Food Heroine

As an active campaigner on food and social issues was a leading light of lockdown. Holly Louise Eells caught up with the bootstrap cook about her brand-new book, mental health, and why Essex will always be her home.

- JACK MONROE

For one believe Jack Monroe is a national food hero. A food writer and anti-poverty campaigner who specialises in budget recipes, she has been praised by thousands of Twitter followers for her Lockdown Larder Twitter campaign. It came at a time when the UK was adjusting to life in lockdown. Things were very unpredictable and many people were still panic buying, resulting in big shortages on many essentials. Like many bakers, chefs and food experts who were inspiring us all to get creative in the kitchen, Jack helped her followers to cook with what ingredients they had.

‘It’s such a strange time for everyone,’ says Jack, who lives in Southend with her 10-yearold son Jonathon, partner, TV producer Louisa Compton, and Cooper, her large ginger and white cat.

‘It has sort of been a two-fold experience for me,’ she explains. ‘When the lockdown was first announced I lost an entire year’s salary in 48 hours. Emails just came flooding in apologetically for canceling tours, book signings, talks, festivals; everything just came crashing down. I was in an absolute state of shock. Asking myself, what is going to happen to me now? I went into a complete panic.’

But things changed quite rapidly for the best-selling cookbook author, who eight years ago had ten pounds a week to feed herself and her son, and now writes recipes for people who are living on extremely tight budgets, including people relying on food banks.

‘The BBC got in touch with me about co-hosting Daily Kitchen Live,’ she says. ‘As well as Lockdown Larder and my Instagram live, I then convinced myself it was going to be OK, and I am ticking away.’