The Female Chef
An interview with Clare Finney and Liz Seabrook
Interview by Dunja Opalko
Photography by Liz Seabrook
The Female Chef by Clare Finney and Liz Seabrook is published by Hoxton Mini Press
Clare, how did you first come up with the concept for the book?
Clare: Well, the concept was initially devised by Hoxton Mini Press, who approached me with the idea of doing a book on female chefs in early March 2020. They were interested to know whether I could treat the idea in such a way that rendered it relevant and necessary – whether that was even possible to do. After all, the very term ‘female chef’ itself runs the risk of being reductive – we don’t refer to ‘male chefs’, do we – and any treatment of ‘women and X profession’ needs to be considered, nuanced, and well-justified. Yet the more I mulled it over – with my mum, a career woman, feminist and inspiration, and my grandma, herself a female chef of sorts – the more I was struck by the uniqueness of the relationship between women and food, as distinct from women and say, architecture, science, banking or law.
In these professions, women have historically been almost entirely excluded. Only in the past 50-odd years have women come in and shaped them. In the case of food, however – well, women have been there all along. They have simultaneously been in the kitchen all day every day, and yet excluded from the kitchens of fine dining establishments. They have cooked and baked – even butchered and filleted – but they have not been chefs, bakers, butchers or fishmongers. Though the rarefied world of gastronomy has always been male dominated, the foundation – the heart – of food as sustenance has historically and biologically been a female preoccupation.
In this, the world of food represents a complex, protean exception to those other previously male dominated professions, where the public narrative around gender has extended toward casting it off entirely – for it is almost impossible to draw any clear lines between food and gender; between feeding and femininity. Now that the sands are shifting and food as ‘industry’ is moving from something male-lead to something more balanced, the question of whether/to what extent female industry leaders feel they should encompass womanhood within their professional life – indeed cherish it as a fundamental source of their success – or follow their counterparts in banking, law, science and so on seemed more relevant than ever.
It was whilst pondering this sociological argument that I found out only 17 percent of chef positions are held by women in the UK; that my grandma – a hotel proprietor and main ‘cook’ – referred to her female kitchen staff as cooks and the men as chefs, though they had the same role in the kitchen. At the same time, the pandemic was raging, and it was quickly becoming apparent that women were shouldering most of the extra cleaning, childcare and cooking that lockdown entailed. Of all the many angles through which I thought I could approach this subject, the one that stood out most is the invariably gendered distinction we make between ‘cooks’ and ‘chefs’, and the way in which cheffing was changing thanks to women entering the industry. It’s been a fascinating lens – all the better for yielding quite unexpected results. Some ‘chefs’ were rejecting the term in favour of ‘cook’ or ‘leader’. Others were setting out to redefine it, even feminise it, making it more holistic and inclusive. I won’t go any further than that – it’s all in the book! – but suffice to say it’s been an extraordinary journey, and more expansive and inspiring than I ever imagined.
It was whilst pondering this sociological argument that I found out only 17 percent of chef positions are held by women in the UK; that my grandma – a hotel proprietor and main ‘cook’ – referred to her female kitchen staff as cooks and the men as chefs, though they had the same role in the kitchen.
The list is long, how did you decide which female chefs you'd like to have on board?
C: With great difficulty! I had to whittle a list of 50 to 60 down. In the end I applied what I thought was a simple metric: a woman who had cooked or was currently cooking in a restaurant kitchen, and who was making a concerted effort to shake up the industry – either by what they cooked, how they cooked, how they ran their kitchen or – as was the case with many of these chefs – all three.
Was it challenging for you, creating this body of work during the pandemic?
C: Yes and no. On the one hand, chefs invariably had more time on their hands than they might otherwise have done. On the other, they were under unprecedented stress, organising take aways, meal kits, furlough, recipe boxes and so on. On the one hand, interviewing over Zoom etc makes transcribing easier; on the other, it can be a less rewarding and fulfilling exercise for both parties. It’s impossible to know what it would have been like to do any other way – I’m not going to do it again any time soon! – but I do know the interviewing process was a joy and inspiration, whether it was over Zoom, phone, Teams or face to face. Moreover, the challenges I faced in interviewing and transcribing was nothing in comparison to what these chefs have faced during this period, and the way in which they and many others have risen to them has been extraordinary.
Liz, you photographed everyone during the pandemic, how did it feel to meet 30 female chefs and connect in real life?
Not only did I photograph all of the chefs during the pandemic, I also photographed them all as they were preparing to reopen their restaurants. We started the photography in late April and finished in mid-June. At any other time, you’d say that the women featured in the pages of the book are inspirational, but over this period they were each a force to be reckoned with. Even in the face of staff shortages, bereavements within teams and wholesale changes in their lives and businesses, they found time for me to come and photograph them, made space in their kitchens so that I could shoot alongside them and never made me feel that this additional work I was adding into their schedules was a burden.
Are there any nice memorable moments that happened during the shoots?
