Claudia Roden, who was born in Egypt, is a food writer who specialises in the cuisines of the Middle East, North Africa and the Mediterranean and in Jewish food. She received a CBE in 2022 for services to culinary culture and in 2023 an Honorary Doctorate at the University of London for sparking an interest in the academic study of food.

Caroline Eden is a writer and literary critic occasionally contributing to the food, travel and culture pages of The Guardian, Times Literary Supplement and Financial Times, among other publications.

Over the years her books, including Samarkand, Black Sea and Red Sands, have been reviewed and recommended in the New York Times, Wall St Journal, The Guardian, Financial Times, Sunday Times and many other magazines and newspapers. She has been awarded both the prestigious Art of Eating Prize in the US and the André Simon Award in the UK.

Her recent memoir, Cold Kitchen, celebrating the importance of curiosity and of feeling at home in the world, explores the communities and recipes from Eastern Europe to Central Asia. It was "a best summer read" for both the Financial Times and The Observer, a book of the year for the Times Literary Supplement and was also reviewed in The New Yorker. The third in the trilogy, Green Mountains: walking the Caucasus with recipes, is published in Spring 2025.

Olia Hercules was born in the South of Ukraine. She studied Italian language and International Relations at the University of Warwick. After spending a year in Italy, Olia settled in London, pursuing a career in journalism. She would later quit her job as film business reporter to pursue her dream to cook for a living. Dedicated to researching food culture and culinary traditions of countries less explored, Hercules is the author of the award-winning cookbooks, Mamushka, Kaukasis and Summer Kitchens.