Zuza Zak is a Polish-British cookbook author and nutritionist based in the UK. In our Foodie Profile, Zuza talks about her journey into food writing and the themes and food stories that inspire her work. We of course also discuss Zuza’s fifth and latest release, The Gutsy Kids Cookbook – a gut-focused cookbook for children. To bring this book to life Zuza pivoted to nutrition and launched her own imprint to publish the book herself (just amazing!). Zuza talks about this incredible feat, how becoming a nutritionist has changed the way she and her family eat (and how we all can), and she very generously shares a recipe from the book with us. Thank you Zuza!
1. Zuza, for readers who are discovering your work for the first time, could you tell us about your cultural background and how it shaped your journey into food writing?
I was born in Communist Poland in the late 1970s, when food in shops was scarce. However, I remember a beautiful sense of community in those days of working together to prepare feasts for every occasion, whether birthday, name day or religious holiday. When I moved to the UK, aged 7, Poland was an unknown entity, kids thought I was from the North Pole! There was one Polish shop in Leicester, where only a small selection of products was available. We nevertheless did what we could to preserve the culture within our home. We cooked Polish food and my parents spoke only Polish to me and my brother. As I got older, I realised that people around me had prejudices about Poland and its food, which were not in line with my experienced reality.
My food writing journey began in my early 30s. I was living in London and working in the TV industry, commuting 3 hours a day. I had a bee in my bonnet since childhood about how real Polish food was (un)represented in the UK, so I decided to do something about it. I started getting up 30 minutes earlier every day and writing in the mornings. I found myself thinking about the project during the journey into work and it made the commute easier somehow. This is how Polska was born. I prepared a proposal and started sending it out, with zero success. When I received one rejection letter, I was over-the-moon that someone had bothered to read it. Eventually, I found a lovely agent (through a friend of a friend) and a book deal with Quadrille. My journey of being a cookbook author had begun.
After Polska, I decided to explore the Baltic States, where a part of my family had originated from. It wasn’t easy getting that book off the ground either, as East European food was still seen as very niche. A few years later, however, it was picked up by Murdoch Books and I undertook a gorgeous journey through Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania with my little family. That journey became Amber&Rye and my partner, Yasin, did the travel photography for it.
For my third cookbook, I wanted to go back to Polish food and explore the regions of Poland through the language of… dumplings! I went back to Quadrille for that book: Pierogi. However, this is when Covid hit and I couldn’t travel. Looking back now, I realise that each book journey had a huge obstacle to overcome! For Pierogi, I used my family, friends and Instagram community to help me find old family recipes from all over Poland. I look back very fondly at that time of writing, discovery and collaboration.
For my fourth book, I wanted to do something different. I had a meeting with Watkins and we came up with the idea of creating a scrapbook of a Slavic grandma’s remedies. Slavic Kitchen Alchemy was born, where I recorded all I could remember of my Babcia Ziuta’s herbal knowledge and those of other Slavic women I’d met. The challenge for that book was that my Babcia Ziuta had passed away quite a while before and I couldn’t remember everything, how I wish I’d recorded things in my twenties! As with most challenges, I find, Slavic Kitchen Alchemy ended up being richer as a result. I decided to include folk stories and Slavic mythology within its pages. It became a very special scrapbook of recipes, remedies and stories. It’s the sort of book I wish I’d had as a teenager.
Finally, we arrive at The Gutsy Kids Cookbook, a huge labour of love. The challenge with this one is that it didn’t get picked up by a publisher. This actually came as a shock, because I had more interest in it from publishers than any other previous cookbook! Nevertheless, as all cookbook authors know, once it goes to the marketing department, it’s another story. I heard that it’s “too ahead of its time”, that books about cooking with kids don’t sell and that I wasn’t a nutritionist. Therefore, I decided to become a nutritionist and publish under my own imprint, Food&Fable. It was a bigger undertaking than I had ever anticipated, but it’s finally here and I’m very proud of it.
2. Before The Gutsy Kids Cookbook, you published four cookbooks exploring the cuisines and traditions of Eastern Europe. What themes or food stories have consistently inspired your work?
The themes that inspired those first four cookbooks have been history, folklore and old, Slavic ways. For a while, I called myself a “preserver of food and traditions” because I was focussed on bringing things from the past into the now, and using ancient traditions such as fermentation, which were becoming popular again, to appeal to a range of readers. Then, I realised that I’m more of a “storyteller-cook”, because what I do most is using stories to draw people into that world.
I haven’t abandoned these themes at all with my new book, I still have fermentation and pierogi in my new book, however, I’m talking to a slightly different audience, I’m communicating differently. In fact, the Polish classics, pierogi and kanapki, are on the front cover of The Gutsy Kids Cookbook. And, of course, I still use stories to communicate and connect.
