The pioneering chef Joyce Molyneux ran a kitchen that was unpretentious and democratic – a far cry from some places I’ve eaten at recently
Joyce Molyneux, who died last month at the age of 91, lived a full and rich life. She was one of the first women chefs in Britain to win (in 1978) a Michelin star and anyone who was lucky enough to eat at the Carved Angel in Dartmouth during the 25 years she ran its kitchen will doubtless remember even now her pioneering way with local ingredients; her gentleness both at the stove and with those who worked the room for her. As for the unlucky, they must make do with The Carved Angel Cookery Book, which sold 50,000 copies when it was first published in 1990 – and without any help at all from a television series. It tells you everything you need to know that a secondhand copy will set you back about £200.
I read the obituaries hungrily. In part, this was because I have happy memories of a day spent with her in 2017 (I was interviewing her for the lifetime achievement award she was to receive from Observer Food Monthly; she made a deliciously tart summer pudding for lunch). But for me, her career is fascinating, too, for the way it subtly tells the story of Britain and its food in the second half of the 20th century. To take just one example, Molyneux’s first job after leaving domestic science college was not in a restaurant, but in the canteen at W Canning & Co, a Birmingham-based manufacturer of electroplating machines, where she was expected to make “special” things such as roast chicken for the bosses, and to serve pies – and fish and chips – to the workers.
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