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Spectator
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
The importance of bread as a symbol of Ukrainian resistance
When Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, the chef Olia Hercules lost the will to cook. With food so deeply connected to pleasure and to her Ukrainian roots, it somehow felt like an unbearable frivolity to be thinking about recipes while family members were under fire. 'How,' she asked, 'can I cook while my brother is running with a gun in a forest defending Kyiv and my mum and dad are living under occupation?' When her parents finally managed to leave the country and meet her in Italy, she began cooking again to welcome them. First she made borscht, following her mother's recipe; then pasta. She could have just bought the dough ready-made – 'but the gates are now open wide, and I can't stop', she writes in Strong Roots. It is no coincidence that two books published in response to the war use food as a prism through which to view Ukraine's heritage and resistance. Hercules grew up in Kakhovka, in the south; but after studying at Warwick University she settled in the UK and carved out a career as a successful cookery writer, though her family remained back home. When Russia launched its invasion, her parents were living in Kherson, while her brother joined the Ukrainian territorial army. The book looks back over four generations of family for whom war and displacement have been familiar experiences. From her researches into Ukrainian food, Hercules has hours of recorded interviews with relatives. From their voices a family saga emerges. The trauma she describes, both present and past, makes for moving, often painful, reading. But the writing itself is a joy. Pasta dough is 'bright yellow – a plasticine sun'; Rakovets, a village near Lviv, is in 'an area as soft and round as a golden dome of sweet yeasted bread'; shallow-fried pyrizhky buns brush against each other audibly, 'a delicious kind of friction'; and bunches of herbs lie side by side 'holding frilly hands'. Felicity Spector's Bread & War comes at the conflict from a different angle. The author is a senior producer for Channel 4 News and has been a television journalist for more than 30 years. Having become involved with Bake for Ukraine, a small, non-profit organisation in Odesa which helps source equipment to make bread for those most in need, she spent two years travelling to and from Ukraine, meeting the people producing and distributing food there. Her parents had fled what is now Dnipro more than a century ago; and she, too, worried about food being an unworthy subject in the context of war: 'I had wondered to myself whether it was trivial and ridiculous to talk to men who literally fight for their lives about something so basic and simple.' But, like Hercules, she finds more than just sustenance in food. A short distance from the front line she discovers soldiers preparing to sit down at table to borscht, pickles, salty sheep's cheese and waffle cake layered with thin slices of orange and thick caramel cream. It soon becomes clear that food, as well as being a necessity and source of comfort, is a symbol of resistance. We meet a baker who saves her sourdough starter when fleeing Kakhovka and resurrects it and her baking business in Lviv. Volunteers at a charity bakery fling themselves under large metal tables to shelter from shelling and emerge when there's a pause to roll out their dough again; and we hear of varenyky dumplings being dropped by drones into warzones. Spector frames her bookas 'the story of unbearable loss, of courage and a strong and proud Ukrainian heritage that refuses to die. And somehow this story is always about bread'. 'I realise it is only bread, but in our mentality people know that if you have bread on the table, you have food. So I can't stop,' says Vlad Malashchenko, the owner of the Good Bread from Good People bakery, based in Kyiv, echoing Hercules's response when she begins cooking again for her displaced family. Books written about ongoing world events are by definition inconclusive – and neither of these try to be anything else. Both authors look unflinchingly at the havoc wrought by war and the distinctive character of the people who live in its midst. Hercules talks of 'the Ukrainian-ness that is in my blood… in our responsibility to hold on to the light'. And as Spector encounters one person after another determined to resist – building businesses, creating new communities, preserving traditions – she sees billboards everywhere proclaiming 'Kharkiv lives and works': a defiant assurance that 'life would go on'.
