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The Food Chain

Factual: Food & Drink

Examining what it takes to put food on your plate

The Food Chain examines the business, science and cultural significance of food, and what it takes to put food on your plate.

The ghost writers

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The Food Chain: The ghost writers

Magazines & Reviews

19/01/2023 GMT

BBC World Service - The Food Chain, The ghost writers

The people who pen cookbooks for celebrity chefs.

Who wrote the cook books on your kitchen shelves? For many celebrity chefs, a cook book, or several, is an obvious way to extend their brand. But if they don’t have the time or the skills to write one, they may hire a ghost writer or co-author to work with them.  

It’s not just writing, the work can involve project management, recipe testing, meeting deadlines and handling some big egos. Sometimes writers are credited on the cover of the book, sometimes in the introduction, sometimes not at all.  

In this programme Ruth Alexander meets two people who have worked as ghost writers on cookbooks. JJ Goode lives in New York in the United States; he’s credited on the cover of many celeb chef cookbooks, and recently won a prestigious James Beard award for the book he wrote with Gregory Gourdet, ‘Everyone’s Table: Global Recipes for Modern Health’. Signe Johansen is a Norwegian American trained chef and food writer living in London; she worked as a ghost writer on cookbooks early in her career before publishing her own, such as ‘Solo: The Joy of Cooking for One’. 

Presented by Ruth Alexander.  

Produced by Beatrice Pickup. 

(Image: ghostly-looking open book. Credit: Getty Images/BBC)

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