The foodie culture has made food all about the taste and the experience itself. However, Ice Cream Connoisseur and founder of “Tapi Tapi” although a having a PHD in molecular science has a different understanding and focus of food. He has taken Ice cream beyond a simple treat and brought deep meaning to an icy bowl of deliciousness!

‘Tapi Tapi is a Bantu ideophone (nyaudzosingwi) that means sweet, sweet (akin to yum yum).

It’s a playful and nostalgic phrase that appears in several Zimbabwean pop cultural contexts.

Tapiwa Guzha’s desserts stir up conversation about culture, history, and identity.Guzha’s desserts stir up conversation about culture, history, and identity. Speaking to Radio Islam he explains the thinking behind such an inniative – he believes that the ice cream is merely a tool for conversation to look beyond the food and attach it to the identity that comes with it. The food space that we engage with is not reflective of our roots. It Is often reflective of our European backgrounds and has no deeper connection to our rich cultural heritages.

This desire brought forward a variety of tastes and flavors like no other and reflects the indigenous fruit and vegetables that the Doctor grew up eating in Zimbabwe in his grandmother’s garden. The flavors are flavors from home – wherever you may come from on the African continent. Sobole juice from west Africa, pumpkin, and peanut butter from Zimbabwe, koeksisters and boeber flavors from Cape Town, South Africa. Tamarind and Baobab flavors are but a few. Over six hundred and fifty flavors. And he never repeats flavors in a hurry. Each flavor is to celebrate the African culture and the storytelling environment that is created because of it. While people eat ice cream this allows for them to learn more about a forgotten culture and our identities that we seem to want to throw away.

Ghuza has further explained his focus of creating a deeper connection in what we eat to the larger context of the world. “We are extremely disconnected from the cost of food and the relation to our tables”, he reiterates. He uses ingredients that are innovative and have a layered meaning. He often barters ingredients in exchange of a tub of ice cream with that ingredient.   He is currently using edible clay – anemic people and pregnant people tend to eat it as an iron and calcium deficiency, and it has no impact on the body. He will be using six different clays from around the continent will be used to create ice cream to commemorate the Fires.

The ice cream shop – facilitates the conversation to learn the value that we have as people inhabiting the African continent. Listen to the full podcast here