In this episode, we tackle one of the world’s most food-insecure regions, the Sahel. We speak with Kinday Samba, Regional Director for West and Central Africa at the UN World Food Programme, whose work spans more than 30 years across some of the most complex humanitarian contexts in the world.

From her early training as a nutritionist in The Gambia to leading operations across a region where 55 million people face acute hunger, Kinday offers a rare, ground-level perspective on how conflict, climate change, and political instability converge to shape food systems.

We explore how war translates into malnutrition, what “no access” really looks like in practice, and the difficult trade-offs required when funding falls short. Kinday speaks candidly about the tension between emergency response and long-term resilience, and how her background in nutrition continues to shape the way she leads.

While this crisis may feel distant, its consequences are not. Women and children are disproportionately affected, families are forced into impossible choices, and as food systems collapse, instability spreads beyond borders, fueling displacement, trafficking, and conflict.

This is a conversation about food as survival, as power, and as a fragile foundation for global stability.

Michael Shaikh is a New York City–based writer and human rights activist whose work spans nearly two decades across regions shaped by political crisis and armed conflict, particularly in Asia and the Middle East. He is the author of The Last Sweet Bite: Stories and Recipes of Culinary Heritage Lost and Found.

His book chronicles a powerful and deeply human exploration of cuisine in conflict zones, revealing the persistence of people striving to protect their food culture in the face of war, genocide, and violence.

The title is drawn from the poem “Perhaps the World Ends Here” by Joy Harjo, which begins, “The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.”

War reshapes every aspect of human culture, art, education, music, and politics, so why should food be any different? Over years investigating human rights abuses, Michael observed how conflict alters not only lives, but how people cook, eat, and preserve tradition. Recipes are adapted, ingredients disappear, and in some cases, cooking itself becomes impossible, placing entire culinary histories at risk.

From home cooks in Myanmar risking everything to preserve tradition, to Muslim Uyghurs forced to eat pork in violation of their beliefs, food emerges as both a tool of control and a form of resistance.

This conversation explores how food is weaponized, and how, even in the darkest circumstances, people hold onto it as a source of identity, dignity, and survival.

Nancy Matsumoto has lived an extraordinary life. From a young age, her love for writing and storytelling led to an accomplished and wide-ranging career as a journalist and author.

Ever curious, she has never limited herself to a single subject. Although much of her work has focused on food and culture, Nancy has also written about sake, childhood nutrition, and her family’s history, including a moving book of translated poetry based on her grandparents’ writings during their internment as Japanese Americans in World War II.

Her latest book, Reaping What She Sows, takes readers on a journey through a distinctly female lens, offering insight into how care, leadership, and creativity can shape a more just and sustainable food system. Deeply researched and beautifully told, the book follows inspiring women working in agricultural reform in the American South, coffee and cacao production in Belize and Guatemala, regenerative mezcal making in Mexico, and beyond.

For our final episode in the Only a Woman series, Nancy reflects on how the stewardship of our food systems is deeply maternal and shares the lessons we can all learn about nourishment, resilience, and change.

Schnitzel & Stories will be back with season 4 in 2026.