Where to Start with Marcus Samuelsson
Marcus Samuelsson was born Kassahun Tsegie in Ethiopia in 1971. After his mother died in a tuberculosis epidemic, he and his sister were adopted by a Swedish couple, the Samuelssons, and raised in Gothenburg. He trained as a chef in Sweden and Austria before moving to New York, where he became the youngest chef ever to receive a three-star review from The New York Times as executive chef at Aquavit. His cooking draws on all the threads of his identity: Ethiopian spice traditions, Swedish precision, and the bold flavors of Harlem, where he opened the celebrated restaurant Red Rooster in 2010. He has authored several cookbooks, including “The Soul of a New Cuisine: A Discovery of the Foods and Flavors of Africa” (2006), which won the James Beard Award for Best International Cookbook in 2007, “Marcus Off Duty” (2014), “The Red Rooster Cookbook” (2016), and “The Rise: Black Cooks and the Soul of American Food” (2020). His memoir “Yes, Chef” (2012) became a bestseller.
Start here
The Soul of a New Cuisine
Marcus Samuelsson · 344 pages · 2006 · Moderate
Themes: african cuisine, ethiopian cooking, cultural exploration, fusion cooking
Marcus Samuelsson’s James Beard Award-winning exploration of African cuisine, born from his journey back to the continent where he was born. The book contains over 200 recipes drawn from travels across Africa, with Ethiopian cooking holding a special place at the heart of the collection.
Why Start Here
This is the book that established Samuelsson as more than a fine-dining chef. It is a deeply personal project rooted in his return to Ethiopia and his broader exploration of the African continent’s extraordinary culinary diversity. The Ethiopian recipes are among the strongest in the book: his berbere spice blend, doro wat, and injera recipes reflect both his heritage and his professional training. But the book reaches far beyond Ethiopia, covering dishes from Senegal, South Africa, Morocco, and elsewhere.
For readers interested specifically in Ethiopian cooking, this book offers something the more focused cookbooks do not: context within the broader African culinary tradition. You can see how Ethiopian spice work relates to North African and West African approaches, and how Samuelsson’s Swedish upbringing and New York career have shaped his interpretation of these dishes. The recipes are polished and reliable, written by someone who has cooked them in professional kitchens.
What to Expect
A substantial 344-page hardcover with over 250 color photographs that document both the food and Samuelsson’s travels. The recipes span the full range of African cooking, from simple street food to more involved restaurant-quality preparations. The Ethiopian section is particularly strong, but this is not exclusively an Ethiopian cookbook. Expect moderate difficulty: Samuelsson writes for confident home cooks who are comfortable sourcing unfamiliar ingredients and trying new techniques. The writing blends recipe instruction with personal memoir and cultural observation.