Judy Joo's Ultimate KFC

This spicy Korean Fried Chicken dish features in a new book celebrating female chefs on the British food scene. We’ve matched it with wine styles that can take the heat

- CLARE FINNEY

In 2010, UK supermarket Waitrose unveiled its new ‘food ambassadors’: Delia Smith and Heston Blumenthal. The launch image, captioned ‘Britain’s best-loved cook’ and ‘Britain’s top chef’, featured Blumenthal in chef’s whites, arms crossed, while Smith smiled over his shoulder in a pretty white shirt. Of course, Blumenthal is by any measure a chef; Smith – having only briefly once worked in a restaurant – is not; yet the ad irked me. Why was Smith standing behind Blumenthal? Why was her success defined by how beloved she was, while his was purely about talent? Why did it reinforce the impression that cook and chef are inherently gendered words?

When I began working on a book of stories and recipes from 31 women who are redefining the British food scene, that advert sprang to mind. So what is the difference between a cook and chef? The interviews I conducted for my book revealed that chef and cook is something of a false dichotomy: like women and men, or nature and nurture, chef and cook are on a spectrum, and most people who cook for a living sit somewhere between the two.

We might associate Blumenthal the chef with ‘genius’ and Smith the cook with ‘love’ – but as avowed chef Angela Hartnett (Murano, Mayfair) pointed out to me: ‘A good chef brings all of what they know to the kitchen: knowledge, experiences, history – and passion. The moment a chef cooks without feeling, they’re out of a job.’