Who Taught Chefs to Cook: What They Remember About Their Mothers’ and Grandmothers’ Kitchens

We re-read all 105 Food’n’Chef stories to see who first taught these chefs to cook, and in 35 of them the answer is a mother, a grandmother or grandparents.

Food’n’Chef began in 2012. Since then it has gathered 105 stories of chefs and cooks, 103 of them told in the first person, from Hong Kong and Kyiv to Barcelona, Yerevan and Prague. For this piece we re-read every one of them and marked each passage about a mother, a grandmother, a father or the family kitchen. Then we counted.

Mothers or grandmothers come up in 51 of the 105 stories. In 35, a mother, a grandmother or grandparents are where it began: the person the chef watched, helped or cooked beside as a child, or the reason they fell for food. A father is named as a teacher, an example or a guide in 15. Not everyone had a teacher at home, and in four stories the family was against the choice. Below are the patterns that came up in at least three stories each, in the chefs’ own words.

First, they watched

In 11 stories the first lesson involved no instruction at all. The chef watched a mother, a grandmother, a father, both parents or an aunt at work, sometimes from the doorway or a corner of the kitchen.

I would stand spellbound in the doorway of our little kitchen, where my mother and grandmother were busy, humming Armenian songs.

Alexander Ghazaryan, Dilijan, Armenia

Pino Lavarra says he took in everything his mother did at the stove.

She cooked as if she were singing an amazing song, and each time it was a new story. I absorbed every move she made, every ingredient she used, and even the prayers she whispered.

Pino Lavarra, Hong Kong

Then came a first try. Six people describe a dish they cooked as children and say how old they were. All six were between five and eight, and three call it the first time they cooked. Aleksey Shvets cooked a potato lunch by the Black Sea at five. Stephane Istel made a yogurt cake at about seven, Viktor Prodanov made kharcho soup at seven, and Serhiy Shpyakin cooked beef at eight. Jordi Cruz Mas cooked for his mother.

At 7, I made my mom a dish of beans with potatoes, a traditional Catalan dish. She was sick, and I wanted to cheer her up a bit.

Jordi Cruz Mas, Barcelona, Spain

She tasted it and told him he would be a chef. Volodymyr Stukotin’s first attempt, also at seven, was less polished.

My borsch was red as fire and hot as fire, and I had to wash down every spoonful with water: a real fire-borsch!

Volodymyr Stukotin, Kyiv, Ukraine

The grandmother’s kitchen

Grandmothers appear in 22 stories. In 18 of them, the grandmother is where cooking began for the chef, or the person whose way of cooking was handed down. For Umberto Bombana, everything began there.

It all started with my grandmother. She cooked so deliciously that my favorite pastime was eating and also watching every stage of the cooking.

Umberto Bombana, Hong Kong

Anahit Sargysian spent a lot of time with her grandmother in Goris as a child, and her grandmother’s cooking was in demand.

Hardly any wedding or big event could do without my granny. She was invited to cook, and I was her indispensable assistant.

Anahit Sargysian, Yerevan, Armenia

She also worked as a financial expert for 24 years. She joined a restaurant kitchen as an assistant cook in 1999 and became a chef two years later.

Yuriy Chernous thanks his grandmother for more than inspiration.

My beloved grandmother instilled in me a special awe and respect for kitchen rituals. I'm really thankful to her for the inspiration, for believing in me and, of course, for her honest criticism and even scolding.

Yuriy Chernous, Kyiv, Ukraine

He says he would hardly have become a chef without her. Sergey Kalinin, a culinary journalist rather than a chef, dates his own start to the age of six, when he began getting in his grandmother’s way in the kitchen. He still has two notebooks of recipes from that time, written in a child’s hand.

What mothers handed down

Mothers are named as a teacher or a starting point in 23 stories. In four of these stories, the chef describes the lesson as a way of working rather than a recipe.

My mother taught me everything I know about it. She believes in using what you already have in your kitchen and making recipes your own!

Biljana Kebakoska Dimitrijević, Prague, Czech Republic

“My mother taught me to feel what I cook”, says Dasha Malakhova, who still measures “in pinches, handfuls and by eye”. Maria Ilyinichna Fomina, born in 1934, learned to cook only after she married and later worked as a cook at a kindergarten. She describes the same habit.

In the kitchen I never weighed anything; I’ve always judged everything by eye. I learned this from my mother, and I taught my daughters to do the same.

Maria Ilyinichna Fomina, Bessarabia, Ukraine

Stephane Istel learned from his mother to “cook with love”. Serhiy Shpyakin calls his mother his first ally.

Just imagine an eight-year-old boy who decided to cook beef at home by himself. She bought the meat and then didn't interfere with what I had planned.

