Natasha Collie
Senior Brand Marketing Manager at Penguin Random House UK
At the start of the year, Ladybird Books approached Sonder & Tell with a dream brief. In 2021, a year that’s been particularly challenging for...
In conversation with
Editor Guardian Feast, author The Edible Atlas and Mama
Reading, writing and eating are some of life’s greatest pleasures. Lucky Mina Holland, the Editor of Guardian’s Feast supplement, who gets to combine all three. She has travelled to Naples on the trail of Elena Ferrante, making the most of deep-fried antipasti and hand-tossed pizzas as she went. She has even hosted supper clubs inspired by her favourite novels, serving up canapés for American Psycho and a “holy trinity of beef” inspired by To The Lighthouse. Irish Murdoch, Junot Diaz and Nora Ephron are Mina’s dream dinner party guests, and they’d feast on chicken fattee and baba ganoush. How do we get an invite?
I read almost exclusively pony books as a child – things like The Saddle Club, books by Patricia Leach and Flambards, which was my favourite. I grew up in London and was totally animal mad so reading was my porthole into that world.
In my mid-teens I remember doing GCSE revision and suddenly being awoken to Nigella. I remember being given How to Eat and How to be a Domestic Goddess and that was my form of procrastination – quite wholesome procrastination! That’s the first time can really remember reading about food and engaging with the stories.
Well I had a supper club that combined both food and books. I was working in advertising but wasn’t happy with that, so I started a blog where I’d cook a recipe inspired by whatever I was reading on my commute at the time, and that sort of morphed into a supper club where we brought novels to life through food. The first one was To the Lighthouse which has some great food in it – Virginia Woolf describes “a holy trinity of beef, potatoes and vegetables” so we did boeuf en daube with mash. We did American Psycho as a nine-course canapé menu at Shoreditch House. We did the The Bell Jar which was really depressing and did avocado with crab meat for the “ladies day luncheon” that Sylvia Plath mentions. The Great Gatsby was really the best one. It was just really opulent. Fitzgerald describes “a turkey that’s burnished gold” and “salads in harlequin designs”.
I’ve always thought Iris Murdoch would be interesting. Junot Diaz. Nora Ephron. My columnists from Guardian Cook, Rachel and Jeremy.
I’d definitely make my babba ganoush because it’s very good. Chicken fattee with a really lemony green salad. And then we’d finish with fruit and ricotta and honey.
Recommendations a lot – Guardian Review, things mentioned in the New Yorker. I’ve started listening to the Longform podcast and loved the interview with David Remnick. If a columnist I enjoy reading has published a book then I’ll read that, like The Scent of Dried Roses by Tim Lott.
It depends on the person. There are certain essentials that I think everybody should have but they’re real cook’s cookbooks, like Fergus Henderson and Simon Hopkinson. The Morito cookbook is fantastic. I love Beaneaters and Bread Soup. And Rachel Roddy’s first one – that is ten years of living in Rome and you really get the feeling that they’re recipes she makes time and again.
It’s basically the recognition that food is about so much more than food. Food writing is really about life. Rachel Roddy does it brilliantly, so do Laurie Colwin and Simon Hopkinson. It’s a luxury in publishing to today to talk about anything but the recipe at length, but I’ve tried to bring in stories with Cook and restore the balance between recipe and content.
It doesn’t necessarily propel you into the kitchen, but it should awaken your curiosity to try new things. The food world can be quite alienating – good food doesn’t have to be expensive but it often is (and can be quite elitist). Good food writing should be relatable and break down some of those divisions.
“The food world can be quite alienating – good food doesn’t have to be expensive but it often is (and can be quite elitist). Good food writing should be relatable and break down some of those divisions.”
Heartburn by Nora Ephron really typifies my point about food writing being about so much more than just food. It’s so tragic but so hilarious all at once. It’s really skilled penmanship to be able to do that.
“I have made a lot of mistakes falling in love, and regretted most of them, but never the potatoes that went with them”
My friend Jo Woodhouse is a food photographer. He’s a vegetarian and I know if he really rates somewhere it means they’re giving the meat-free option as much love and attention as the meat, then that’s always a very good sign. And we have the same taste in wine which helps!
Quo Vadis – I do that a lot. They have a really good newsletter which talks about what Chef Jeremy Lee’s reading and I trust his opinion on books. And I also really like Rochelle Canteen.
Since working in journalism I’ve got much for into reading non-fiction. I suppose I read a lot for plot when I was younger and I still love doing that but I don’t need it so much. I read only to be transported, but since leaving formal education I feel like I have to educate myself a bit, so have got more out of non-fiction.
Senior Brand Marketing Manager at Penguin Random House UK
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