Rapper Big Zuu and ITV cook up new food travelogue with a twist

Zuhair Hassan, aka Big Zuu started his career as a rapper, but he’s fast becoming one of TV’s best-known foodies.

He’s said he first learned his way around a kitchen while growing up in single-parent West African home on Mozart Estate in west London. “I noticed [mum] would get very tired at times and offered to start cooking to help her out, starting with breakfast.”

However, it was food tech lessons at school that really sparked his love of all things culinary and expanded his food repertoire.

“If I never had that kitchen, if I never had food tech, and never learnt how to cook those things, I just might not be doing what I do now.”

Eventually, his passion for food took him to the TV channel Dave and the Bafta-winning series Big Zuu’s Big Eats, which saw him travelling around the country in his food truck, whipping up meals for celebrities – the famous diners included Jimmy Carr, Harry Redknapp, Mel B and Jonathan Ross.

Since then, ITV1 has come calling with Big Zuu’s Breakfast Show, and now 12 Dishes in 12 Hours.

The idea behind the show is that Big Zuu and a celebrity travel companion will visit cities across Europe trying to get a real flavour of their history and culture by sampling the local delicacies.

In a bid to make their experience as authentic as possible, they will be befriending the locals and getting recommendations for places that are off the beaten track.

It’s the perfect project for Zuu, who says: “It’s always been a dream of mine to have my own food travelogue so I’m gassed to finally be able to announce this new show! I feel like travelling the world and eating food was the natural next step for me and the audience who have followed me since the beginning of my TV career.”

However, while he may enjoy exploring new cities and cuisines, he’ll always have a special place in his heart for London.

He told The Guardian: “You can never discredit how incredible the food is in London. We have everything. Every single cuisine. Because we’re such a multicultural society, and we’re so open to different faiths, and so open to different people coming to the country.”

And if anything, Big Zuu think British diners are becoming ever-more adventurous. “It’s about respecting people’s backgrounds and not looking at their food and saying ‘eww’.

“I remember people used to laugh at me for eating fufu and dried fish, and said my house smells like ogiri [a flavouring made of fermented oil seeds, such as sesame seeds or egusi seeds]. But these are the things that make our food amazing.”

Will he discover any new flavours on his culinary adventures, which begins when he takes actor Will Poulter (who recently had a guest role as an expert dessert chef in the acclaimed US drama The Bear) on a tour of Bologna, known as the food capital of Italy?