From Matapa to Peri-peri Chicken, This Food Stylist Wants the World to Fall in Love with Mozambican Flavors

It’s the end of another busy day for Mila Nuno Horta and she’s wrapping up a collaboration with a brand. This collab in particular results in a deliciously crafted four-tier velvet cake made with buttercream – yes, buttercream instead of cream cheese; that’s what makes it so delectable! Most of Horta’s days are like this, filled with many tasks, moving from one to another, with scarcely enough time for herself. But when you are surrounded by food all day, what’s not to love about the job?

Horta, who is based in the capital, Maputo, is currently working in the digital marketing industry as a food stylist and food developer, tweaking recipes to make them visually more appealing for amateur chefs. She is the founder of The Calorie Kitchen, a social media account that is shaking up the culinary industry in Mozambique. Through her innovative imagery that showcases the individual stories behind the meals she makes, she is proving why Mozambique cuisine deserves to be served at tables around the world.

From aromatic matapa to sizzling peri-peri chicken, Horta is on a mission to make the world fall in love with Mozambican flavors. The cuisine is a vibrant fusion created out of the colonial influences of Portugal and the variety of spices that were introduced from the country’s period of trade with India and the Middle East.

Horta grew up in New York, and spending her childhood in a first-world country showed her the stark differences between the U.S. and Mozambique, one of the poorest countries in the world by GDP, yet one rich in resources. This is an important part of the story she wants to share: that food is still the great unifier, bringing people together across all social classes.

OkayAfrica spoke to Horta about her flavor-filled mission to change existing African culinary narratives.

The interview below has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

OkayAfrica: Everyone has a different relationship with food, how did you find your way into the kitchen and how did that translate into you launching The Calorie Kitchen?

Mila Nuno Horta: I wasn’t always great at cooking but I always loved food and always liked using my hands. When I left my job at an insurance company, I started working as a personal trainer and in the early days, my page was focused on healthy eating. Mid-pandemic when I started working on the page again after a break, I started making a lot of the content you see today on the page and it sort of blew up. I'm not going to sit here and say there aren't challenges but when you feel like you're walking in your purpose, which is my current feeling at the moment, it feels like everything else is worth it.

You are one of the first, if not the first, documented food stylists in Mozambique. How do you define your role?

Let me start off by saying that it’s a lot more than making food look pretty. A food stylist is someone who dresses food on a plate with the intention of it being photographed or videographed. Food styling is important because it's an essential part of the food photography process. With food styling, it's important to consider various factors that will make the food look good. For example, food looks different when it's hot than when it's cold on camera. You have a very small window to shoot before the food starts to look a different way.

In my case, I am a food stylist who is the chef, cook, stylist, and photographer all at the same time. It was really empowering for me to enter this space because I think a big criticism many have towards Mozambican cuisine is how it looks. There seems to be a cultural embarrassment towards eating dishes like cove, matapa and maboa because of how it’s normally presented on a plate. A big part of my mission with The Calorie Kitchen in the initial phases was to show off how bomb the food is here.

What are some of the challenges you face here in Maputo?

I think people here still lack a true understanding of the digital industry. They haven’t truly grasped the value it has not just for the marketing industry but for various sectors and this affects the way you negotiate deals because there’s no fixed scale. Most people don’t see the work that I do [which is mostly content creation] as a real job.

So besides matapa needing a good PR team, what do you think is missing for Mozambique to become a global food destination?

I think we have a long, long way to go. Nowadays, you're starting to see a lot of restaurants in Maputo coming up that are bringing really, fresh concepts, you know, to the city and to the country. They need to be supported not only by grants from the government, and access to funding by banks, but we also need support from the actual locals. You know, when somebody opens a restaurant people need to give the establishments and staff value.

Mozambican cuisine is pretty interesting in the sense that it's not similar to the cuisines in bordering countries like South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania. Their gastronomic culture is completely different from ours. Here we use a lot of coconut milk, and spices and incorporate a lot of seafood. Even with the provinces, the style of cooking is quite different and exploring that will be my next adventure.