The Great British Bake Off is totally queer, says Ruby Tandoh

In 2013, at the age of just 20, Ruby Tandoh came to floury fame in the Bake Off tent, and has since made a name for herself as a food writer and commentator.

In her new book, Eat Up!, Tandoh talks about her relationship with her partner, Leah – who she met through Tinder – thanking her “for loving me and feeding me.” For Tandoh, food and queerness are very much intertwined, especially because she came to terms with her queerness around the same time as she came to terms with her relationship with food.

From @rubytandoh on Twitter

“Both are about what (or who) I want, and whether I see myself as worthy of that, and whether I’m allowed to follow those appetites,” she tells PinkNews.

Eat Up!, which intersects recipes with personal essays on food, hunger and identity, was published this week.

Speaking to PinkNews, Tandoh says the idea for the book came in response to scaremongering and confusion she saw being created by the food industry.

“Last year there was a real crescendo of uncertainty around food: diet culture was reinventing itself, there were books promising to save you from your own cravings and others saying that we’re all pretty much eating ourselves to death.

“One day, one thing was ‘poison,’ then it was some other food. It was seriously messed up.”

When it comes to her and Leah, their approach to food is unfailingly enthusiastic and endearing – their favourite thing to cook is pancakes.

“Leah’s the pancake-making queen, and I’m great at eating them, so we’re a good team in that respect,” Tandoh says.

• Dec 01

16 TV stars you grew up watching who later came out as LGBTQ+