Scottish Sun
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
Ukrainian TV chef reveals her mum's heartbreaking last act before being forced out of family home by Russian invaders
Olia Hercules, a London-based chef and writer who was born in Kakhovka in southern Ukraine, shares harrowing accounts of the agonies of her homeland MY TORMENT Ukrainian TV chef reveals her mum's heartbreaking last act before being forced out of family home by Russian invaders MUM and Dad had a good life. Their house was by a bank of the river Dnipro in the south of Ukraine. Huge golden sunflower fields stretching as far as the eye can see, as hot as the Mediterranean, and just a 50-mile drive from the Crimean peninsula and the Black Sea. 8 Olia Hercules, pictured at home in London, reveals her Ukrainian family's plight in her memoir Credit: Olivia West 8 Olia's parents, Petro and Olga, drove for days to escape the Russian invasion Credit: Olia Hercules They planted an orchard and Dad dug out a pond that he filled with carp and sturgeon. I would visit with my British husband Joe and our children at least twice a year, the last time being August 2021. There are photos of my big extended family having a barbecue on Ukraine's Independence Day, my younger son Wilfred eating a peach the size of his head, juice dripping all over his chin and belly. There is a video of my Joe laughing with my dad, brother and cousins, my father telling Ukrainian dad jokes using a mixture of broken English and expressive gestures. He is such a good actor. Just six months later he would use those acting skills again. But this time it wasn't a family comedy but a scene straight out of an apocalyptic movie. My mum and dad were escaping as Russia's full-scale invasion of my homeland reached their front door, and I ordered him to play dumb. 'If the Russians stop you,' I said, 'Pretend to be an idiot. Do not argue, do not show emotion.' The Russians drove their tanks into Kakhovka on the first day of the invasion on February 22, 2022. My parents and other locals went to protest every day in the centre of town. But eventually the invaders started shooting into the crowd. Torture chambers Then my dad received a phone call. A man with a sharp Russian accent demanded that he give up the keys to his and mum's businesses (Mum ran a small B&B in town). The Russian barked: 'We also know that your son joined the Ukrainian Territorial Army. Tell him to put down his arms, or else.' Dad — headstrong and courageous as he is — completely ignored my instructions and said something like: 'Over my dead body.' The Russian made it clear that he should be careful what he wished for. I freaked out when Mum told me this and urged them to leave. We have all seen reports that the Russians set up special 'basements' all over the occupied regions. 8 For basements, read torture chambers. I wish I was exaggerating, but I am not. People started disappearing in Ukraine's occupied areas. My own brother, Sasha, was defending Kyiv with other ex-civilians — people from all walks of life. In his regiment there was a baker, an IT guy, an actor and a builder. Sasha later told me how they were stuck on one side of the river Irpin near Kyiv, only a thousand of them or so — and on the other were 15,000 of Putin's Chechen henchmen. They were lucky, my brother told me — the weather and Russia's poor logistics organisation meant that not only did he and the others survive, but they were able to repel the attack and save the capital. Only a few months ago, Sasha admitted to me that shrapnel had grazed against his thigh. Not everyone was so lucky. At home in London, I was freaking out. Strong Roots OLIA HERCULES is a London-based chef and writer who was born in Kakhovka in southern Ukraine. She has published four cookbooks and this week releases a memoir, Strong Roots: A Ukrainian Family Story Of War, Exile and Hope. A regular on TV's Saturday Kitchen, she co-founded #CookForUkraine – a global initiative to raise money for the war-torn country. Parents under occupation, brother in Irpin, and then the news about what happened in Bucha, very close to where my brother was located. Bucha was liberated, and soon it became evident just how many civilians the Russians had killed — mass graves and all manner of other horrors. I lost my mind and shouted down the phone to my mum for them to leave until they finally relented. They grabbed two suitcases — one with clothes, another with family photographs, letters and Mum's hand-stitched embroideries. They dug any valuables they had into the ground, in case they would return in the future, and they drove. But not before my mum scrubbed the whole house until it shined. It was one of the most heartbreaking things for me to hear — and for my mum to tell — how she tidied up her house before they left, imagining how a Russian woman might move into it and remark on how tidy everything was. 8 Petro at a yard in Ukraine with the tractor he is converting into a minesweeper Credit: Olia Hercules 8 Olia's dad in the kitchen with her eldest son Sasha Credit: Olia Hercules Ukrainians take huge pride in keeping their homes cosy and beautiful. Just like here in the UK, our home is our castle. My other family and friends followed them a day later. They had to break through 19 Russian checkpoints and witnessed craters as big as the moon's, left by artillery and missiles. Mum and Dad drove for five days through Europe, a difficult thing at the best of times, and even harder given that Dad suffers from Parkinson's tremors. They went to stay with my cousins in Berlin. But within the first two months, Dad decided he couldn't do it. 