Craig and Shaun McAnuff talk about their nan
Craig and Shaun McAnuff talk to ELLA WALKER about their inspirational nan and how they are using cooking to help young people facing tough life choices
CRAIG and Shaun McAnuff – brothers, YouTubers, recipe writers – are on different phone lines when we chat and keep tripping up with static, dipping in and out of earshot. Each time, the other shouts: “Bro, you’ve gone again!”
The South London cooks, aka Original Flava – the name of their hit YouTube channel and debut cookbook – were close growing up, even sharing a bunk bed (although not the same football team, which was “quite intense”), and are just as close now, if not more so.
Dishing up Caribbean food to their legions of online fans has “made us very competitive, in a good way,” says Shaun, 32. “We want to make things right and better, and the (recipe) standard has to be really high – it’s brought us closer together.”
The brothers, who have Jamaican heritage, were inspired to cook by their mother and grandmother, and put the increasing popularity of Caribbean food down to “British acceptance of our culture” combined with staple Caribbean ingredients – from plantain to cassava – being widely available, and the likes of Levi Roots and Ainsley Harriott having “paved the way”.
“We saw that lots of people loved Caribbean food didn’t know how to cook it,” explains Craig, 29. “So we just wanted to make a page for our friends.” But their first one-minute video racked up a million views “and everything blew up overnight”.
Now they have a mighty 15k YouTube
subscribers and more than 58k Instagram followers.
For Craig though, things could have panned out differently. “Growing up in Thornton Heath, South London, you’re faced with that challenge,” he says, speaking of gang culture. He remembers being on a bus with a group of friends when a guy got on: “He was looking to question us. I got a bit cheeky and then he got a bit rowdy, and showed me his gun.
“It just spiralled out and I started to laugh at him; I thought it was a fake gun,” he recalls. “You’re fearless as a young man.” However, it was a turnaround” moment and has led to both brothers visiting schools, where some of the kids are facing that choice themselves, to talk about their experiences and run cookery workshops.
“We understand the struggles young people face,” says Craig. “We try to teach young people: Have that no-fear attitude, but in a positive place.”
A lot of their own positivity and drive can be attributed to the support of their wonderful sounding grandmother. “Our nan (Lurline) is our inspiration; she’s an amazing lady,” says Shaun reverently, adding with a laugh: “She’s actually more popular than us now! She literally gets stopped on the street.”
A “big part of our journey”, she spent the summer holidays training the brothers to make staple Jamaican dishes like ackee and salt fish and then helped make their YouTube careers possible “because she opened up her home” – it’s where they still film their videos. And, like any good nan, she’s always pitching in says Shaun It’s like having an eagle eye, isn’t it? If you go she does offer a helping hand and tells us off a little bit, but it’s all good.”
Their food encompasses ‘nan-approved’ traditional Caribbean dishes like rice and peas, but also ones with a twist, like jerk-spiced lentil bolognese, green banana potato salad, and their jerk burger.
Talking of jerk, the brothers are sanguine about it being many people’s only experience of Caribbean cuisine.
“It is so nice,” says Craig. “I’m not surprised everyone wants to know just about that, but there’s so much more to Caribbean food.”
He speaks of Caribbean produce, from mangoes to sugar cane that in Jamaica grow on the street; and how while in Caribbean households dinner will feature a huge amount of dishes but, surprisingly, “most of the time jerk chicken isn’t on the table”.
For the book, Craig and Shaun visited Jamaica, spending time with family and eating their way round the island.
“It was my first time, but it felt like I’d been there for years,” says Craig. “It’s like I almost knew the place already.”
They were both dazzled by how invested and fascinated Jamaicans are by food and ingredients.
“Cooking over there is a lifestyle,” explains Craig. “You’ll see people in the streets selling food and they’ll be with their friends, it’ll be a community. That’s what we’re trying to introduce. It’s about making things together.”
And so their message is: “Don’t be afraid of Caribbean food man, try it out at home, it’s easy.”
■ Original Flava: Caribbean Recipes From Home by Craig and Shaun McAnuff, photography by Matt Russell, is published by Bloomsbury, priced £20 on Thursday.