Welcome to "Mise en Place" – a series dedicated to telling Chef stories. Mise en place is French for "putting in place", and it is what chefs do every day in the kitchen... but how did they get there? What are the experiences, tastes, and moments that put a chef in their culinary place? That's what we'll uncover together through "Mise en Place".
Meet Henry & Ian from BOSH!
Henry Firth and Ian Theasby are the faces behind BOSH!, UK’s largest and most recognizable multi-touch vegan brand. The duo are famed for their delicious, yet easy-to-follow, vegan recipe videos and have accumulated a cult following on social media. With a 3.1 million social footprint and 6 (soon to be 7) cookbooks, they continue to own the conversation when it comes to modern-day plant-based cooking in the mainstream market.
Ian is the creative drive behind the BOSH! recipes and passionate about sustainable living. He believes that there’s absolutely no need to miss out on taste while enjoying the benefits a plant-based lifestyle. Henry is a home-taught cook who is a late but passionate convert to the joys of plant-based living. His mission is to make a positive impact on reducing climate change by showing the world just how easy, delicious, and life-changing plant-based eating can be.
We asked the BOSH! duo to tell us about the experiences that have shaped their culinary journey and what inspires them.
What originally brought you into the kitchen? How did you learn to cook?
Our mothers both love to cook. They were the ones who first stimulated our interest in food and cooking. More recently, our obsession with cooking and food really ramped up when we went vegan in 2015.
What is your favourite cooking memory from growing up?
Baking with our mums! They’re both mean bakers and always used to let us help when they were rustling up their delicious cakes. We enjoyed the baking, but licking the spatulas clean was always the best part.
The cooking world is so demanding. What makes you feel supported in big or small ways?
We love the fact the cooking community is extremely hard-working and passionate. Chefs are some of the hardest working people in today’s society and we draw a lot of inspiration from their work ethic.
What is one of your all-time favourite dining experiences?
Our favourite dining experience was trying plant-based burgers for the first time in the USA five years ago. We had read a lot about these new vegan burgers that were incredibly realistic but weren’t available in the UK. We were blown away by them and it felt like we had tried the future.
What’s one piece of advice you’d give to an aspiring cook?
Prep, prep, prep! We think, in order to do a good job in the kitchen, you need to remain calm and collected. The best way we’ve found to do this is to make sure everything we need is prepared beforehand. Get the kit ready, prepare the ingredients, get the timer out, take a deep breath and get cooking. Easy!
What’s your favorite food city in the world and why?
London. It’s a multicultural hot pot with every cuisine you could wish for, cooked incredibly well. There’s also a wealth of wonderful plant-based options to be had in London, too.
What do you love about the London food & drink community?
The plant-based food community here in London is fantastic. We’ve made a lot of good friends over the past few years. Friendships that, we hope, will last a lifetime.
In your own words, what makes an excellent knife?
A good knife needs to have a formidable weight to ease the cutting experience. It needs to be ergonomically designed and feel good in your palm. It needs to look sleek and be a thing of beauty. Most of all, a good knife needs to be seriously sharp so it glides through ingredients with ease.
And, we have to ask, what's your favourite knife?
If we had to pick one it would be a WÜSTHOF chef’s knife. Simple, yet wildly effective.
Anything else you’d like to tell us about yourself?
We cook food at bosh.tv. Go check out our recipes next time you’re after a nice plant-based meal!
Ian and Henry are currently using the WÜSTHOF Classic 8” Chef’s Knife and WÜSTHOF Classic 7" Hollow Edge Santoku.