Digesting the Internet with Ruby Tandoh

On this month's Lecker Book Club – a regular interview series with authors writing in or adjacent to food culture – All Consuming by Ruby Tandoh.

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You all know I love Ruby Tandoh - she was a dream guest when I started Lecker, and if you’ve been listened to the re-released kitchens eps you’ll know that it was a dream achieved. I think she’s simply a fantastic writer, both of recipes and of the kind of longform pieces that really capture and consider the context of how and what we eat like no-one else really does. She’s also very funny, a bit spicy (RIP her Twitter feed) and deeply online, all of which are traits I respect greatly.

Ruby’s new book, All Consuming, is really a natural progression in her work: taking the unique position she occupies as both a professional cook and baker but also something of a commentator and observer in order to deeply and thoroughly investigate the culinary landscape we find ourselves in.

Essentially, All Consuming focuses on digesting the internet and how our current digital landscape, and its predecessors in all their various forms, influences our collective and personal appetites today.

It’s an extremely engaging book - every post I’ve seen about it from readers has emphasised how quickly they raced through and devoured it. The depth of Ruby’s research and also the breadth of scope of the topics she draws together mean this is a book I think we’ll be referring back to for many years to come.

Lecker is now part of Heritage Radio Network! Find out more about this independent podcast network dedicated to food, beverages and the culinary world and discover their many fantastic shows at heritageradionetwork.org.

All Consuming is out now. Find all of the Lecker Book Club reads on my Bookshop.org list. [aff link]

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Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

You can find this episode’s transcript below the embed. Please note that this transcript is auto-generated by Descript and may contain unintended errors.

Lucy: This is Lecker. I’m Lucy Dearlove.

This month’s book club pick: All Consuming: Why We Eat the Way We Eat Now by Ruby Tandoh

Ruby: I can just imagine some guy in a back office at M&S, you know, like loosening his tie, bit sweaty after lunch, like clicking around like what the kids looking at these days, like what's going on here? And you know, he is like writing a email memo for, you know, rainbow bagels and strawberry and cream sandwiches.

Like it, it's really interesting to see these trends like filter through the supermarket by which point, you know, that is saturation point and you know, there's no more consuming this stuff in a way that makes you feel special anymore.

Lucy: I just love Ruby. She was a dream guest when I started Lecker nine years ago, and if you’ve been listened to the re-released Kitchens eps you’ll know that it was a dream achieved. I think she’s simply a fantastic writer, both of recipes and of the kind of longform pieces that really capture and consider the context of how and what we eat like no-one else really does. She’s also very funny, a bit spicy (RIP her twitter feed) and deeply online, all of which are traits I respect greatly.

Essentially, All Consuming focuses on digesting the internet and how our current digital landscape - and its predecessors in all their various forms - influences our collective and personal appetites today.

To start, let’s hear Ruby herself explain what the book aims to do.

[00:00:34] Ruby: So All Consuming is about modern food culture in a nutshell, especially modern food culture in the age of the internet. So it's kind of largely about how the media that we consume informs the ways that we want, the things that we want.

[00:00:49] Lucy: That's incredibly succinct because the next thing I was gonna say is that I actually found it really hard to sort of plan what I was gonna ask you about simply because of the breadth of the book. And, and you know, and I think that is, that is testament to like your approach and the thoroughness of like what you obviously intended to cover and have covered.

[00:01:12] But it's also a product of the like myriad influences on our food, which obviously we will talk a bit more about. I sort of wanted to ask you like. Where did you draw the line? Like maybe let's approach it backwards, like what wasn't in it?

[00:01:28] Ruby: Okay. Well look, here's the thing. It started as such a different book.

[00:01:32] It started so different. So like I had these like highfalutin ideas about how this was gonna be kind of a history of human appetite. Like can you believe, I thought I had it in me to do that. So I was like doing research about the kind of. Evolutionary, biological and so on, underpinnings of like why we eat the things we eat.

[00:01:53] And I quickly realized that I was bored and also that I really did not have the qualifications to talk about like how we evolved our like particular dental structure. Like it was just never gonna work. And so I was kind of going around in circles with it for two years and then I kind of had to kind of really assess like, what do I wanna do here?

[00:02:14] What's interesting to me, like let's start over with what is driving me. And I realized the most interesting place to start was just simply, well, what am I eating now? What am I seeing online and how is it moving me? And once I kind of got to that, then I realized that what was the relevant thing within the book?

[00:02:33] And that was just kind of this all consuming modern food media and food culture and. Yeah. In essence, anything that is in the book is something that has in some way shaped the way that I eat. That's kind of the remit.

[00:02:47] Lucy: Hmm. Yeah. I, it's because you allude to this kind of, um, earlier incarnation of the book in this book, and I think there's, there's a reference to your writing about 3.5 billion year old microbial mats, which honestly, I, I believe you could make that interesting, but I, what was I to it?

[00:03:04] Like, I think that's the point. That wasn't the book you wanted to write.

[00:03:08] Ruby: No, I just, here's the thing I think I wanted it to be, and you know, this is the vanity of like people who wanna like, make anything. I wanted it to be timeless. Like I didn't want it. Here's the thing. Food trend cycles is so, so quick.

[00:03:23] You know, Dubai chocolate is in today, out, tomorrow, you name it. And I didn't wanna write a book that only spoke to this pinpoint moment in food culture and then was never relevant again. So that's why I kind of really wanted to take that long view. But you know, the problem with writing to all times is that you become truly relevant to no times, and I realize like better to actually grapple with modern food culture as it is over the last kind of 75 years or so.

[00:03:51] That's broadly the span of the book to grapple with it properly and to accept that like maybe this is just a portrait of a moment in time of how we got here and maybe a hundred years from now like. These food moments won't be relevant anymore, but hopefully I've dug down enough into them to expose like what's the human mechanisms, the human drives that cause this to happen in the first place?

[00:04:15] And that's where you find your moments of connections through time.

[00:04:18] Lucy: Hmm. That's so interesting that that felt like a little bit of a conflict for you to write about these very like hyper time specific things. 'cause I actually, I mean that is for me, one of the book's Greatest Strengths because I think it is such a specific era that we are living through in terms of the almost like constant bombardment of information and media from like all different forms.

[00:04:41] It's, it's never been more accessible, both the information and the influence and actually like maybe in a hundred years. That won't be relevant anymore, but it, what you've written in here will tell us. So tell those people so much about this particular time. So yeah, it's not timeless, but it is timely.

[00:04:59] Ruby: Yeah, I hope so. And actually, do you know like in terms of like it being a time capsule, like telling people, you know, what was going on here and now There was this like one book that I kind of read during my research and it was called the British at Table and it was kind of written in the early eighties.

[00:05:14] It was by Christopher Driver and he was saying, well look, compare what food was like in the forties to now like, can you believe it? We've got vegetarians now we have this now, we have that now. And I was reading it like, wow, this is all so fucking dated. It was fascinating to see what did eighties food culture, you know, the decade that the term foodie was invented look like from within it in that really, really kind of pivotal moment.

[00:05:40] And so I kind of wanted to transpose that to here and now and say, what the fuck is going on? Because everything seems to be happening all at once.

[00:05:47] Lucy: Yeah, absolutely. All right. I wanna zoom out for a little for a second. Yes. Um, I guess for anyone who hasn't read it and just give like a small, so the book is essentially, there is a, you know, a kind of continuing narrative thread that runs throughout it, but it is in essence kind of a series of interconnected essays.

