Opinion Guest Essay Sept. 25, 2024, 5:02 a.m. ET A vendor selling spices and grains at the Shola Market in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Mr. Samuelsson is a chef who owns the restaurants Hav & Mar and Metropolis in New York City, among others. Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Ethiopia? , and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox. In 1999, Ruth Reichl, then the editor in chief of Gourmet, asked me if I would travel around Ethiopia, the country of my birth, with a writer for the magazine. I hadn’t been back since my Swedish parents adopted me when I was about 2 years old, and when the plane touched down there, I was overcome with emotion. Everything was both unfamiliar and yet so comfortable. My first time walking through the open-air market in the capital, Addis Ababa, the sights and smells of spices, herbs and grains overwhelmed me. I picked up a handful of millet and wondered how toasting it might bring out its earthiness, or how slow-cooking it in a rich broth could make it creamy like risotto. This was the start of a decades-long obsession with the foods of my ancestors and my attempts to bring them into my home and onto my menus. In the years since my trip, climate change has made it far more difficult to grow food in many parts of Africa (and beyond). Months of heavy rain and flooding have battered East African farmland, while blazing heat and drought in southern Africa have left farmers with little to harvest. Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like. Site Index