As I have said many a time, my mother was my biggest food inspiration. Not only was she a fantastic cook, she also had a long career teaching people: first at the Department of Agriculture, then recipe development for books, advertising and in magazines such as the Women’s Weekly, as well as running the successful ‘Cooking with Gas’ kitchen at the Auckland gas company. I was always amazed at her confidence in hounding new acquaintances for recipes when she tasted something she liked. She really saw the value and importance in gathering these recipes, often from new migrants to the country, whose shared food cultures, Mum knew, would be so important to our rich and varied food landscape in New Zealand today.

After spending time pawing through my mother’s old handwritten cookbooks and collections of newspaper recipe clippings, I realised how many amazing women have had a personal influence on her, and then my own, cooking. From her early days as a young home-science graduate, she collected recipes galore from all sorts of sources: she gathered ideas from her friends, colleagues and pretty much anyone who would share a recipe with her. Looking back at them, it is amazing how much has changed and what stays the same. Recipes come and go, stay true to their traditional roots or evolve in style, ingredients and taste, giving rise to new versions.

Elisabeth Pedersen (left), my mum Naomi Roydhouse (centre) and a colleague in the test kitchen.

Here I have taken insight from ideas and recipes from some of those women who inspired Mum, putting my own spin on some old, loved classics.