[00:06:05] And they are, you know, we begin with mob, the online kind of recipe purveyor platform, and we get into newspaper supplements, all recipes, Keith Lee Bubble Tea, Nara Smith. I mean, I feel like, again, like if the, the author that wrote the book that you were talking about heard this list of things, he would've just been like.

[00:06:27] What exactly, and that is, yeah, it is fascinating. I guess I'm interested in where this particular iteration of the book mm-hmm. Originated because, you know, you are somebody who's, who's worked in food for a long time and people are familiar with your, with like many iterations of your work, whether it's recipe writing strictly or narrative food writing, or television work, radio work.

[00:06:51] What was it that drove you to want to understand this particular element of food culture in this form?

[00:06:57] Ruby: I think the kind of, for as long as I've been doing kind of work within food media as an entity, if you wanna call it that, I've kind of had like a slight ambivalence towards it. Like even when I was writing recipes, I was like, do we really need more of these?

[00:07:14] Like, I certainly, like in a world of like a hundred thousands, like carrot cake recipes more even I know that I'm not gonna come up with one that's a meaningful contribution to the cannon. So like, what am I doing here? And I think, you know, that ambivalence has always been there, but in recent years I've been particularly like, well, hold on, what's this all about?

[00:07:34] Like. It is. Not that I've been disillusioned with it at all, but it's been, I've been wanting to take half a step back and rather than constantly kind of producing content within the kind of content machine to ask, well, why is so much content being produced? You know, it's just a tiny half step back.

[00:07:54] Because I wanted to understand what food and media is now and how we've got to a point where, you know, I can open Instagram or I can step out on the street, whatever, and see a million kind of little bits of content adverts, like reels, you name it for hyper niche foods and like this was not always the case.

[00:08:13] We're so used to this, we're so used to food being a topic of conversation, you know, at the pub or whatever, but it's not always been this way. And I wanted to get to the bottom of why and what's interesting about this kind of foods deluge and you know, how can we make sense of it despite the sheer volume of information.

[00:08:33] Lucy: Do you feel like. In, in sort of the outcome of, of finishing the book and now it's, you know, it's going out into the world and I guess at that point it kind of leaves your hands to a certain extent. Do you feel like you have understood that? Do you feel like you're closer towards it? Uh,

[00:08:52] Ruby: I, I mean, yes and no. Yes and no, because every time you think you've got to the bottom of like, the kind of chaos that is modern food culture, it throws you something new. So like, for example, like I kind of, I did this chapter about like Nara Smith and kind of the. Right wing rhetoric and when it comes to like cooking for the home, and you know how people have tried to disentangle that from that rhetoric over time and so on.

[00:09:21] And I was like, okay, I feel like I've got to grips with a little bit of like the lineage of this from magazines through to Instagram. Like that's nice. I've digested that. And then gradually online I saw this kind of new thing happening, which I still not exactly wrapped my head around, but it's like the creep of a kind of right wing, slightly reactionary.

[00:09:44] Mode set of people rhetoric into like restaurant writing and restaurant recommendations. I'm like, fuck another one. This is whack-a-mole, like cultural, whack-a-mole. Like how do I keep up with all of this? But you know, I think there are things, the individual examples keep on regenerating and it's hard to keep up with.

[00:10:04] However, definitely what I found was like there are through lines, there always are. And so, you know, you look back for 50 years and you'll see that like there was a reactionary shift then, or whatever it is. So it's just about that zooming out.

[00:10:18] Lucy: Yeah. And I think it can be really hard to do that because like at the moment it sort of feels like we're constantly in an IMAX in the sense that like, it's just, it's this like almost 360.

[00:10:31] Like it's really hard to take yourself like, you know, I can open my phone and then it can be two hours later. Yes. And I'm like, what have I, who did that? Like who's trying to

[00:10:41] Ruby: sabotage me?

[00:10:43] Lucy: Yeah. But like, I think what's so, um, what I loved about the book is that you found the roots of this incredibly, like contemporary and digital like, uh, aspect or like, I don't really know how to describe that, but like that is how we consume almost everything now and, and it influences everything.

[00:11:03] Even physical media, like cookbooks mm-hmm. Are, you know, kind of, they're being informed by this, like infinite scroll essentially. But one of the chapters I love the most in all consuming was the one about supplements. Oh yeah. And how, and how that really, um, and I, and I think it's such a, and perhaps like, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but it feels like such a specifically British mm-hmm.

[00:11:24] Like element of, I guess, media history. What point was it that you realized that supplements were so important? Because obviously, you know, we've, we've had food magazines as well, and you do talk about those, but the supplements, especially in the writers that came through them. Yeah. When did you realize that was such an important part of the story?

[00:11:43] Ruby: I think. Because I've been like a fan of like Jane Griggs in's writing for a while. Like she's just like, great. And she's just like a weird nerd in a really lyrical way. And I think that's fantastic. But I think I knew I wanted to write about the newspaper supplements, or at least I wanted to write about her work in the supplements.

[00:12:01] But the more I dug into it, the more I realized like that the stuff she was writing about was incredibly niche. Hmm. And so I kind of started looking back at like, well, hold on. Where did this institution even come from? Why the why even was there a supplement? And that's when the kind of picture began to emerge that, you know, mid sixties, late sixties, these broadsheets start publishing color supplements mainly to sell ad space.

[00:12:24] Nothing more romantic than that. But they needed content to go alongside the ads. And so they were like, well, I guess we can do like cars, holidays, I don't know, advice columns and some recipes. And obviously they're still doing this formula now. It's like genuinely not changed at all. Yeah. But. What you see over the first kind of two-ish decades of, of that is like essentially food, hyper niche food stuff.

[00:12:51] You know, Jane Griggs was writing about Tripes. She was writing about like many uses for prunes. You know, she was just like going in and writing these wonderful essays about foods and then like quite esoteric recipes for them. That food content was going into millions of homes of people who were not even food people particularly.

[00:13:09] Mm-hmm. They were just people who wanted a Sunday paper and that broke a wall really. So you no longer had to be like a Gorman. You no longer had to subscribe to a food magazine or particularly follow it with any great interest. It came to you. And so that's when you see like foodie culture in the UK really like become mainstream in a far, far bigger way.

[00:13:30] Bigger than like Elizabeth David writing cookbooks for people who wanted to buy cookbooks. So this was for everybody.

[00:13:37] Lucy: Yeah. I, yeah, I find that so interesting because I think. I have probably been guilty in the past of maybe seeing Jane Sson and Elizabeth David through this kind of lens of, I guess how, which is how I've experienced them, which is people talking about like how it was.

[00:13:53] How it influenced their mom at home. And it, and it kind of, that kind of taps into an element of food culture that I just kind of find quite boring and cozy. Yeah. Um, 'cause 'cause you're like, you know, I grew up in a household that loved food, but that wasn't my experience and that wasn't the books that were around.

[00:14:09] Yeah. And I just don't relate to it at all really. But actually, like, sort of seeing your perspective on Jane g Gregson, you know, who I have read now as an adult and appreciated a lot, but really made me sort of like try and pull myself out of that because, and, and I think that's a really interesting, I've got like, really second guess my response about that because I think it's almost this like, people love to call it like reverse snobbery, like the idea of demonizing like, I dunno, intellectual middle classes or an approach to something that feels like anti popularist or whatever.

