'There's a prioritisation of pleasure through my work'
Writer Rachel Hendry on the idea of taste and pissing off neighbours by eating earth-shattering crinkle-cut crisps
Hospitality worker, newsletter writer, drinks connoisseur (and writer), rosé lover, composer of poetic tweets on food… Rachel Hendry wears many hats with aplomb. I came to know her during the pandemic, which is when we started our respective newsletters. Hers in particular, J’Adore le Plonk, is about the pleasures and limitations of wine, the elitism of the industry, or just the accessibility of good supermarket wine. It’s a newsletter that treats drinks and wine in a way that is so joyful and silly and important instead of the stuffiness that seems to be always reserved for it.
Hendry has also worked in the hospitality industry since she was 15, with a strong belief to work in a way that cares for the service of the people. Burum Collective — an online publication, platform, and collaborative effort — that she is a part of, started Service, Please! a zine for hospitality workers, about hospitality workers, and by hospitality workers with a focus on unionisation and workers rights.
Naturally, we spoke about her newsletter, her playful and joyous approach to writing about wine, Britain’s obsession with crisps, and gatekeeping orange wine.
As always, this is a long (and extremely fun) chat, so read throughout the weekend, and please do subscribe to J’Adore le Plonk! If you like what you’ve been reading on shelf offering, please share it with a lot of people and ask them to subscribe too. You can also follow along on Instagram.
Below is an edited transcript of our conversation.
Apoorva: Hi Rachel, I'm so excited to see you. Thank you so much for being here!
Rachel: Oh, you're so welcome! Thank you for having me.
Apoorva: What are some of your memories of cooking and eating? And how does that contribute to what you do now?
Rachel: Oh, good question. My mum did all the cooking, my dad did all the cleaning. And I was quite lucky that my dad was very active. I say like, the bar's quite low, isn't it? But my dad was incredibly active domestically. And they're both teachers. They were very, very busy. So we kind of had a mix of like chicken nuggets and fish fingers and things on toast. And then at the weekend she'd cook something that took more time.
In the UK, especially in the 90s which is all I know because I was not alive before then, the Atkins diet was coming out. I remember most of the cookbooks on our shelves were diet cookbooks, like Weight Watchers or Slimming World... But appetite wasn't always a good thing. So I grew up viewing my hunger and my appetite as not necessarily something that I should have? Quite a lot of people struggle with this. But I have quite an almost disordered eating approach as a result, in that I kind of struggle with viewing food as a solely good thing I think.
I find a lot of pleasure in eating and I'm very hungry as a person. Being raised in that kind of society where that's not a good thing, so really struggling. I've always used food, especially in my early 20s, as a way to control how I feel. So a lot of what I do now, is really trying to get to know my appetite better and understand and build that relationship up again that I don't think I had when I was younger. I feel like there's a prioritisation of pleasure through my work [that] has been quite important.