Ryan Riley founded Life Kitchen, a not-for-profit cookery school for people whose taste has been affected by cancer, cancer treatment or Covid, with fellow chef, Kimberley Duke, eight years ago. Ryan was his mother’s carer from the ages of 18 to 20 and saw how chemotherapy changed her sense of taste. After her death, Ryan wanted to honour his mother’s memory and use his cooking skills to help cancer patients find flavour and pleasure in food. He has written several cookbooks including Life Kitchen and Small Pleasures. Earlier this year he was awarded The British Empire Medal (BEM) by the King in the New Year’s Honours List.
When did you know your career would be in food?
Not until after my mum died. Kimberley and I moved to London with my casino win (I won £28,000 from a £1 bet). Every Sunday we’d cook a dish from Jamie Oliver’s cookbook. That’s when I knew I wanted to work in food.
How did you feel being presented with the British Empire Medal (BEM) by the King in the New Year’s Honours list?
It was wild. Last year was difficult as I was unwell and Life Kitchen was on hold. I was lucky with my incredible father and sister who kept me going, but by the end of last year, I felt beaten down. I received a letter saying the Prime Minister had put me forward for a British Empire Medal and would I like to accept it? Of course I would! It puts my family in the history books. If Mum was here today, she would be blown away by it!
How did Life Kitchen come about?
All from a tweet. I tweeted I wanted to do a cookery class for people living with cancer and could anyone help? It went viral and I ended up on BBC Radio 4 The Today Programme. I’m grateful to the BBC for that, as it changed the trajectory of my entire life. For eight years we’ve helped over 100,000 people worldwide with cookery classes and books. It has been a remarkable journey. It isn’t all about me – I have a great team including Professor Barry Smith, founder of the Centre of Study of the Senses who advises us on how flavour works scientifically and we translate this into delicious recipes.
Can you give some recipe examples?
Pineapple Tacos – a slice of pineapple, folded and stuffed with prawns, chilli and lime. Or there’s Miso White Chocolate Sauce with frozen berries which combines sweet and savoury flavours. The whole idea of Life Kitchen recipes centres around the five tastes – sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. The key essential is umami, which is found in foods like soy sauce, mushrooms, miso, fish, seaweed and cheese. When you have more umami in a dish, it stimulates your other tastebuds to work harder. Miso is the one ingredient everyone should have in the store cupboard as it can improve virtually any dish where salt is required, you can add it to standard dishes such as spaghetti bolognese for example. You can also crush fennel seed into the béchamel sauce of a lasagne to make it more aromatic – 80% of our taste is smell. Even if someone can’t experience much taste, you want to give them a sensory experience.
What are your future plans?
We’re offering free Life Kitchen classes throughout the country. I’m writing a new cookbook. I’d like to do more TV. Although we do a lot of publicity, there’s still going to be some people who don’t know about us, so I want to reach them. Life isn’t a structured thing – you just have to run with it and see what happens. That’s where I’m at right now.
There’s so much more to a crumble than the sweet dessert after a Sunday roast (although that’s good, too) – in fact, a savoury crumble feels like pure indulgence. The miso, mushroom and parmesan ramp up the savoury flavours in this recipe, giving it a depth that outstrips its simplicity.