[00:14:41] Do you know what I mean? But it was, it's really interesting to see it from, from that angle and yeah, I loved it. I really appreciate, but

[00:14:48] Ruby: I, I felt the same way about her and I think I even said it publicly. Maybe I'm even getting her confused with someone else. I don't know. I can't remember. It can't be expected to remember every stupid thing I've said in my life, but I think at one point I said publicly, like, oh, I've never read Jane g Gregson.

[00:15:02] Why would I, I think I said that. Or maybe it was Elizabeth David and I remember people quite upset about it. They were like, who do you think you are writing recipes if you've not read Jane g Gregson? I was like, I'm getting on fine. And so, you know. Right. Part of me feels the same as you did as well. Yeah.

[00:15:18] Which is just like,

[00:15:19] Lucy: and that response says so much. Yeah. About like permission and like gatekeeping and who's allowed to like be authority. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But

[00:15:27] Ruby: I mean, yeah, I think, here's the thing, I, I now love her writing. I think she's fantastic. But I also still do kind of prickle a little bit at this idea that you have to be literate in the foods writing canon in order to have any meaningful contribution in food culture.

[00:15:43] Like I think, right. You know, especially in the age of kind of, you know, food images really having more weight than words and video and all of this stuff. Like you really do not have to consult with it on those terms.

[00:15:57] Lucy: I agree. But then for me, there's also this other kind of like parallel road that has emerged that I have like real issue with, which absolutely.

[00:16:06] I feel like comes up, sort of, sort of pops its head up throughout your book, which is the idea of the expert. Mm-hmm. And kind of like anyone can be an authority and. Whether that's kind of qualified or not. How do you see that element of food culture like? Because for me, like I, I feel like so many social, most of the social media platforms that I frequent really rewards the idea of positioning yourself as an authority on something.

[00:16:35] Like there's not a lot of space for fence sitting. Yeah. It's very much like, here's the restaurants you should go to. Here's the what you should make for dinner. Here's the best version of this. Was that something you felt like you were grappling with in the research for this book?

[00:16:49] Ruby: Oh, certainly. I feel like not all, but a lot of the chapters in the book deal with one way or in one way or another with this question of, well, who gets to.

[00:16:59] Be an expert or even just to kind of be a creator, have a voice within food media, because it used to be a very clear division. Either you were writing a recipe for a magazine or you were not, that there was a consumer creator divide, but now you know, those boundaries are very porous and I think. Uh, there is good and bad within this obviously, so like, you know.

[00:17:24] Lucy: Yeah.

[00:17:24] Ruby: One thing that I like, so one of the chapters is about all recipes.com, which is just this insane treasure trove of like American Midwestern mainly recipes. And I think it's fantastic, you know, it was, it is slightly a relic now, but of the early internet where people genuinely felt, well, fuck, I can participate, I can create this culture that I'm reading about.

[00:17:46] I can be part of this. Uploading their own recipes. Many of them were terrible, but like what fucking difference does it make? Like it became a crowdsourced cookie book of hundreds of thousands of recipes essentially. And so I see that and I'm like, this is wonderful. And you know, there were certain factions of food media at the time in the kind of.

[00:18:05] Two thousands who were really upset about this kind of insurgent, like crowdsourced, democratically created like food media. So I would fall on the side of that being positive. But then on the other side, of course you've got the drive to sell individual pieces of content I think really flattens things.

[00:18:27] And I actually think it's that drive even more than who is saying it. That is the worst thing because like for me, this is like one thing I talk about in the book is, well, what happens to a recipe once it. Leaves the comfort and the cloisters of a cookbook and goes onto the internet to fend for itself.

[00:18:43] Right? And the fact is that once that happens, the recipe is no longer sold on like the authority of its maker or like the cookbook as an object. It is fending for itself on its own terms. So it has to be the best, it has to be the goo ist. It has to be the most original or the most craveable. The picture has to do the most and so on.

[00:19:03] And that tendency, I think even more than whoever is creating the recipe, is what's flattening things into this really like kind of lazy, clickable kind of way that food media has tended for a little while.

[00:19:17] Lucy: Yeah, for sure. And I think, you know, you talk about this. Yeah. I really loved how you put it. I think there was, there was something about like, it, it no longer becomes, it's about marketing, it's about branding, it's about the cult of personality.

[00:19:30] Mm-hmm. And one of the examples you use, which was something that had already come into my mind when I was thinking about this book, was the, the Allison Roman stew. Yeah. And the idea, the stew, this is essentially just like a light, A light China masala. Yes. Um, rebranded. And it's, it is just fascinating.

[00:19:48] These kind of, the virality of recipes like that when on the surface of it then, like what is this recipe compared to something else? Like it's arbitrary. Yeah. It's arbitrary what becomes popular and, and what doesn't. And. Yeah, there's all these other elements at play. Like when you interview Ben Leba from MOB and you ask him why he thinks the popularity of their Gotti Chang sausage rigatoni mm-hmm.

[00:20:12] Or whatever it is, has got. And he's just like, it's orange. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:20:16] Ruby: Genuinely that's, and that's a, and he's right. I did like these Pantone swatches where it's not pan, it's not actually Pantone, but I did this kind of thing online where I screenshotted a bunch of mob like recipe roundups, and I like put them through this thing that was like, give me a palette based on this.

[00:20:30] It was not a chat GPT thing. I need to be very clear on that. But it just like generated me a color palette based on an image. And you know, the color palette was like. Deep umber colors and reds and sunset orange and all of this. And it was just like all the colors you would expect from like a pizza or something like that.

[00:20:49] It was craveable colors. It wasn't like a wash of green or anything, or brown, you know? So it is interesting.

[00:20:56] Lucy: And that's really, that's so interesting because I think like I, I'm actually almost really surprised how honest he was about that because it almost feels like something that the secrets of like the sixties men would've hidden from us, even though it's not really like, it's not really like.

[00:21:10] Malignant in any way. It's just an interesting like insight into kind of the machine behind I guess some of this. Well, I

[00:21:18] Ruby: think perhaps what, what MOB does very, very, very well and it's, you know, so many recipe developers are in more involved in MOB and they do all have different styles. So I don't wanna like say this just one thing, but what they're excellent at is marketing a recipe that is, that is the thing.

[00:21:34] It's like, what adjectives are we gonna affix to this? How are we gonna film this video? Like what textures are we gonna like market it as having and so on. Even down to the color, as you said. So, you know, it is no longer enough to develop a recipe. It's not, it used to be enough to write a recipe. Then there was the kind of OT shift where you had to kind of develop a new recipe and now you have to write, develop, and market a recipe.

[00:21:57] So, yeah.

[00:21:59] Lucy: Yeah. What you said about recipe writers and now recipe developers. I like, I just, it absolutely blew my mind. 'cause I was just like, I, it's never occurred to me. In this, I guess like conscious years of my life that like, that was not previously the job. No.

[00:22:16] Ruby: You'd used to just like, you know, not to be like back in the old days, but back in the old days you used to write a recipe.

[00:22:24] You used to, you know, kind of dig around, compare a few sources. Perhaps you'd, maybe you'd use a family recipe or one that you'd kind of perfected or whatever. But like you were not making up new recipes to sell. You were finding, if not the best, then the most practical or the quickest way of making an existing thing.

[00:22:42] Lucy: Or even just how you did it. Yeah,

[00:22:44] Ruby: yeah. There you go. You know,

[00:22:45] Lucy: like the, kind of like the, the voice and the personality I think in, in sort of modern history of recipe writing has been important. Mm-hmm. Like there's a reason why people name check, like Jane g Gregson, Nigel Slater. Yeah. Elizabeth David, because like the person is important, the lifestyle that has kind of long been a bit of a thing wrapped up in it, right?

