The Award

Melek Erdal wins the Jane Grigson Trust – Sous Chef Award for New Food and Drink Writers

 

The Jane Grigson Trust is delighted to announce that the winner of the Jane Grigson Trust – Sous Chef Award for 2026 is Xwê Salt:  A Story of Words, Recipes, Resilience & Joy by Melek Erdal, to be published by Ebury Press in March 2027.

In Xwê, Salt Melek Erdal roams between recipes and meditations on language to tell the story of the resilience of the Kurdish people through their food. Including recipes for filo pancake with tahini, lamb stuffed aubergines and candied pumpkin, she celebrates a food culture that is so delicious and so deep it has survived long periods of oppression and forced migration in order to reach our tables. Tender, nourishing and wise, Xwê, Salt shows how food is one of our most powerful forms of expression and that the kitchen is a space of joy.

Istanbul-born and East London-raised, Melek Erdal is an Alevi Kurdish writer, cook, community activist and multi-disciplinary storyteller exploring themes around immigrant communities, identity and resilient joy. Her recipes, voice, and words have featured in Vittles and the Guardian and on BBC Radio 4. She was Fortnum and Mason Cookery Writer of the Year, 2024.

The two runners up are:

  • Fire & Feasts: Stories and Recipes from a Gypsy Kitchen by Caleb Botton, to be published by Ebury Press in April 2027
  • Three Meals Four Seasons/三餐四季: A Year of Chinese Flavours for Every Table by Wei Guo, to be published by Quadrille in December 2026

Chair of judges and chair of the Jane Grigson Trust Donald Sloan said: “It seems fitting in our tenth anniversary year that we have such an outstanding shortlist. I just know that all three will go on to find great success. So much about Melek’s book is striking, including the rigour of her research and her beautiful, poetic use of language.”

Claudia Roden judge and patron of the Jane Grigson Trust comments; “I love Melek’s book. It is fascinating, poetic and moving – a book that needed to be written about a people and their cuisine. She has written it with passion and the recipes are delicious.”

Created in memory of the distinguished British food writer Jane Grigson, The Jane Grigson Trust – Sous Chef Award for New Food and Drink Writers is made to a first-time writer of a book about food or drink which has been commissioned but not yet published. In the spirit of Jane Grigson and her writing, the Award is for a non-fiction book on food and drink in the widest sense, from any genre – cookbook, memoir, travel, history – as long as the primary subject is food or drink.

This is the 10th anniversary of the award, which has become one of the UK’s most sought-after specialist literary prizes and has celebrated a range of writers whose books have gone on to have great success, including Gurdeep Loyal, Riaz Phillips, Dan Saladino, Chris Newens, Dina Macki and Angela Clutton.

The £2000 prize money is intended to help the winner fund further travel or research in the vital time between gaining a commission and delivery of the manuscript.  The runners-up will receive a Sous Chef voucher and all of the shortlisted authors will also receive a selection of Jane Grigson’s books.

Joining Donald Sloan, chair of the Jane Grigson Trust and of the Oxford Cultural Collective, on the judging panel for the 10th anniversary of the award are: Nicola Lando, founder of Sous Chef; Jeremy Lee, MBE, Trustee of the Jane Grigson Trust and chef proprieter of Quo Vadis; Marie Mitchell, food writer; Claudia Roden, CBE, food writer and Patron of the Jane Grigson Trust; and Meera Sodha, food writer.

Past Winners

Poppy Okotcha

The winner of the Jane Grigson Trust Sous Chef Award 2025 was:

Poppy Okotcha - A Wilder Way: How Gardens Grow Us

A Wilder Way: How Gardens Grow Us is a memoir of a relationship with an ever-changing garden, of setting down roots and becoming embedded in nature, and of how tending to a patch of land, however small, will not only grow us as individuals but can also help to grow a better world.

What an honour and a privilege to have the judges enjoy the story of how growing and eating of food can be healing for us and the planet.
Chris Newens

The winner of the Jane Grigson Trust Sous Chef Award 2024 was:

Chris Newens - Moveable Feasts: Paris in Twenty Melas

Moveable Feasts: Paris in Twenty Meals gives a whole new flavour profile to Paris, using recipes that are characteristic of each of the city’s twenty arrondissement. The book explores the tastes of the city’s diverse subcultures, from Congolese exiles to fifth-generation Algerians, from the modern heirs of Hemingway to sex club-going libertines.

Winning the Jane Grigson Trust Award offered me an incredible boost, both firing my confidence in the difficult middle-period of my project and offering unexpected financial help that let me research certain aspects of the book much more thoroughly than would have otherwise been possible.
Dina Macki

The winner of the Jane Grigson Trust Sous Chef Award 2023 was:

Dina Macki: Bahari - Recipes from a Omani Kitchen and Beyond

Bahari: Recipes from an Omani Kitchen and Beyond will take the reader on an exciting food journey, showcasing Omani cuisine in all its diversity and moving beyond geographical borders to incorporate the influence of Zanzibar and of many countries spanning the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. Dina aims to educate the world on the food and culture of Oman, a hidden gem of the Middle East that is particularly unusual for its global and coastal connections.