Serhiy Shpyakin, Odesa, Ukraine

He seasoned the beef, sucked the air out of the wrapping with a cocktail straw and lowered it into simmering water for a couple of hours. As a third-grader, he had no idea he had cooked it sous vide.

The recipes they kept

In seven stories, the chef still cooks or serves a recipe from a mother or grandmother, or has built a dish of their own on it. At Stephane Istel’s restaurant, those recipes are on the menu.

In fact, some of the most popular dishes at my restaurant, Bar-Roque Grill, such as the tarte flambée and the apple pie, are her recipes.

Stephane Istel, Singapore

Anyway, if you want to find out how my Italian mother cooks, come to Noti, because most of the recipes are traditional and come from her kitchen.

Tony Rosetti, Singapore

Luca Marinelli reworked his mother’s homemade banana cake into a dessert he calls “Banana Cake 2014”. Oyvind Naesheim still cooks from his grandmother’s recipes at home. Dasha Malakhova still makes green borscht from her mother’s recipe. Her mother was paralyzed for six years, and in that time she taught her nurse all her recipes and secrets.

Now only two people cook exactly like my mother: her nurse Mila and me.

Dasha Malakhova, Kyiv, Ukraine

Family trades, and families who said no

In 14 stories, cooking was already the family’s work: parents with a restaurant, a father or an uncle in a professional kitchen, an aunt who owned a restaurant, a family food business, or several generations of cooks. Jean-Pierre Jacob is the third generation of chefs in his family, and Kenny Chan Kai-tak calls himself “a descendant of a cooking dynasty”.

From the age of 3, my father took me with him to the market. We spent a long time choosing the best products for the restaurant, and it was never dull: it definitely had its magic.

Jordi Joan, Barcelona, Spain

Simson Kwan learned his first lesson in his family’s preserved-duck business. Against his father’s advice, he tried rock salt instead of sea salt. The duck tasted bad, and he says he has never defied his father since.

Growing up in the trade did not mean being pushed into it.

It’s also important that my father never forced me into it. I think that matters a lot, because parents should never force their children into any line of work, especially a family business.

Jean-Pierre Jacob, France

In four stories, the family was against it. Philippe Duc’s mother tried to persuade him that architecture had a better future, and Sergei Khimich’s parents were completely against his choice. Jorge de Angel Moliner heard it from a father who knew the job.

My father worked as a chef for a long time, and that’s why he always told me not to go into this profession, but I never listened to my parents.

Jorge de Angel Moliner, Valencia, Spain

My family was against my choice: “A cook? A servant? No way!” But I did it my own way and have never regretted it.

Francisco Pazos, Hong Kong

In seven other stories, a parent steered the child toward the kitchen, sometimes for practical reasons. Lai Yau Tim was not doing well at school and took his father’s advice to find a kitchen job. Caesar Lee’s mother found him work in a hotel kitchen when he was 13 or 14, because a kitchen job would at least mean he was fed.

No one at home to teach them

Five people describe learning without a teacher at home.

My dear mother did not cook, so I climbed the kitchen mountains alone.

Alvin Leung Jr., Hong Kong

He went on to become, in his words, the second self-taught chef to hold two Michelin stars. Jacky Chan’s family moved to Hong Kong when he was four.

During my childhood my father worked very hard and my mom was sick, so there was no one to cook for me.

Jacky Chan, Hong Kong

From the age of eight he ate out alone almost every day, and he first cooked for himself at 15. Aleksandr Kasian’s mother did not bake, so two sacks of flour sat untouched until he started experimenting with them and swapping recipes with her friends. Sebastian Frank’s mother went from one job to the next. He began by warming up food for the family, and over time he cooked it himself. Olga Martynovskaya grew up in the village of Yurivka, in the family of a teacher and a beekeeper.

I remember asking her to teach me to make soup and bread, but Mom told me she would teach me everything when I got married, and that while I was young I should enjoy myself!

Olga Martynovskaya, Kyiv, Ukraine

She came to cooking years later in France and won MasterChef Ukraine in 2013. Two more say plainly that their teacher was not family. Lau Yiu Fai notes there are no chefs in his family and credits the head chef of the restaurant where he started at 14. Mikhail Marchuk names a chef as his teacher, not his mother or grandmother.

The next generation

In five stories, the cooking has already passed to the next generation. Denis Brovceac cooks with his son and says they will found a dynasty of chefs. Biljana Kebakoska Dimitrijević teaches her daughter Gala, and Nina Popova bakes cookies and pies with her grandchildren. Oleg Opria’s son has been cooking for more than ten years. Maria Ilyinichna Fomina taught her daughters to judge everything by eye, the way her mother taught her.