[00:23:05] Yeah,

[00:23:05] Ruby: definitely. Definitely. And so, you know, as you say, like someone's personality would be wrapped up in the recipe, that would, some of their authority would be imparted onto the recipe and no, that's why you made it. Like, I trust, you know, I don't often cook from my cookbooks, but there are certain times where I'm like, do you know what I want?

[00:23:25] Like an apple pie, or I want something like quite comforting and just like something that feels a tiny bit monastic. And that's when I go to Nigel Slater, like that's that, like, he has like a very specific function in my culinary life. And, you know, I, I like that. I like that element of connection you can have with a writer's tastes, but of course that happens slightly less online.

[00:23:49] Lucy: Yeah, it does. Why, why do you think you don't often cook from your cookbooks?

[00:23:55] Ruby: Oh, I mean. At this point, they have this, this role in my life. Like I'm surrounded by them. Like I'm just sat here in the front room and there are just like cookbooks on every surface. And I guess I see them partly as. Objects in a way that like, you know, I know it feels very obvious to call them objects, but I think now that we have so many recipes that are not objects, you know, that physicality has taken on a new resonance.

[00:24:24] But also it's just the fact that like a lot of the time I just Google something, I Google something, and once you have. Kind of opens that portal into searching, not just for like a lasagna recipe, but the best one. Then it is really hard to go back. 'cause you know, I'll like open one of these cookbooks.

[00:24:41] I'm like, yeah, this looks like a fantastic recipe, but I bet I can do better.

[00:24:44] Lucy: Is it the best? Exactly. What makes

[00:24:45] Ruby: me think I deserve the best? I don't know. And it probably even isn't the best. So who knows?

[00:24:52] Lucy: I, I mean, I asked because like, I, I have a very similar relationship to my cookbooks. I, I actually do, I am trying to make a conscious effort and there are like, there are books that I use again and again, like.

[00:25:02] Mirror sodas, books. Yeah. Fantastic. I will use them weekly. Like I love them so much and it's, but actually, I mean, some, a lot of her recipes are also available online, so it is interesting then that it's almost like to like sanctify my relationship mm-hmm. With her recipes. I use the physical book, but it's also like, yeah.

[00:25:20] As you're saying, the ability to search and like have this incredibly granular, like, okay, I have an bergin, some celery and some goats cheese in my fridge. What can I make that uses those three exact ingredients? Yeah. And instead of like using my brain and being like, okay, well I could make this and I could like sob this in.

[00:25:39] I need a recipe that tells me how to use those exact three ingredients.

[00:25:42] Ruby: I think there's an amount of anxiety in it. Right. I, I, I actually do think that, you know, maybe this is like overreaching and so I don't wanna like put it in too, like strong terms, but I think that this is, I think we are increasingly anxious as cooks and, mm-hmm.

[00:26:02] I think the. Granularity of internet recipes, the ability to search for any like solution that you want, like the ability to find any tutorial in exact detail on YouTube that you want. I think it is partly, you know, it, it is a wonderful way to address that anxiety and to kind of find a fix, but I think it's also part of the source of that anxiety like, mm.

[00:26:25] It, it makes sometimes the abundance of food knowledge out there makes you feel like there is one particular way to do things. You know, even the idea that there could be a best brownie recipe as like the first page of Google will, you know, tell you with like absolute force. Like of course there's not, you know, these recipes have to sell themselves and it kind of creates a little bit of anxiety in us in turn.

[00:26:48] Lucy: Yeah. That I think that you're sort of characterizing that as anxiety is, is very, yeah. That feels very on the nose for me. And I just dunno where that pressure comes from because who cares what you are eating at home? My nan

[00:27:01] Ruby: like if she has leftovers, she's not like looking like she's not putting into church GPT, like fucking like how to use half a pepper, tell you what she's doing.

[00:27:08] Yeah. Every time without fail I can put money on it. She's making a fucking soup out of that stuff. She's putting it in a pan right with some stock and she's blending it into a soup day in, day out. And I think there is elegance in that and I absolutely.

[00:27:22] Lucy: Yeah. Like I, you know, like eating leftovers at my parents' house is like, you eat the leftover, you eat whatever's left.

[00:27:28] Yes. And doesn't, there doesn't need to be a coherence to that meal. It's like you are eating leftovers and I sort of can't bring myself to do that. Yeah.

[00:27:36] Ruby: This is it. Well, do you know what it is? It is partly this, there's this, I actually have the book here. It's this, um, it's paradox of plenty. Like Harvey Levinstein wrote a book about this like a while back.

[00:27:46] You know, the more food knowledge you have, the more options you have, the more choice, the kind of more you're like, oh fuck, what do I, what do I actually do with all of this?

[00:27:56] Lucy: Yeah. Right. Yeah.

[00:27:58] Ruby: So it becomes a kind of choice paralysis style thing

[00:28:01] Lucy: that's useful. Makes me feel somewhat better. Maybe this is slightly coming back to something we were already talking about, but I thought it was so interesting.

[00:28:10] You quote Claudia Rodin in one of the chapters, I can't remember which one, talking about regional food and that she found, I mean this and this must have been, you know. Several, like one, a couple if not several decades ago, that there was basically no regional British food because everybody was cooking the same recipes.

[00:28:33] In your research for this book, have you, would you find, would you find that you agree with that or from this like absolute like mad flattening of everything? Are there the like little shoots of regional tastes and habits?

[00:28:50] Ruby: I mean, I think so. Basically like when she, this was the late eighties, I think that she kind of found this and she was meant to be writing some series on British Cookery for the Telegraph or something like that.

[00:29:01] Lucy: Yeah.

[00:29:01] Ruby: And basically some people were dispatched to do some research and they came back to it and they were like. Um, everyone's just cooking from the supplements. Like they're all cooking Jane Gregson recipes or they're all cooking like Margaret Costa recipes or whatever it was. And so by that point, even, you know, with the supplements, as I was saying, like it's kind of really been rolled out on a nationwide scale.

[00:29:22] Obviously the internet has like wildly sp that up. So we are seeing a flattening and I think mainly for this book, like that's what I was looking at. I was looking at the big forces, the things that kind of steam roller, like everything else, and to kind of have this incredible reach and this, um, ability to, to kind of connect people along the lines of appetites, but across demographic and geographical and all of these lines.

[00:29:49] Mm-hmm. Um, but I think there remain kind of pockets of regional food cultural, although increasingly they are. It's funny, like the best regional food culture I think in the UK is like all fast foods. You know, there's different ways of doing chips or pies and stuff like this in a way that I think is nice.

[00:30:08] It's like the last vestige of that. But

[00:30:11] Lucy: yeah, I, I just got the, um, were you on Binley, mega chippy TikTok?

[00:30:16] Ruby: No, it wasn't. No, I've not seen this.

[00:30:20] Lucy: There was, yeah, it was a, uh, a, a short-lived phenomenon. There was a song about Benley, mega chippy, and I find myself singing Oh, fantastic. Singing it quite regularly.

[00:30:28] Yeah. And I guess kind of as an extension from that, you know, you, you sort of, um, not caveat, but you come, you know, you make it very clear in the intro to the book that you are coming to this book and this topic as somebody who lives in England, in Britain, and you have written for both UK and US based food media.

