Kaltoma Ali - How This Chef Mastered Cooking 5 Different Cultures Food

Taliso Abdullahi fled Somalia in 2006, now a mother of 3, she can cook 5 different types of cultures food and is also planning to appear on Masterchef UK.

Throughout the world of chef’s from Gordon Ramsey to Jaimie Oliver and even your local restaurant chefs, they all have one thing in common, a great passion for food. But what makes a great chef? Is it the range of different dishes a chef can cook? Is it how much training a chef has previously had? Or maybe the different types of spices a chef uses? Well, a possible future Masterchef contestant and self taught chef Taliso Ali thinks it's something else.

Once you enter Taliso’s home in South Birmingham, you can immediately smell a sweet  cinnamon based incense burning. The house is decorated in an African style decor, a reminder for Taliso and where she started her journey of cooking. Kaltoma aspires one day to not only win Masterchef but to also work in a Michelin star restaurant as a head chef. The 35 year old mum of 3 is already a chef at an African restaurant here in Birmingham.

“I have watched masterchef since I came to the UK in 2008 and I am a huge fan, everything about the show just increases my love for cooking after every episode I watch, the way the judges critic the dishes, the range of different foods the contestant cook and the way the studio it set up, I just love it all”  Taliso explained to me.

She was born in Somalia in a small town named Baido. Taliso was born to a father who was a lorry driver and had to spend long periods of time away from home and a mother who looked after the household and her siblings. She explained how she spent most of her childhood observing her mothers cooking and the wide range of Somali dishes she would prepare for her family.

“Somali food has such a wide range of dishes, because my country was colonised by Italy we even have a lot of italian dishes such as pastas but with a spicy somali twist, giving the food that kick of African heat, we even have a lot of food similar to Indian dishes, because of our long trade history with the country, it really is a mix of Italian, Indian and Somali food and I know how to cook some Italian and Indian dishes very well”

At the age of just 10 Taliso had already begun cooking different dishes for her family, with her Mother watching closely in case she needed any assistance. By the age of  11 she was cooking entire meals for her family, from rice and chicken, lamb chops and even baking flatbreads herself to accompany her fresh soups she would make.

An example of the type of soup and flatbread Taliso would make for her family, Image Credit : Food To Glow

Taliso left Somalia in 2006 to seek a better life for herself after the Somali civil war had left the country in ruins and with no opportunity. At this point she had already graduated from high school and worked as a primary school teacher for a short time to supplement her income but mainly as a chef at different restaurants. She had always dreamt of staying in her homeland of Somalia and becoming a famous chef but now her dream would be impossible to accomplish in her home country. 

She first left Somalia to live in Egypt, a country not too far from her homeland but far enough to make her greatly miss home and her family. Once she arrived in Egypt she spent some time working as a teacher once again as it was the only job she could find. 

“When I first arrived in Egypt I could not find any jobs as a chef, I looked everywhere but nowhere was hiring at the time, so I had to fall on my backup career and work as a teacher, something I did not have a passion for, having to work in a career I did not want and leaving my family really made me feel depressed, it eventually made me not even care about cooking or food anymore, which for me was unusual as I had always had a passion for cooking since I was a little girl”

After spending some time working as a primary school teacher, Taliso eventually found a job as a chef at a Mediterranean restaurant in Cairo, Egypt called Damam. It was here where she would learn from chefs who had 40 years of experience in the industry, not only learning how to cook a variety of  Mediterranean dishes but also Middle Eastern dishes. 

Both are different cuisines that consist of highly spiced food such as Moussaka, an eggplant casserole with minced lamb, Shawarma, a well seasoned and marinated chicken cut into thin slices grilled to perfection and Borek, a pastry filled with spinach, cheese and vegetables.

Until she had started working at the Mediterranean restaurant in Egypt, Taliso only had knowledge of how to cook Italian, Indian and Somali dishes, but now she could also add Mediterranean and Middle Eastern dishes onto her wide range of of dishes as well.

A Somali spicy beef rice dish with a Mediterranean onion salad and a Middle Eastern mint yoghurt dip, cooked by Taliso - Image Credit - Talso Cuisine

“Everything I learnt during my time working at Dammam restaurant, all the cooking skills and all the dishes I learnt how to cook made me fall in love with cooking again, they taught me how season food to perfection, how to present dishes to the best standard and how to cook the most tender meat I had ever tasted”

A while later Taliso had decided to leave Egypt and Africa as a whole and move to the United Kingdom, where she already had relatives living. They had told her about how the country had so many opportunities to make money and Taliso wanted a fresh start herself, so she took the leap of faith and relocated to Birmingham in early 2006.

“I found moving to the UK quite scary at first because everything is so different here, the buildings, the road, the people, I understood English fine because we were taught how to speak the basics in high school but it was the rainy weather that shocked me the most haha! I did not know it was such a regular occurrence”

Once Taliso had officially moved to the UK and was able to work she managed to immediately find herself a job in a middle eastern restaurant cooking a range of meat, rice and chicken dishes. Taliso only worked at the restaurant for 2 years due to the commute being too far away from her home. She eventually began working at the current African restaurant she works at and worked her way up to her current position as head chef, a position she has proudly held for the past 5 years. 

Her dream is to make it onto Masterchef UK in the future and win the entire show. Taliso had previously applied to Masterchef twice. She was not selected the first time but was selected the second time but had to turn the offer down due to family commitments. Despite this, Taliso says she is now ready and is determined to go on the show and showcase her cooking to the judges.

Although Taliso works as a head chef in a restaurant she has privately cooked for large  weddings with around 500 guests, funerals, baby showers, graduation ceremonies and even religious holidays with a small team of assistant chefs she hires herself.

“The best chefs are not those who have years of professional training, sure they might have been taught more but that does not mean they have taken that training in and actually applied it to their cooking, the best chefs are the ones who cook with authenticity, who know how to perfect a dish without a cookbook or instructions, who know how to save a dish when it may be slightly going wrong, these are the best chefs in my opinion”

Taliso’s 16 year old also daughter told me how she had high hopes for her mother to eventually win Masterchef UK  

“My Mum’s cooking is not your average cooking, because she has learnt different styles of cooking from so many people and knows how to cook so many different cultures dishes, when she mixes the different styles of cooking together it makes really unique food and I know she will make all the Masterchef judges happy and they will all love her, she can definitely win and I will always support my Mum”

Taliso’s goal of being on Masterchef could also not be far, as she explained to me that she recently sent her application to be on the next season and is currently waiting for a response. Taliso’s second goal to begin working as a chef in a Michelin star restaurant could also come sooner than she expects too. She recently applied for a culinary school and has been notified she has been selected for an interview. 

“Being accepted into culinary school is my first step to working in a Michelin star restaurant and I am so excited” explained Taliso.

Taliso also has a youtube channel where she uploads some of her recipes in her Somali language, check out her channel below Talso Cuisine.

- Hamza.