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Boitumelo Montshioagae is one of the rising creators of food content in South Africa. Her foodstagram account, Whuz_cuking, has over 115k followers and hundreds of recipes. We had the opportunity to talk with her, uncover her journey and hardships, and bring some exclusive advice from her for aspiring creators.
Boitumelo started cooking when she was in school. In grade 12, hospitality was one of the subjects she took up. However, Boitumelo wasn’t very serious about it at the time. She dreamed of working in a corporation someday, so she took her HR course and entered the corporate world.
However, in 2019, after years of being pulled by her passion and love for cooking, Boitumelo finally decided to join a culinary school. She decided to make the shift and make her passion into a profession. This is when she started her journey as an Instagram Food content creator with her handle: Whuz_cuking. Within a week, Boitumelo had over 100 followers on her page.
A while back, Boitemelo was featured as a participant on the popular show Wedding Chef. She recalls her experience being a pleasant one. Despite her not being able to secure the first position, Boitumelo ended up being the third runner-up. This turned out to be an amazing experience for her as she got to meet a lot of professional chefs and gained some valuable advice from them. However, Boitumelo revealed that she would never participate in another competition again. She explained how the pressure of competing and shooting takes over the joy of cooking, something she is not ready to compromise.
Boitumelo looks up to many influencers. She revealed how influencers like Meals with Mash and The Cookistare her constant source of inspiration and support. She revealed how this kind of warmth is a rarity in her industry,
“Not everybody wants to help everyone in the hospitality industry. Some of them will tell you, "I did it myself. Go figure it out." You know? ”
Similar to what happened with most people, COVID brought a lot of strife in Boetumelo’s life as well. She recalls having only two clients for the first year and no brand offers. This difficult time in her life felt more like a divine test.
A delicious meal prepared by Boitumelo.
When Boitumelo started her Instagram journey, she depended heavily on her husband. Unfortunately, her partner's business was not doing great at the time, making things even more difficult for the young couple. As a result of these difficult times and the stress of seeing her partner, her biggest supporter, struggle, Boitumelo slipped into depression. She ended up blocking her friends and isolating herself, only interacting with her parents occasionally.
Eventually, Boitumelo accepted the situation: “I thought to myself, maybe God wants me to learn something here.” With her acceptance of the situation, things started becoming lighter. The weight on her shoulder became a bit less. She was able to look at things from a different perspective. That’s when she stopped worrying about things and simply did her part.
Speaking from experience, she credits praying as the thing that grounded her.
“If you don't pray, if you don't make God the center of your world nothing, nothing, nothing will go right. Be it friendship, be a business, be your marriage, or your relationship, or any kind of relationship that you find yourself in. If you do not put God as a center of everything everything falls apart.”
“As long as you believe in yourself, do not listen to the voices of the world. If you feel like you want to go into social media and be a food blogger, go for it. Don’t fear failure. Fail, knowing you tried. Then take a step back, reevaluate, and go again.”
Boitumelo suggests starting one by one and posting constantly. Speaking from personal experience, she advised that for videos like grocery hauls, one should tag all the brands they want to work with because that's how the brands start recognising you.
She also emphasized the importance of making your content aesthetically pleasing. First, the food needs to appeal to the eyes.
Apart from being a food content creator, Boitumelo also works as a private chef and plans to start her own YouTube channel very soon. Boitumelo had to endure many hardships to get to where she is today. To get here, she led a life full of passion, fueled by hard work and faith in herself and her gods.
We wish her all the very best for her YouTube journey. We can’t wait to see the amazing recipes she will bring to life there. To check out her recipes, click here.
Updated on 10 Dec 2025
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