3. Congratulations on the release of The Gutsy Kids Cookbook. What inspired you to write a cookbook focused on children’s gut health, and what do you hope families will take away from it?
Thank you so much. It was actually a conversation with a mum friend of mine, who is also a doctor. I was having a cup of tea at her house once and talking about cookbooks, as she’s a keen cook and had just been cooking from Polska. She suggested that what’s needed is a cookbook that focuses on kids’ guts. I agreed, as it was something I was already doing with my family. Then, she suggested that I should write it and I’m not one to refuse a challenge. Suzanne ended up testing all the recipes in the book and writing the Foreword. She was a fantastic recipe tester, giving me detailed notes on each one. The book just came alive for me, so when I didn’t get a traditional publishing deal, I decided to pursue the project regardless.
I hope that both parents and kids will love it, because it offers a measure of independence for the kids with a traffic light system that shows them what they can do with supervision and independently. There are also gutsy stamps on each recipe, which inspire both kids and parents to learn more about what we need in our food for it to be “gutsy”. It’s all about having fun in the kitchen rather than learning, though, which I believe is the most important thing and what makes this book unique. Even though I promised myself that I won’t look at any sales figures for 6 months, it did get to number 11 on the Amazon bestsellers list within a couple of weeks of publication, so that’s a good sign.
4. You’ve recently become a nutritionist. What motivated you to deepen your knowledge in this area, and how has it changed the way you cook, eat, or think about food at home?
Yes, I was a model student in that course, doing a lot of extra reading and having discussions with the tutor, so this is why I got the most I could out of it. I already had a good knowledge of nutrition, but I thought that if I’m going to be giving people advice about how to feed their children, then I need to be sure that my knowledge is completely sound. An East European food background is rich in pre and probiotics, however, I did learn that we are not getting quite enough fibre (only7-8% of us are!). Since then, I use white flour very sparingly and have doubled down on the ancient grains.
5. Gut health and fermentation are central themes in The Gutsy Kids Cookbook. For readers who are new to the topic, what are some practical steps families can take to support their gut health?
I believe we need to start small and take baby steps each week to improve gut health. Changing habits in a way that will work for the future is the main thing. You could start by adding kefir to some recipes. Chickpeas is another great addition to many recipes. In the next shop, I would simply get some tins of organic beans and chickpeas and some kefir and try to add it to your usual recipes every day. Chickpeas can be mashed and added to things like mashed potato, kefir can be added to porridge and smoothies. I am focussing on these kinds of small, practical things we can all do easily on my Instagram in the near future, as well as sharing the research.
6. Food is a powerful way of passing culture between generations. Are there any food traditions, rituals or cooking practices that you share with your children today that were also part of your own childhood?
Oh yes, every time I’m in the kitchen with my girls, I remember being a child and cooking with my grandmothers. The girls go through phases, so I don’t want to pressure them into the kitchen, but they always want to help when I’m baking. This is something that my grandmothers also did a lot, and I think it’s the most fun for kids. Dumplings they also want to get involved with and that’s something I did with both my Babcias. Dumplings are the most therapeutic of activities, there’s something about the dough that’s extremely comforting, this is why I had to include them in my kids’ book. Delfina, who has ADHD, likes anything slightly risky, like making pancakes on her own, or using a knife. I have turn off my anxiety, so I tell her the safety information and then leave her to it. The main thing is just being in the kitchen and learning the skills.
7. Is there a recipe from The Gutsy Kids Cookbook that best captures the spirit of the book that you’d be happy to share with our readers?
I would love to share the stuffed, baked apples, as this recipe is a bridge between gutsy food and Polish food. There are quite a few recipes like this in the book, so perhaps I am sneakily introducing more Polish food to a parent audience. However, I feel like we have a lot to learn from every culture. We all make pasta and curry (which are, of course, in the book too), so Polish and East European food should be a part of the conversation too. Especially since this is the culture that has so much fermentation and so many grains that we use on a daily basis.
Sadly, I couldn’t include the traffic light system and stamps on this recipe, but I have included a photo.
Baked apples with raspberries and nuts recipe.
8. What projects or areas of research are you most excited to explore next in your work?
For the next few months, my focus will be promoting The Gutsy Kids Cookbook and refreshing my Instagram. I realise that my favourite social media platform has changed a lot in the past year. I hadn’t been paying attention, as I was so focussed on this book, learning Indesign and everything else I needed to learn to create what I had envisioned, so I need to figure it all out anew. There’s always a new challenge in an ever-changing world.
Instagram: @zuzazakcooks
Substack: https://zuzazak.substack.com/
Website: https://zuzazak.com/