[00:30:50] But like your perspective is somebody who lives there and the book kind of does cover. You know, there is like this global outlook that you mentioned with the kind of like this flattening of culture that we talk about in the internet. You know, there's content available for from everywhere in a way that it never has been before.

[00:31:06] But in terms of sort of the US and the UK specifically, are there some really key differences that you've noticed in how taste is influenced?

[00:31:18] Ruby: I think that a lot of the big differences between the US and the UK are honestly about just the structure of mainstream media and, and the way that that works. I think, I can't speak to the intricacies of like media in the US but certainly in the uk you know, you know this, I know this like it is like.

[00:31:42] A calcified like rotten like terrible little system and

[00:31:47] Lucy: yeah. You

[00:31:48] Ruby: know,

[00:31:48] Lucy: it's getting worse probably because they have less public. Exactly.

[00:31:51] Ruby: Exactly. It's getting poor, it's, you know, like a kind of country estate owned by incredibly rich aristocrats that's just like going to the dogs because none of them actually have any money anymore.

[00:32:01] Like it's that kind of vibe. Um, yep, yep, yep, yep. And you know, that's really where it's like the newspaper supplements, right? That's where so much of our food culture was kind of formed within these specific media bubbles. And so even now, like why is one of our, I'm sure is a nice man, but why is one of our main restaurant critics like this, the Queen's son?

[00:32:22] Like this is where we're at. So,

[00:32:25] Lucy: yeah.

[00:32:25] Ruby: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I think that certainly sets the tone. I think a lot's been said about the difference between like British and American restaurant criticism, the kind of rigor that goes into the latter. And the former is more of a. Chit chatty personality led thing.

[00:32:41] So there's differences there for sure. But I also think that in terms of the way that information flows and trends flow, you know, the internet really has changed a lot of that because substack, you know, I follow various American substack. I know that there are, then there are recipe platforms like MOB that I know are kind of finding roots into the us.

[00:33:03] I've had like, people ask me like, who are these mob guys? Like what, what's going on here? So there's a lot of inter like, cross contamination. So, um, but yeah, it's, it's interesting. Definitely the differences are less Mark. But what I would say actually, I think importantly is the Britain, whilst it has had like quite a significant embedded like food media culture in the newspapers for a long time, it has not, unlike America had legacy food publications like Gourmet.

[00:33:35] Yeah. It hasn't had that. And so I think there's kind of a tension here where we really think we have it sorted because we had Elizabeth David like 75 years ago or whatever, but actually we've not had that attention to detail that the Americans have had. So it is, it is interesting the way that things are starting to level out a little now.

[00:33:53] Lucy: That's so true. And I think that's really contributed to not seeing food as a, something to be taken seriously as part of culture. It's, you know, food is in the lifestyle section. Yes. It's, it's kind of like habit. It's entertainment. It's not something to be documented for. And I think it's only very recently that in mainstream.

[00:34:16] Like food culture, we've seen a little bit more of that. But even then from kind of the other angle of it, like all recipes like would never exist in the uk. Mm-hmm. And you know, there were various reasons for that. I think the size of the country and the regional differences that, you know, palpable does contribute to that.

[00:34:33] But I, yeah, it all recipes feels like such an American institution. Yeah. And I've been kind of racking my brains about why that would never exist in the uk, but I think it's almost like a self gatekeeping, like I can't see a recipe forum existing in that way where people were like excited to contribute and feeling like they had permission to document their recipes in that way.

[00:34:58] I don't know, maybe. Maybe that's an overreach. No, I

[00:35:00] Ruby: think, I think there's something to that and I think. I think that we would be, in general, in general, slightly more nervous about putting our name to a recipe and saying, everyone loves my cookie recipe. Yeah, I think we'd be more nervous about that, but I think I agree.

[00:35:19] Fortunately, unfortunately, I don't know, like now that we've gotten to like. Instagram recipe production like in full swing.

[00:35:29] Lucy: Yeah.

[00:35:30] Ruby: You, you do have more people like having the confidence to share their recipes, which I think is lovely, but the downside is, yeah, they're doing it in their capacity is like semi-professional monetized, like whether it's Substack, whether it's YouTube, you name it, everyone's like having a go at it.

[00:35:44] I think it's a good thing, but it doesn't feel completely just in the spirit of all recipes, which was like for no discernible benefit beyond your own kind of pride and contribution.

[00:35:54] Lucy: Yeah, I, I really agree with that. And that's been sort of the major shift in a. Online culture in general, you know, from, you know, I came of age in like the golden era of fashion blogs

[00:36:06] Ruby: when I was a boy.

[00:36:08] Lucy: When I, and like, you know, that wouldn't have been to see like a paid partnership on like a naughty fashion blog or like even, you know, the uh, the sort of my earliest kind of interaction with, I guess digital food culture was reading like cheese and biscuits. Yeah. Or hollow legs and that, and it was primarily restaurant reviews.

[00:36:25] 'cause I wasn't really interested in recipes then. And like, it was just for fun. And I understand why we're all trying to monetize everything now, but it really changes the tone. It does

[00:36:35] Ruby: of it. It really does. Yeah. I think, I feel like that's part of the demise of, and you know, this actually ties into even the shift from Instagram to TikTok, you know, every time the platform changes, so does the media and so does the foods like right, because you have the demise of kind of, not completely, but certainly often of authority and the rise of.

[00:36:59] Something a little shallower and more, um, direct about the food itself on Instagram a lot of the time, or even go back to the blogging days, if you were getting restaurant recommendations from there, it's 'cause you followed someone like hollow legs, let's say. Right? You follow this and you trust their judgment well enough, and you go to these restaurants once Instagram came along, like you may be following someone's account, maybe they've got cult, cult of personality, whatever you are taking them at their word for things on TikTok, a restaurant can blow up without the person having a following in any meaningful way because the way the algorithm is configured is to reward the individual piece of content rather than to reward the following of whoever posted it.

[00:37:43] And that is the game changer for all of this because it means that content can float free of authority and all of that. So it really, really changes the way that taste moves.

[00:37:54] Lucy: Yeah, that's so true. I was trying to explain TikTok to someone who'd never really been on it the other day, and I was just like, it's different from everything you've ever experienced.

[00:38:06] And, and you know, like that's the thing. Like Keith Lee who you write about in great depth and, and detail in the book, Keith Lee would've never blown up on Instagram. And it's really hard to understand why that's the case. But yeah, I think that's, so, that's so like nail on the head to how you've put it about it rewards the piece of content.

[00:38:26] Mm-hmm. Not necessarily the person building a following. Yeah. When did you first encounter Keith Lee?

[00:38:33] Ruby: Oof. It was, it was a couple of years, maybe like three years ago, two, three years ago. And someone had recommended one of the videos or was like. Talking about it at a dinner or out something or other. In any case, I was fascinated because, you know, he was this restaurant critic, perhaps critic.

[00:38:53] Critic isn't the right word, but we can get into that. But certainly like someone who made a lot of content recommending or not recommending restaurants, and he was huge, like millions and millions of followers. Every video blowing up and. He was intensely likable. Like I came to this video, primed to hate him 'cause I was used to like British restaurant blower uppers, you know, I was like, this guy's gonna really piss me off.

[00:39:18] And so I was excited about watching some of his stuff. Um, but no, he is, he's fantastic. He's very likable man. He's very likable.