L: So many! A lot of the chefs are connected in one way or another, and quite often they’d send me away with greetings for another chef I’d be meeting later in the day or the week – or in the case of Rav and Gizzi, I was sent on my way with a piece of apple pie to pass on (they’d never met, but had done an Instagram cook-a-long the previous week). I loved meeting Pam up at Inver; for a small human she’s got one of the loudest and most brilliant laughs I’ve heard, and she’s constantly moving so quickly, singing her way around the kitchen and restaurant or out foraging on the shore. When I photographed Angela, I arrived at Murano at 3pm, and lunch was very much still in service. I half thought that she’d get someone to politely turn me away, but she came out and met me, asked me what I needed and made it happen. I worked quickly and got what I needed without taking too much of her time; a squeeze on the shoulder when we wrapped was all I needed to know that my speed and lack of fuss had been appreciated. I also need to give the wonderful Andi Oliver a shout out for dosing me up with miso soup when I arrived at her house feeling less than 100% and sending me off with a spare packet to keep my salts topped up.
You were able to taste the food and drinks coming from all these wonderful kitchens, any favourites here?
L: The food memories that are the fondest are those where I was able to sit down with the chefs to eat after we wrapped: talking about women and race in the hospitality industry over fish curry with Nokx; eating Anna’s famous dhal while chatting about trips to Anglesey with her and her husband; sharing a family lunch with Ola and Joe and sitting out in the sun with Sabrina enjoying forbidden Gnudi (I’m wheat intolerant, but couldn’t resist). I also very much enjoyed being sent off from Mei Mei by Elizabeth with a coffee cup full of broth on a cold day, taking in the view over London Bridge as I sipped away. And I was thrilled to be able to suggest my pal Julie Lin for the book, whose food (as well as her mum Lang’s) has brought me back to life following many a shoot or adventure in Scotland – her laksa is my medicine. I suppose what I’m getting at is that without the people you share it with, food never tastes quite as good.
Can you share your favourite places to eat in London with us?
L: I love Kiln and Sambal Shiok. For brunch, Ozone on Emma Street is my go-to, or Jolene on Newington Green (especially the potatoes, eggs and jamon). I can’t resist the cakes from Violet – though I often have to as it’s right in between home and my studio. If I want to go out for a meal with a few friends, I like Morito on Hackney Road and Yard Sale is my ride or die for pizza.
C: It’s a huge question, and I should probably – given the book – start by saying there isn’t a single chef I’ve interviewed whose food I don’t rate enormously, either on account of my own experience or those I trust implicitly. I recently had the most stupendous meal in Holborn Dining Rooms (Nokx Majozi); Flor (Pamela Yung) is a regular haunt; ditto Rochelle Canteen (Margot Henderson) and Cafe Murano (Angela Hartnett) and I could eat Chantelle Nicholson’s and Ravinder Bhogal’s food for days. Beyond the chefs in this book, my desert island destinations in London include: Brat in Shoreditch; Le Maison Francois in Mayfair; Palomar in Piccadilly Circus; Quo Vadis in Soho; any Yard Sale pizza; and Supawan, a Thai restaurant on Caledonia Road, which I say reluctantly because I really don’t want anyone else to know about it. Honourable munchions to Lurra in Marylebone, and to Fischer’s, also in Marylebone, on account of their Bircher muesli and coffee.
What's your go-to meal at the end of a working day?
C: I have five end-of-working-day meals I tend to rotate through: Diana Henry’s aubergine, walnut, dates and tahini roasting situation (from Simple); Diana Henry’s anchovy and walnut pasta (also from Simple); baked beans on toast, the beans preferably homemade and frozen by my mum, but if not then Hodmedods baked beans and if not those then Heinz Five Beanz; Meera Sodah’s cauliflower korma; and Meera Sodah’s broccoli and tofu pad Thai.
All of these with seasonal adaptations of course…. apart from the beans.
L: One that I’m not cooking! My partner makes some banging fennel polpettes, which are a favourite of mine. But generally our meals are dictated by what we get in our Growing Communities veg bag. We do a lot of variations on Anna’s quinoa “risotto” recipe from A Modern Way to Cook, or, if we’re feeling really lazy, a dish which consists of a tin of tomatoes, a tin of beans, an onion, a generous blob of tahini and a little bit of cumin.
"I suppose what I’m getting at is that without the people you share it with, food never tastes quite as good."
Do you have any other projects in the making that you'd like to share with us?
L: I’ve just got back from a week in Norway for the first shoot of three with Fare Magazine to make a book about food culture in the Northern part of the country. I’ve worked with Fare since issue one, but this is the first book we’ve worked on as a team, so it’s really exciting. Otherwise, I’m going to try and make some personal work – not sure what yet!
C: Yes! At the moment I am working on two exciting books: one for Borough Market, called The Knowledge, which I’m writing with Angela Clutton, its lead author. That’s a cookbook featuring Angela’s recipes, alongside tips, stories and information from traders. The second is for Aurum at Quarto, and is my own book, Hungry Heart: A Story of Food and Love. From the totemic value of Christmas dinner to the Krispy Kremes in the staff kitchen via the solace of chicken soup to the silliness of ice cream, the book uses my own life – and the recipes that shaped it –as a leitmotif in an honest account of humans breaking bread together and what, in a world of Deliveroo and digital communication, that really means. That’s due out in 2023. In the meantime I’ve a fair few articles scheduled in Vogue, Observer Food Monthly, Delicious and more.