'I will die from inaction and depression here, Olia. I am going back,' he told me. Mum was so broken, she did not go with him. She said she could not imagine living in Ukraine while Kakhovka was occupied, while Russians lived in her home. Planning to reunite To explain the severity of their separation, my mum and dad met at primary school. They are both 67 and they had known each other for 60 years already, and been married for 50. My dad is in Ukraine now, and Kakhovka is still occupied by the Russians. It is a ghost town and is pummelled by Russians on a regular basis (they use old Soviet launchers that are not exactly precise, so when they try to shoot at a town on the front line, it can fall anywhere). Russian FSB officers moved into my parents' beautiful home. Dad found out his factory warehouse was used to house Russian tanks, so he told Ukrainian intelligence the coordinates. When Russia invaded, mum and dad went into town every day to protest. Eventually the invaders started shooting the crowd Olia Hercules After careful reconnaissance and making sure that it was safe to do so, the Ukrainian army hit it and destroyed the tanks, along with my dad's warehouse. I am sure Dad is heartbroken about his life's work being turned into rubble, but he told me he had no regrets. He is now with his sister and nephew in another unoccupied region of Ukraine. Ukraine is now the most mined country in the world, so Dad is using his engineering skills to convert an old tractor into a driverless minesweeper. Mum is still in Berlin, but she is planning to reunite with Dad next year. She has accepted they may have lost their home forever, and started entertaining the idea to start anew in another part of Ukraine. 8 Olia, back left, cuddling Sasha at a family dinner Credit: Olia Hercules 8 Ingredients for a delicious spread Credit: Olia Hercules This is because, unlike in the 1990s after independence, Ukrainians do not want to live elsewhere. Everyone just wants to be back home. My parents want to be within their community, speaking their own language. They crave the south Ukrainian sunshine, they want to dig around in their garden, they want us to visit them there, to clink glasses and eat delicious food, and to tell silly jokes. For my youngest Wilfred, five, and my older son Sasha, 13, to run around and gorge themselves on massive peaches. It's because of this love — love of a country that people like my dad and mum worked so hard to build — that I know we will not stop fighting. As English author G.K. Chesterton said: 'The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.' But you don't need to be a soldier to fight. My weapon is my pen and my ability to translate our human experience to people in the UK through my cookbooks, which are full of snippets of my family history and now, hopefully, through the family memoir I have written. Rebuild and flourish It has been incredible to receive so much support, because people knew me and trusted me. Within a week of the war starting, I had been able to raise enough money to supply ballistic vests and helmets, boots and even ballistic underwear, and to get it delivered just a day before my brother and 105 people in his regiment went into battle. I will never forget this generosity of the British, the post-war spirit and the Keep Calm And Carry On philosophy which is so keenly adopted by everyone in Ukraine. War news fatigue is real — I get it. It is not easy to keep looking at the horrific news, at the distressing headlines. But with 'peace talks' looming, I hope people do not forget that what the media call 'territories' are not faceless dots on the map. They are places that still hold our homes, our memories and our people. Not everyone was able to leave like my parents did. I have plenty of friends and family who had to stay behind, to look after the 'unmovable' — the elderly or ill parents or even neighbours. People started disappearing. My brother was defending Kyiv. My father's life was threatened. Mass graves, all manner of horrors. I lost my mind and shouted down the phone for them to leave Olia Hercules If those areas are given to Russia, the war will not cease for them. Like other places that Putin grabbed over the years — Abkhazia and Ossetia in the Caucasus, East Ukraine and Crimea — they will become 'grey zones', internationally unrecognised, with no life and no future. One thing my parents and my grandparents taught me was to never give up, and to never give up hope. I will be honest, it has been very up and down. But even on the lowest day I know that Ukrainians will never relent, and will never give up the fight, and the hope that we will return, rebuild and flourish. As my late grandmother used to say: 'Always look at the roots. If the roots are strong, it doesn't matter if the wind blows off the pretty petals. 'If the roots are strong, it doesn't matter if a storm breaks the fragile stem. 'It will all grow back again.' Strong Roots: A Ukrainian Family Story Of War, Exile And Hope, by Olia Hercules, is out on Thursday.