[00:39:27] Lucy: Yeah. And

[00:39:28] Ruby: um, what I found fascinating about him, 'cause I didn't understand like the full context of him to start with, so I was kind of watching his videos and I kind of felt like, here is this guy who is so of TikTok and of Instagram reels.

[00:39:43] It is really hard to imagine anyone like him ever existing before. But you know, as is like very much the spirit of this book, I didn't want to believe and I knew that I shouldn't believe that everything is just like crazy new and unprecedented. There's always a root of something elsewhere in the culture.

[00:40:01] And so I dug back and then I found that. Like Keith Lee, who is just a guy who knows very little about food but goes around in his car and likes to get his wife nice things to eat and like has accrued a huge following as a self-made like kind of expert. Like he has precedent like back in the forties, fifties, restaurant guidebook, writers like Duncan Hines, like Victor Hugo Green, like these were guys with those exact same credentials.

[00:40:30] Just every man critics giving common sense recommendations for restaurants across America. And you know, seeing that symmetry across ages in despite the fact that one of them, I've even got one of the books here, I'm gonna show you actually. Mm-hmm. Like this is my very precious copy of adventures in Good Eating.

[00:40:49] Oh my God. And very precious to me. But you know, this, this was it. This was the Keith Lee, this was the, the document for any American who wanted to avoid being like food poisoned or, you know, scammed. And that's what Keith Lee does now

[00:41:05] Lucy: in that chapter. The kind of unpacking that you do have that, and then the highlighting of the fact that Duncan Hines was writing in segregation era.

[00:41:16] Yeah. America. And like that's, you know, it's absolutely mind blowing. I can't remember what the exact, um, note, but basically it was like there's, there were very few restaurants in his book that. Black families or you know, like a black person traveling could have felt safe. Yeah. Entering and, and you know, then you highlight the work of Victor Hugo Green, who was a black writer doing equivalent work kind of too.

[00:41:40] I mean, the, the, you talk about his collaboration with so garages and collaboration, that's a very modern term for it. That was how kind of he disseminated a lot of Yeah. Spunk on, I mean, it was, it really was. It was,

[00:41:54] Ruby: but yeah, they, they filled in that. I thought that was fascinating that these two guys, I'm pretty sure I'm so bad at dates, but it's is in the book at some point.

[00:42:02] But the date, I think the Duncan Hines first printed everything together as a guide. It was in the like late thirties. It was the same date that. You know, Victor Hugo Green started doing his guide and both of these guides ran side by side in completely different worlds. One speaking to white middle class Americans, the other, speaking to black Americans for what, 25 years ish.

[00:42:26] They're running in parallel. It's wild. I know. And I think it's just so fascinating that there's almost no overlap between the restaurants in each guide. None. You know, that speaks to the state of America at the time, and then you flash forward to now, and the most powerful restaurant critic in America is this young black guy called Keith Lee.

[00:42:46] And you know, these two people in different ways are his kind of like culinary food media ancestors. Mm.

[00:42:55] Lucy: Yeah. It was such an interesting idea of the lineage. I love that. And also that for me was another like real contrast with. Food criticism and, and spheres of influence in the UK versus the US because, you know, as, as you point out, there's basically no full-time black food critics in the UK now.

[00:43:14] Uh, in fact, I think, I think maybe like, to paraphrase how you described it, there's more food critics that went to eat than there are like food writers of color more broadly. Like let alone Yeah. Black food, black food critics. If that's

[00:43:27] Ruby: not like strictly true, then it's certainly spiritually true. It's true

[00:43:30] Lucy: in vibe.

[00:43:32] Ruby: I think it is strictly true though. That's the thing. I did do some maths on this, but we'll see

[00:43:38] Lucy: the Nara Smith chapter where it becomes, we sort of turn from the outside world. Mm-hmm. Maybe more sort of the kind of idea of restaurant and food and how like the outside world is influencing the, the Nourish Smith phenomenon of kind of like.

[00:43:55] Ified domesticity. It feels so in, so in some ways regressive, and yet it is so of this time. Mm-hmm. And, and I love that you never come to a conclusion over whether NARA Smith is sort of knowing about what she does or whether like it is, there is an irony there. Like it's not clear at all, which is really unusual to like not have that clarity.

[00:44:17] Ruby: Yeah, I mean, I just, I didn't want to, um, here's the thing. It'd be the easiest thing in the world to like Moralize about Nara Smith. But at the end of the day, I think the more interesting thing to do is to ask, well, why are we reacting in this way towards her in the first place? Like that's where like the meat is, I think, what are we feeling in, you know, different people feel different things, but what's the root of all of that?

[00:44:41] Lucy: And, and the root of that is so interesting. I mean, you get into kind of the idea of household advice and the history of, of, you know, published literature in that. World and that it's all kind of a facade. You know, like Martha Stewart's books about like who is Martha Stewart talking to? Was anybody calling Martha Stewart out for being like a fake tread work?

[00:45:06] Ruby: No. I feel like everyone has always acknowledged Martha as just like a camp icon, which I think eventually will happen to, to Nara Smith to Nara. But

[00:45:15] Lucy: yeah,

[00:45:16] Ruby: I think what inspired that cha actually, 'cause I almost didn't write it and I was like, do you know what, like this interesting, I don't wanna go for low hanging fruit with Nara Smith.

[00:45:25] This feels like, you know, is also, she's very young. I dunno, I, I kind of, I have a degree of like, compassion for her. I, I think that she's an interesting character, but. I think what made me write it was that I realized that what people were reacting to in part was this cooking content that was explicitly about the home, explicitly about it.

[00:45:47] Mm. And there is so much food stuff that's about food as a cultural object, food as lifestyle thing, food as, you know, like craft, um, science, like the serious Eats vibe, like all of that. Mm-hmm. But very, very few people, few cookbooks these days engage with food as something that happens in a home, in millions of homes every single day.

[00:46:10] Just as part of like, keeping the kids alive or, you know, just like keeping things ticking over. And I wanted to explore that kind of, where did that split happen between cooking as part of homemaking and cooking as like cooking, chefing, all of that. Like, because at some point the food literature split and that's why I wanted to look at Yeah.

[00:46:34] Lucy: There's such an irony in that when given like visibility of homes mm-hmm. Like, you know, I can open any social media platform, whether it's YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and like I will see 20 strangers homes within 20. 'cause that's where it's happening. And the home has become this set for the content that we're consuming.

[00:46:56] And yet there's no interrogation of that.

[00:46:59] Ruby: You're right. But even recently, like, so one thing, uh, vittles did a project recently actually, which I thought was, at first I was like, oh, this doesn't feel VITs. And then I was like, hold on. It is and it should be like this. Uh, cooking, children. Cooking. Cooking with kids, cooking for kids.

[00:47:14] Yeah, I knew that's what you

[00:47:15] Lucy: were gonna say. Yeah. And I was like,

[00:47:15] Ruby: hold on. Like of course, this is so much of what cooking is for so many people. You know, why are we not talking? You know, I say we, I just mean like food media kind of hacks. Why are we not talking about this more? Is 'cause it feels a little bit uncool to admit that sometimes, like people just have to be fed.

[00:47:35] But, you know, this is part of it.

[00:47:37] Lucy: But isn't it fascinating that it feels like a departure? Mm-hmm. And I think that speaks so much so that we don't consider anything sort of relating to children or child rearing or whatever, family making. We don't consider it like worthy of like critique or documentation or like, I dunno, research and, and I think some of that is like plain good old maoism.

