Meet Melek Erdal: Food Worth Sharing
Melek Erdal is an Istanbul-born, London-based Kurdish writer and cook. Her food and recipes explore stories of community and identity. Currently working on her debut cookbook, Melek has been shortlisted for the 2026 Jane Grigson Trust Sous Chef Award for new food and drink writing.
Here, she shares an insight into what inspires her, and how she thinks about food.
How would you describe your cooking style and relationship with food?
Food has always been the language I use to connect with myself and others, before I even knew that's what it was. I like imagining how people came up with a recipe and how it travelled to us across time and space.
Food tastes better with context...
My cooking style is person-centred - regional dishes I've learned from elders or people I've met and cooked with and then adapted. I don't think there's one place where you can learn how to cook and I think you must treat all of life and food spaces as a learning ground.
Food tastes better with context I think you can literally taste a dish that has story behind it. I love homestyle cooking that is ingredient, flavour and function focused. I like making food that has functionality, regionality and seasonality in mind.
Using simple ingredients and techniques to make amazing food feels like practicing magic and bringing to life a recipe that has been passed down over years and generations feels like time travel.
Tell us a little about your book: why these recipes, and why now?
I want to explore how language and food are intertwined
Jane Grigson championed curiosity and exploration. Where has food writing taken you?
Food writing has taken me from making bread with aunties in their garden shed, to harvesting potatoes in an Enfield allotment, to pounding goat meat in Napa California with my culinary hero. Food cannot lie, and writing about people, histories and cultures through the prism of food feels honest and pure.