The award is opening new doors and will hopefully help my book Bahari flourish when it comes out in February 2024. Thank you to everyone involved in the award and for believing in me and Oman!“
Riaz Phillips

The winner of the Jane Grigson Trust Sous Chef Award 2022 was:

Riaz Phillips: West Winds

In West Winds, Riaz Phillips tells countless tales of Jamaica through its dishes, drawing on his memories of growing up in the Caribbean diaspora of London and his time spent living in Jamaica. Recipes rooted in centuries of culture through folktales and anecdotes make West Winds so much more than a cookbook – it is an ode to Jamaica, its people and their heritage.

Winning the Jane Grigson prize been amazing as it has allowed me to discover a community and legacy that appreciates and enjoys the complex history of food that I wasn’t fully aware of. Anybody interested in deeper issues in food can do no better than read any of the books shortlisted over the years.
Gurdeep Loyal

The winner of the Jane Grigson Trust Sous Chef Award 2021 was:

Gureep Loyal: Mother Tongue

In the book, Loyal uses his own experience as a second-generation British Indian as a starting point to explore the popular traditions of second-generation food writers who both celebrate their parents’ legacy and see themselves as cultural in-betweeners. With recipes for everything from chat paneer hot dogs to coconut crab crumpets, Loyal shows how the blended cuisines of second-generation children around the world today should be celebrated in their own right. The book will be published by Fourth Estate in April 2022.

The endorsements, love and support I've received since winning the award in 2021, have felt like adding rocket-fuel to the development of my first book. It has focussed my direction, given me resources to deepen my research and fired my passion to tell this story of British-Indian identity through food. Thank you to the Jane Grigson Trust and my publisher 4th Estate for giving me such a brilliant launchpad.
Kirsty Scobie and Fenella Renwick

The winner of the Jane Grigson Trust Sous Chef Award 2020 was:

Kirsty Scobie and Fenella Renwick: The Seafood Shack

Kirsty and Fenella set up The Seafood Shack in Ullapool in western Scotland in 2016. The Seafood Shack has built up a strong fanbase and this book will mix Kirsty and Fenella’s most popular recipes with their story of creating a new food business, a look at the Scottish seafood and fishing industry and a reflection on the lives of the fishermen at its heart.  It will be published by Kitchen Press in the Autumn of 2020.

We are both absolutely overwhelmed to have won the Jane Grigson Award, especially being up against three inspirational women. We couldn't have done it without our amazing publisher Emily at Kitchen Press, who encouraged us to enter, but also the community of Ullapool and our fab customers. Without you all, there would be no Seafood Shack! Thank you so much.
Elly McCausland

The winner of the Jane Grigson Trust Sous Chef Award 2019 was:

Elly McCausland: The Botanical Kitchen

The Botanical Kitchen, an in-depth exploration of our passion for all parts of the plant – from rose petals to raspberries, blackcurrants to bergamot, and lavender to lime leaves – will be published by Absolute Press in the sprnig of 2020. It will combine Elly’s love of literature, food culture and history with her passion for herbs, spices, fruit and tea.

Winning the award was the most wonderful thing to happen in the development of my book, giving me a renewed sense of inspiration, energy and a sense of why food writing continues to matter in the world. It gave me the drive to push forward in finishing a book that I hope Jane herself would have enjoyed.
Dan Saladino

The winner of the Jane Grigson Trust Sous Chef Award 2019 was:

Dan Saladino: The Ark of Taste

In The Ark of Taste, radio journalist Dan Saladino will take the reader on a revelatory journey of discovery into the world’s most endangered foods and disappearing flavours.

Winning the award made a significant difference to the direction of my first book. On a practical level it made an important research trip possible and led to new ideas and themes being added. But equally important; the award gave me a huge amount of confidence in the stories I was telling and the messages I wanted the book to get across.
Angela Clutton

The winner of the Jane Grigson Trust Sous Chef Award 2018 was:

Angela Clutton: The Vinegar Cupboard

In this fascinating and unique book, food writer and historian Angela Clutton demonstrates the many great ways vinegars can be used to balance and bring flavour, which will enable modern cooks to make the most of this ancient ingredient (to be published by Absolute Press in February 2019).

The Jane Grigson Trust Award has made just the most enormous difference to the development of The Vinegar Cupboard. To anyone who has done the amazing feat of getting a first book commissioned, I can only wholeheartedly say they should - must - apply for this because it is a very, very good thing indeed.
Vicky Hayward

The winner of the Jane Grigson Trust Sous Chef Award 2017 was:

Vicky Hayward: The New Art of Cookery: A Spanish Friar’s Kitchen Notebook

Drawing on her deep knowledge of Spanish culture, Vicky Hayward gives a modern retelling of an eighteenth-century classic cookbook, including fresh, simple and surprisingly easy to make recipes. (Published by Rowman & Littlefield in the UK in September 2017)

Vicky said of winning the Award:

My heartfelt thanks go to the Trust for the 2017 Award; it has drawn me back to Jane’s scholarly, inclusive, independent writing and, in so doing, it has given me inspiration for the years to come.
Alex Andreou

The winner of the Jane Grigson Trust Sous Chef Award 2016 was:

Alex Andreou: The Magic Bay Leaf

In an evocative mix of memoir and recipes, Alex Andreou writes about the food of the Greek islands. (To be published by Chatto & Windus – awaiting publication)

At precisely the point when the project looked far too titanic to tackle, when I had begun to doubt myself – as every writer must – the Jane Grigson Trust Award put the wind back in my sails. It gave me the boost, focus and breathing space to break through my barriers. I will be ever grateful for Jane Grigson’s vision and the Trust’s faith.
JGT Award JGT Library

Key Dates

September 2026 - applications open for 2027 award