Cooking Collard Greens With A West African And Caribbean Twist

Dadisi Olutosin grew up in Atlanta. His mother is "a southern belle," he says, "and growing up in her household, I was exposed to a lot of very, very good food," he says. She cooked classic southern American dishes like collard greens (which he made for us in this video).

It was only later, when traveling around the world as an adult, that he understood the African roots of his culinary heritage.

In West Africa, Olutosin saw women cooking a range of green leafy vegetables in soups and stews. The food — and how they made it reminded him of his own mother. And he also found the roots of southern dishes. His dad grew up in Nigeria."In Nigeria you find a very popular," says Dadisi. It's a thick soup made with green leafy vegetables like pumpkin leaves or something called bitter leaf as well as melon seeds.