[00:48:01] Yeah,

[00:48:01] Ruby: for sure.

[00:48:02] Lucy: But I also, yeah, I think there's more to it and I agree. I thought it was such a, an amazing series and I, I, you know, as a person that doesn't have children, I got so much out of it. And I think that's the thing, like, why would I not? Yeah. But yeah, on the surface of it, I think there's often a nervousness around audience, and that's like a big element of this type of food culture that you are always, the audience is always in mind.

[00:48:25] Mm-hmm. Like what do the people want? And this is something, you know, you obviously it comes up time and time again in the book as well. Like it's, I think it's in, um, you try and get out of Ben LeBus from mob, what he actually likes and he can't really commit to it. And you're like, I think he's just spent so much time working out what other people like.

[00:48:42] Yeah.

[00:48:42] Ruby: Yeah.

[00:48:42] Lucy: And that's it. Like, that becomes so single, like the single focus. Of everything and that produces a very specific kind of content. I think it,

[00:48:51] Ruby: it really does it. I think it's really hard for food writers, podcasters, you know, TikTok makers to do what they do now. You know, you are in it alone. You probably don't have the backup of a major publication.

[00:49:05] And so it is that constant grasping for relevance and coolness and what you lose in that. It's just like, you know, the reasonably consistent, even timeless things of these are the things that most people like to eat most of the time, or these are the tips that will probably be evergreen about like how to reheat stuff with a microwave, you know?

[00:49:25] Lucy: Yeah, totally. Um, alright. I wanted to do like a little quick fire round Okay. At the end that I just need to work out how I send photos. Oh. Oh dear. No, that's not what I'm doing. Oh my god. Sorry. I think maybe the best way for me to do this is share my screen. I thought I could send a photo, but I can't.

[00:49:44] Ruby: There we go.

[00:49:45] Lucy: Right.

[00:49:46] Ruby: Okay. Oh, I've been wondering about this. So the, okay, so can you, can you describe what you can see? Okay. I actually need to get me one of these, the m and s red diamond strawberry and cream sandwich. Fantastic stuff. Did you eat this?

[00:50:04] Lucy: I did eat this. So I bought this at, uh, London Bridge Station and I ate it on a train.

[00:50:10] As you can see, the pictures it, of it on a train. So I'm, I'm kind of hoping that these four things I'm gonna show you, maybe speak to, like, I was trying to interrogate like the influence on my own appetite. Yes. And I think this is so interesting because this is, we are now existing in this era of like the brand response or like the kind of product response to the influence.

[00:50:28] And the products are now they're, we are now being served what brands think we want. Yeah,

[00:50:35] Ruby: yeah.

[00:50:36] Lucy: Based on the influences that everybody can access. And I think that's so. I think that's so fascinating. And this is obviously like the, the strawberry sandwich is a kind of a take by m and s on the Japanese fruit sandwich.

[00:50:49] Yeah. And it's, and yet it's not,

[00:50:52] Ruby: I mean, it looks, I, I'm gonna actually genuinely get one either today or tomorrow, because this has been kind of,

[00:50:58] Lucy: I look forward to your, to your, to your review. I feel like

[00:51:02] Ruby: there was this really interesting thing actually that came up during the research for the book where, like Claudia Rodin actually, she said that one of her, like biggest ways that she was able to exert some kind of influence on food culture wasn't through her cookbooks, but by being a consultant for the supermarkets.

[00:51:20] And I was like, oh wow, that is really where it's at. Like the supermarkets, whatever goes on there in terms of, you know, scouring the internet or the cookbooks for, like, ingredients that might be in vogue or kind of developing some new. Kind of ill-advised like sandwich combination or whatever like that is really what will inform so much of like how we eat Now.

[00:51:42] It's not romantic, but it is true.

[00:51:44] Lucy: Absolutely. But what I think is so interesting about that is that we, we would never hear about that. That's so opaque. Yes. To the general public. Yeah.

[00:51:52] Ruby: Well, I think like. What, what's interesting now is seeing that the things that spread, you know, semi organically online, like, you know, like the Japanese fruit sandwiches.

[00:52:03] I can just imagine some guy in a back office at m and s, you know, like loosening his tie bit sweaty after lunch, like clicking around like what the kids looking at these days, like what's going on here? And you know, he is like writing a email memo for, you know, rainbow bagels and strawberry and cream sandwiches.

[00:52:22] Like it, it's really interesting to see these trends like filter through the supermarket by which point

[00:52:28] Lucy: Yeah. You

[00:52:29] Ruby: know, that is saturation point and you know, there's no more consuming this stuff in a way that makes you feel special anymore.

[00:52:35] Lucy: Right. That's an interesting angle on it. Yes. Which there is an element to that, to the kind of, we, we are all obsessed with being the discoverers.

[00:52:43] Ruby: Like Will Otter Lei have the same heft, you know, over the next few years now that there is. Ot, like branded stuff in the supermarkets rather than just purchasable through the online store or wherever. Like I, I'm very curious to see that one play out. There's definitely like a inflection point where all of the cultural prestige that comes in eating a certain way evaporates.

[00:53:09] Once it gets middle aisle of Aldi, then you're fucked. That's it.

[00:53:15] Lucy: That's the cultural dust. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Number two. Um, I guess this is possibly a bit similar. Oh, I dunno. I've had this, was this something that you Yes. And you've had it. Okay. So I haven't eaten this, but this briefly on my FYP, well, not even briefly, for probably about three months was everywhere.

[00:53:33] So this is the Bullock Cream Carbonara Instant Noodles. Yes. Just fascinating. I, and I think I wanted to share this because it's so weird to crave a food you've never eaten.

[00:53:46] Ruby: I, I completely know what you mean. So I also was craving it for a while. So this like really took off during the pandemic, I think.

[00:53:53] Yes, that's right.

[00:53:54] Lucy: Yeah. Which makes sense, right? It does.

[00:53:56] Ruby: Yeah. And I think the fascinating thing about, it's obviously it rides a certain kind of interest in Korean culture and music and Yes. And food at the moment. So it's definitely coming in that ly

[00:54:08] Lucy: Yeah.

[00:54:08] Ruby: But also like. It's just like it. I mean, it does the thing that so many foods do today, which is like mash up two things that you already know what they taste like and you're like, whoa, I better taste like that.

[00:54:20] Good squared. Then like, this has to be exponential. So we've got like ramen ish and we've got carbonara and I cannot see how this would go wrong. What I would say is, having had it, it look, it's, it's fine. It's fine. I would. It's fine.

[00:54:41] Lucy: Yeah. That, that is my understanding. Having seen some more honest reviews after the gushing.

[00:54:45] Yes, the gushing ones initially, apparently it's very spicy, which I find it's unbelievably spicy.

[00:54:51] Ruby: Strange. I, you know, I wouldn't say that I'm like desperately sensitive to spice, but it, it's too spicy. I dunno why they've done it like that, but it's just amazing marketing. It's fantastic.

[00:55:00] Lucy: Amazing marketing.

[00:55:01] Yeah, like beautiful branding. The little, I could picture the pink packet even before I, you know, yeah. Having never eaten it before I even found this picture. I knew what it looked like. Um, okay. Number three is, no, that's the same one. There we go. Okay. This is a tiny little picture, so hopefully you can still see it.

