
“Food can be medicine. Food heals the body. Food healed me and food can heal you too. Using food in the right ways, using the right ingredients, using the right techniques, and using it in the right ways — the portions you use, how you add the food together — all these things can actually aid healing”.
In her response to the disposition that GTCO Food and drink promote culture, Tilly said;
“The GTCO Food and Drink really promotes African culture by first of all, allowing a lot of vendors to come on and show what they do with food.
“If you go around today, you see different kinds of food made by Africans, inspired by Africans.
“Also, having an African like me on the stage, on the platform to actually showcase what I do. These are the ways that GT is really, really showcasing it. And again, even allowing the vendors to sign up for free — there’s nothing else that can be more supportive than that, to be honest.”
“Food was — and I believe that God created certain ingredients to actually heal the body. A lot of people don’t have access to medicine. A lot of people don’t have access to doctors. But they are still healed. When we think about the things today that we see, for instance, agbo — people swear by agbo because, again, it is medicine. We look at moringa that I spoke about today. Moringa is medicine. You know, this is something that you can get in your house, and you can cook, and you can make. So again, food can be medicine.”
In her remark to admonish aspiring chefs, Chef Tilly said;
“I think my advice to young chefs would be: chase your passion, do it afraid, trust yourself, trust the process. The journey will make sense, I promise. You believe in yourself. I want to say that I believe in you. If I knew you, I would tell you I believe in you. You can do it. You’ve got this. Put in everything. Don’t take anything for granted. And lastly, you never know who’s watching. So act as though you are on a stage with a lot of people watching with everything you do. Put in excellence, and it will all make sense.”
Expressing gratitude to the event organisers, she said:
“GT people, thank you so, so, so much. I will never forget this experience. Thank you. Thank you for what you do for the Africans, for even the internationals — like having these amazing chefs coming from around the world to showcase not just what they do in their countries, but also experience us as well, experience the African culture. Thank you very much. We appreciate you. Can’t wait to do this again. Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Chef Tilly was trained at Le Cordon Bleu and currently Head of Culinary at Nigeria’s largest cloud kitchen, captivated her audience by showing how food can be both healing and joyful.