How GBBO’s Ruby Is Re-Imagining The Cookbook

Ruby Tandoh is known for being outspoken about many matters, including social equality. She wrote in Heated that “‘Bake Off’ has become a strange vehicle for change.” Her reference was to the fact that so many bakers of color have come out of a show that, as Tandoh puts it, is still “steeped in the symbolism of an old-fashioned, implicitly white Britishness.”

It is this type of thought-provoking insight that Tandoh has become known for, and it is that same awareness that has seemingly fueled the way “Cook as You Are” was written. Learning from the response to her previous books, she had a better understanding of the weight her words carry. “You realize that whatever you say about food, people are going to take it,” Tandoh told Bad Form. “Not everyone’s going to take it super seriously, but it has the power to shape people’s relationships with food.”

“Cook as You Are” is aimed for a release in the United States in November of 2022. It is the follow-up to Tandoh’s previous unique books, “Crumb,” “Flavour,” and “Eat Up!: Food, Appetite and Eating What You Want,” all of which carry the author’s unique perspective and attempt to challenge the cookbook format with philosophy and societal reflection.