Food on Social Media: Photos, Fads, Feasts and Fans
Channel: British Library
Date: 2023-05-25

This event took place on 15 May 2023. The information below is correct as of the publication date.

The good, the bad and the ugly of food social media with Poppy O’Toole, Chetna Makan, Ed Smith and Itamar Srulovich.

This event takes place in the British Library and will be simultaneously live streamed on the British Library platform. Tickets may be booked either to attend in person, or to watch on our platform (online) either live or within 48 hours on catch up. Viewing links will be sent out shortly before the event.

TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter… Our social media platforms are stuffed full of food, and the online food community is ever hungry for content. But what does that mean for the food professionals whose job it is to feed an audience that always wants more? And can a cook succeed without being a content creator too?

Our panel looks at the opportunities, challenges, and pitfalls that social media engagement brings for the food industry and its followers. 

With chef Poppy O’Toole who as Poppy Cooks found culinary fame through social media during lockdowns; award-winning food writers and cooks Chetna Makan and Ed Smith, and Itamar Srulovich of Honey & Co.

This event is part of the British Library Food Season 2023.

Chetna Makan was born in Jabalpur in Central India. She has a degree in fashion and worked in Mumbai as a fashion designer before moving to the UK in 2004. Chetna was part of ‘The Great British Bake Off’ in 2014 and since then has written six cookbooks. They range from baking, Indian street food, healthy Indian food, vegetarian and quick Indian. She also has a very popular YouTube channel ‘Food with Chetna’ where she shares her creative flair for all things cooking and baking. 

Instagram: @chetnamakan

Michelin-trained internet sensation Poppy O’Toole amassed a following of over 3.8 million followers online under her profile Poppy Cooks after losing her job because of the pandemic in 2020. Known for creating easy-to-follow, restaurant style, recipe tutorials for her audience, Poppy has achieved over 300 million views on her channel since April 2020. After almost a decade in professional kitchens, Poppy has taken everything she has learnt in fine dining and breaks it down for people to use in their own kitchens at home and launched her debut cookbook Poppy Cooks: The Food You Need in September 2021. Poppy is the co-host of BBC Three’s Young Master Chef.

Instagram: @poppy_cooks

Ed Smith is an award-winning recipe and cookbook writer — he's the author of Crave, The Borough Market Cookbook and On The Side, and regularly contributes to Waitrose Food, Waitrose Weekend, The Sunday TImes Magazine, the Guardian Feast and more. Ed also sees social media as a core part of his profile, having begun his career in food in 2010 when he established his well-regarded food blog, rocketandsquash.com, through online conversations in the heady days of Twitter, and now most significantly via video content created on Instagram as @rocketandsquash.

Itamar Srulovich was born and raised in Jerusalem. Cooking since the age of five and leaving a great mess in the kitchen ever since, Itamar trained on the job in various places in Tel-Aviv, where he met his wife, Sarit. Itamar and Sarit moved to London in 2004 and opened Middle Eastern restaurant Honey & Co in London in 2012, launching a grill house Honey & Smoke and food store Honey & Spice close behind. They have written four cookbooks, write a weekly recipe column for FT Weekend Magazine and host a podcast, Honey & Co: The Food Sessions. Be entertained with delicious recipes and food and travel stories from Sarit and Itamar on Instagram – @honeyandco.

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