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This is Mel Street Radio from PRX and your host Christopher Kimball.

Today we're tackling difficult fruit with author Kate Lebo.

She introduces us to fruits that are hard to love and fussy to eat, just like the medlar.

You're not supposed to eat it until after it has rotted a little bit.

There's a little bit of fermentation and mold that I think that needs to happen to really get the full

meddler experience. But first is my interview with chef Anto Cocon. Her book, Saka,

Saka is a tribute to Pan-African cuisine. Anto, welcome to Milk Street. Thanks for the invitation.

So you first learned a cook growing up at Gabon, but then at 20 years old you moved to France and you trained at the prestigious Ferrandi Paris as a chef.

So my first question is, you know, how was that?

Did you find the French approach to food similar to what you would learn back home?

Or was it really a very different approach to food similar to what you would learn back home, or was it really

a very different approach to both food and cooking? Oh, it was completely different. In my culture,

when we cook, we use a lot of spices, a lot of onions, garlic, and it's really important to

marinate everything. We marinate everything,

fish, meat, seafood. And in France, when they season the food, it's only salt and paper.

So for me, it was really different.

It's funny you say that because I remember mastering the art of French cooking.

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