Telegraph
08-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Discover recipes by Diana Henry's favourite female food writers
I hold the female food writers I most admire not just close to my heart, but at my core. That's because they're not, of course, 'just' writing about food. When I pondered whose cookbooks I'd be reading and cooking from in 20 years' time, the answer came easily: Ravinder Bhogal, Meera Sodha and Olia Hercules. Every so often you hear the phrase 'food is their language' and don't quite know what it means, but when I look at the work of these three, it's as clear as day. They recognise that food writing is a form of social history, a way of connecting to places and a way of connecting with you. All these women were separated from their homes or their heritage, and cooking was the path back. 'I'm Kenyan by birth and spirit, Indian in heritage and heart,' Ravinder told me. 'And a Londoner through and through.' In 1987 she came to London with her parents and was bullied at school. Anxiety about how her parents would survive in this new country made her withdraw and food became central. 'Cooking was a portal to what I was pining for, what I'd left behind. Mealtimes – when I could smell spices – became a coping mechanism. You got through one meal at a time.' She's also the fourth daughter in a family that wanted sons: 'Educating girls was likened to planting a seed in your neighbour's garden: a pointless pursuit.' Despite what she had to cope with, it was hard to crush her. She kept cooking, doing pop-ups and catering until the restaurant critic Fay Maschler told her to stop being a coward and open a place of her own. She describes her London restaurant, Jikoni, as 'an immigrant kitchen', because her life has crossed so many borders. Meera Sodha also feels that she is 'the product of many places' and comes from a family that has known poverty, division and losing everything because of political upheavals. She describes herself as part-Gujarati as that's where her family is from, part-Ugandan as her parents grew up there, and part-Scunthorpian because that's where she was born. As with Ravinder, cooking helped Meera feel 'more at home in all of these places'. Meera wrote her first book, Made in India – a bestseller – because she wanted to record the Gujarati family recipes she grew up with. Her huge work ethic has resulted in three more books. Her inspiration comes from all over the world, partly because she has known so many places and partly because of her love of flavour. 'A new recipe can originate from seeing two ingredients in the fridge that might not typically go together,' she says. Success was expected in her family: 'Work came first and everything and everyone else came second.' Perfectionism and long hours led to burnout – she stepped back from work for several months, then published her best book yet, Dinner. Her recipe introductions reveal the whirring of her thoughts as she explains why you too can cook this, and why it works. Olia Hercules, who moved here in 2011, was already known for her books on Ukrainian cooking ('I wanted everyone to know that it was full of colour and joy') when Russia invaded her home country. If you follow her on Instagram, you will know how raw her posts can be. I worried she was so traumatised she was breaking down before our eyes. She used her platform to get proper boots for men such as her brother, who chose to stay and fight, and urged us to hold dinners, lunches and cake sales to raise funds. Cooking in the face of such brutality seemed almost hopeless but the #CookForUkraine initiative has raised more than £2 million and kept Ukraine at the front of our minds. Olia told me recently that she is even more interested in food than she was before the war. She recognises that food writing is a way to understand – and hold close – countries you've never been to. Food binds us. We all fry onions.
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Food for first responders cooked by local celebrity chef, Ukrainian chef
SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) — Celebrity chefs from Ukraine and Louisiana will cook a special meal for first responders at an event in Shreveport, Louisiana, to promote unity and solidarity during global conflict. 'Amidst the turbulence of war, food can be a source of connection, healing, and advocacy,' says Ukrainian nonprofit RAZOM – which means 'together' in Ukrainian. RAZOM states this unique event aims to recognize the hard work of local police officers and firefighters while promoting the importance of solidarity during global conflict, particularly the ongoing war in Ukraine. Tuesday, March 11, from 11:30 a.m. until 2:30 p.m., the two celebrity chefs: Chef Olia Hercules from Ukraine and Chef Hardette Harris from Louisiana will cook for first responders from Shreveport, Benton, and Bossier, Louisiana. Former LSU basketball player advocates for Ukraine aid RAZOM emphasizes the importance of unity, especially in today's world. In the face of global conflicts, particularly the war in Ukraine, it is essential for communities around the globe to stand together in solidarity. 'Food is a universal language that connects us all, no matter where we come from or whatwe've endured,' said Chef Hercules. 'Through this event, we not only honor the bravery of firstresponders but also highlight the importance of unity—whether it's between countries or withinour own communities.' This event represents more than just a dinner—it symbolizes strength, resilience, and theshared human spirit. The chefs' collaboration embodies nations' coming together and food's power to foster compassion, understanding, and cooperation in times of adversity. According to the news release, the event will be held at 440 Olive St. 71101. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