[00:55:20] Ruby: Oh, okay. Is this the ninja? Which one is this? This

[00:55:25] Lucy: is the Ninja Creamy, and I, okay. Yeah. I am so gagging to know. How much influence Marketing Ninja do because my feed on any given day is, it's like 40% Ninja products and it has been for like at least a year, if not two years. So the Ninja Creamy is basically a consumer accessible, affordable model of a package jet, which is a, a very high speed blender that can take a frozen.

[00:55:57] Yeah. And make a very, very smooth ice cream. You know what this is? I'm, I'm, I'm not telling it for you. No, no, no. You actually, you're telling me for my benefit

[00:56:04] Ruby: because I've seen about the Ninja Creamy before, but I didn't know that exactly, like what kind of a thing it was. I didn't know if it was like an ice cream maker in like a, you know, churn sense or whether it was a blender as you're saying, but Okay, gotcha.

[00:56:16] It

[00:56:16] Lucy: is, so it is a blender. Gotcha. Yeah. And the, the, basically, the, the, as far as I can tell the USP of it is that you sort of don't really need to make an ice cream. Yeah. You can put a almost just straight up ingredients into the little thing, the little pot that comes with it. You freeze the pot overnight and then you put the pot in the blender and it blends it entirely smooth.

[00:56:38] Yeah. And that could be a jar of ready-made custard. It could be a tin of peaches, it could be, I dunno, a tub of cottage cheese. Like it will basically make a frozen puree Yes. Salad. Anything That's so interesting. But I. It's so enticing. And there are some people who come up again and again with this, and I'm just like, but what is this an undeclared ad?

[00:57:02] Is it organic? Like I don't what it is such a gray area when it comes to these like appliances. And I'm really curious about like the influence of these corporations.

[00:57:13] Ruby: I, here's the thing, I'm trying to understand this as well. 'cause I feel like we're living in the era of like unbelievably niche, like single use appliances, right?

[00:57:23] Right. So you've got your like air fryer, you know, people, why is there, why is anyone getting a toaster oven? It is 2025 like this. It's just crazy. Like yeah. Ice cream machines and so on. It, it, it is definitely this like fragmenting of like cooking into like these various specialized gadgets. Of course, like it's, yeah.

[00:57:43] Clear. Why? Because you can sell more things, but. Of course. Yeah. Um, I look with scorn upon it. I have to be honest, I, I don't know why I wouldn't just, I wouldn't stand up and defend myself in a court of law for having this opinion. But I dunno, there's just like something kind of slightly infantile. I think about a cooking appliance that's like, kind of like kids, kids cooking.

[00:58:10] Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Like, it's like, oh, I wanna,

[00:58:13] Lucy: yeah. Oh God, I'm

[00:58:14] Ruby: gonna get like,

[00:58:14] Lucy: the toaster oven, I think is a good example. Yeah. 'cause it, it's, I like, I under, I have an air fryer. I understand the benefit of an air fryer because it heats up really quickly and it's very efficient. A toaster oven.

[00:58:26] This is a, it's just a, it's a small oven.

[00:58:28] Ruby: Exactly. And why else have I seen recently? It's not like a gadget so much. It's like this specific kind of aesthetic of pots and pans that kind of yes look like kids play things. And I think again, it's a manifestation of a certain amount of anxiety about actual cooking, which at the end of the day, no matter which way you spin it, is gonna involve extremely hot surfaces and like oil often.

[00:58:53] And you know, there's a lot of anxiety around it. We go into great lengths to avoid it anyway. I dunno about the ninja creamy what? Okay. But I would say that like there is, there is certainly something going on with influences not declaring certain things.

[00:59:10] Lucy: My problem with the ninja Creamy is it's kind of like it never ends.

[00:59:14] So like you have the ninja Creamy, and there were several different models of this ninja creamy. Now there's one that also has a soft serve element. Oh, this is on this. You can then, you can take the cup out. You can put it on the other side. It will serve it like soft serve. A person shouldn't have self

[00:59:29] Ruby: serve inside the house.

[00:59:30] I've been saying this for years. Nobody will listen to me. Soft serve should never be inside a house. I, it's industrial product. It, it should always, always be like in the street or at at, at worst in a restaurant. It should never be in the house.

[00:59:43] Lucy: I think I agree with you there. I agree with you there. Okay.

[00:59:46] The, the fourth and final image, which I feel like maybe is something that we've talked about before. Anyway, let me, uh, share this. Okay.

[00:59:58] Ruby: Oh, fuck, where's this from?

[01:00:01] Lucy: So, as far as I can tell, because it's what I Googled. To get the image. This is a Spud man jacket potato. The Spud man. It is the Spud man. There are others, you know, the Spud Bros.

[01:00:13] There are other Spud people. I think the toppings that we have on this jacket potato, it's a jacket potato being held in a polystyrene container. Polystyrene certainly a choice in this day. Age. Maybe it's paper. Looks like pod's. Irene. It's a jacket potato with beans. I think tuna. I'm sure there's some cheese in there.

[01:00:28] Yeah, there is. And I wanted to bring this up because I, this was when I sort of first heard about your book and like this was Spiderman was constantly on the internet in my, in my personal algorithms. And I went to the lengths of going to the jacket potato place in Hastings, in the town that I live in.

[01:00:47] And ordering a jacket, like a jacket potato with some of the toppings because I was so, I could not get these jacket potatoes outta my head. And the jacket potato has there ever existed a food that is. Easier and more accessible to make at home. Like you literally just sprung it in the oven.

[01:01:03] Ruby: I mean it sped man is baffling to me because I think maybe SP man came onto my, my radar just after I'd finished working in this like local cafe where we just like serve jacket potatoes all the time and like cheese savories and stuff like this.

[01:01:18] Like,

[01:01:19] Lucy: yeah. Yeah. So

[01:01:20] Ruby: in my mind I was like, how could this thing possibly blow up? But of course it did. But

[01:01:25] Lucy: yeah,

[01:01:26] Ruby: Budman, he's fallen off a bit. I'm not seeing him go around anymore. I haven't seen it

[01:01:30] Lucy: for ages. I know, I agree. And I, but I think as well, it kind of speaks to some of the content that really gets rewarded on TikTok and kind of given the visibility that's process led.

[01:01:41] Yeah. And like people will just watch orders of food. They're not gonna eat being assembled. And I think that's. Absolutely. My blowing it.

[01:01:48] Ruby: It is. I think there's a real hunger, and I actually think that this is one of the, one of the nicest things actually about a lot of food content online right now is that curiosity about, well, what's someone else doing with their day?

[01:02:01] Well, like how, how are they spending their time? Whether it's like, oh, like come with me to slop the pigs out at my pig farm. Or, you know,

[01:02:10] Lucy: I'd watch that, I'd watch that. You know, like

[01:02:12] Ruby: make sandwiches with me on my shift at Subway. You know, whatever it is. I actually think there's something really lovely about being taken behind the scenes.

[01:02:18] So, you know, auntie Mabel and Pippin style, we're having that constantly, you know, from kind of in every imaginable area online. I think that's lovely. I hope Spud Man's doing all right.

[01:02:29] Lucy: I hope he's okay. Yeah. I now want a jacket potato again after seeing this. So the influence continues. Alright, I'm gonna stop sharing the potato.

*****

Lecker is hosted and produced by me, Lucy Dearlove.

Thanks to Ruby Tandoh for being the guest on this podcast! In case you hadn’t realised, I absolutely loved All Consuming - it’s out now.

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Thanks for listening. I’ll be back very soon.

Lecker Book ClubLucy DearloveSeptember 10, 2025All Consuming, Ruby Tandoh