We’re thrilled to welcome Olia Hercules as our food writer in residence this month and next. Born in Ukraine and now living in London, Olia knows all about the connection between memory, place and taste – and the importance of being connected to your food roots. This menu recalls the flavours and techniques of brilliant cooks Olia met while researching the food of Georgia. Try the recipes and be transported

RECIPES AND FOOD STYLING OLIA HERCULES PHOTOGRAPHS ELENA HEATHERWICK

OLIA HERCULES

Food writer in residence No 3

I’m often asked whether I was taught to cook by my mother or grandmother. They are the best cooks I know and they influence my cooking and writing so much now, but the truth is, I wasn’t interested in cooking when I was younger. I only started cooking, even obsessing over cooking, here in the UK when I was in my early 20s.

I remember the first cake I attempted, a Genoese-type sponge that my mum called ‘biskvit’, which I missed enormously. I called my Italian friend Gabriella (an amazing cook) into my kitchen and presented her with something that looked like a flan at best, or like a pancake at worst. I clearly did not whisk hard enough. We laughed and we cried, and she promised to guide me the next time.

That same year (I must have just turned 20), feeling particularly homesick, I tried to make a Central Asian dish my Siberian gran used to make called ‘beshbarmak’ – layers of pasta sheets, poached chicken and onions slow-cooked in chicken fat. Being a poor student, I bought everything from the supermarket. The dish tasted awful.

I didn’t understand why it went so wrong, why it didn’t taste as I remembered it; my cooking was much better by then – even the pasta would turn out fine.

Only later did I realise that food and our memory of it goes beyond a recipe. It’s about the people you eat it with; it’s about feeling happy, protected, care-free – everything that a child should feel. But often it’s also about the quality of the ingredients, which are superb where I come from. We grew some of our own produce, we made our own curd cheese and we only ever ate chickens that ran around outside. They were tough and old, but so flavoursome.