All her grandparents had emigrated from Eastern Europe after the Holocaust, one set from Bulgaria and the other from Moldova.
“The food we ate at home was Sephardi — a mixture of Turkish and Bulgarian. Both cuisines have a strong Balkan influence. Many Bulgarian Jews are descendants of Spanish Jews expelled from Spain, so that was also in the mix.”
Althought she did not go to culinary school, she has worked profesionally.
“I was eating at the bar in London’s The Palomar restaurant. The friends I was with told the sous chef I was an amazing chef. I said I could cook, and was invited in to do a trial.” She obviously passed, as she was offered a job in their pastry section, later working her way up to sous chef. She then moved to sister restaurant, The Barbary and started a new role setting up a restaurant in Notting Hill, called Haya. “Then lockdown happened. And that was that!”
Since then she has founded a food kit delivery business with fellow JC contributor, chef Amir Battito.
“The boxes contain dishes like shakshuka; fishcake chraime and arayes [pita with a spicy meat filling], which just need finishing off by the customer.”
She’s also still busy with Oooga Chaka. “I enjoy challenges. I recently had a client who wanted a cake for her husband that was a bit different. She told me he liked particular flavours. I made a cake based on alfajores, an Argentinian biscuit. It is a sable biscuit sandwiched with dulce de leche and coated in coconut. It’s delicious.”
Expect a range of flavours from her — “my approach to food is to ‘cook myself’, as in putting myself on the plate. I look to flavours I remember from my childhood and try to reproduce them”.
Sarah Mann-Yeager’s childhood is also reflected in her food. The third-generation butcher grew up surrounded by food. “My grand-father, Louis Mann, founded the business, selling chickens from his bike stall in the East End of London. He opened a shop in the East End, on Victoria Park Road, Hackney in 1937 or ’38.”
The family were evacuated to Reading in the Second World War and, when they returned to London, moved to Hendon. In 1957, the business followed the family to North West London, where the community was starting to grow and they opened the shop on King’s Parade in Edgware.
Sarah didn’t plan to go into the family business. Her career for many years was as a journalist. “I worked at teen magazine Just 17 during the 1980s as their front-line editor. I produced the first eight to ten pages.” She continued to write for women’s interest titles like Mizz and More! as well as Smash Hits, during the 1980s and 1990s. “Then my grandma fell ill with shingles and couldn’t work. My mum, Elaine, who worked in the shop with her, needed help and I joined the business. I stayed more than 30 years.”
She’s been sharing her recipes in the shop over the years and recently took it online, starting a blog on the butcher’s website. “I’ve always been interested in cooking. I used to stay at my grandparents’ flat at four or five years old, and would stand on some steps at the counter helping cut lokshen with scissors and making jam tarts with leftover pastry.”
“As I got older, I was interested in food from an ethnic and cultural perspective. Most women work nowdays, so those labour-intensive foods we used to eat are so rarely prepared as they take all day to make. I didn’t want to lose that part of my ethnicity. If I don’t cook those dishes and teach people how to make them, they’ll be lost.”
She does some educating as part of the Edgware United Synagogue barmitzvah programme.
“Part of that is kashrut and they bring the children in to see how we cut and pack meat. Many don’t understand where their meat comes from.”
Recipe inspiration comes from all over the place — “Supermarkets; televisions shows; magazines and cookery books. I love going back to established cookery writers from the last century. Cooks like Delia Smith — their recipes work. I also want to give people confidence in the kitchen with simple, easy-to-make recipes.”
Her current favourite supper dishes are “good old-fashioned traybakes. However you do it, it will be tasty with quality ingredients. You can tailor any recipe to fit what you like. If you don’t like garlic or onions, leave them out. If your family are not aubergine lovers, don’t use them.”
You’ll find recipes from Shiri and Sarah in the paper and online at thejc.com
