Written by Mouna Madanat

If you have Instagram and you love good food, you’ll have heard of @whatwillycook, real name Will Hughes. Well-known and liked for his casual, sarcastic and unserious personality, Will’s made an impressive name for himself in the food content creation world. 

Just shy of 800,000 followers on Instagram, his feed is full to the brim with accessible but inventive recipes, often made up from the random ingredients he has in his fridge. 

Although Will has managed to create a pretty positive platform for himself and his fans, he’s certainly no stranger to online criticism. He says, “I shouldn’t, but I do read most of my DMs and comments. I’ve just done this launch for my homeware brand and people have been going nuts about the price. I’ve put so much of my own money into it, if I don’t charge a certain price then I’m never gonna make that back! I’ve gone out of my way to make sure everything’s perfect. People want ethically made, high quality products but they don’t want to pay more than what they pay for IKEA.” 

What initially enticed me into approaching Will for an interview, apart from his incredibly entertaining content, was his fundraiser for Save the Children’s Gaza Emergency Appeal in August this year. He managed to raise a staggering £22,000 and the event included food vendors and DJ sets, and safe to say it caught my eye. 

Admittedly, I was pleasantly surprised at his charitable work as you don’t always expect food content creators to be so public with their political activism. But Will’s views on charity work and politics are rather refreshing, his approach being unapologetic and comedically blunt. 

I ask Will if he thinks he has a responsibility with his growing platform, to which he replies “Yes and no. People use their platforms in different ways, and when it comes to issues that seem to divide people, it doesn’t always benefit to post loads about it when you’ve got a huge following, because you’ll just get a lot of people disagreeing with you. I have my views and my opinions, but I also have a platform that I use to make people laugh.” 

“When it comes to the responsibility it’s more about doing what you can, and what I knew I could do was organise an event that would raise money. The issue I felt I needed to be giving money to is the children of Gaza. I think some people do online activism in a way that is almost trend reflective. It seems that people do things because they think that they have to.”

He touches on performative activism, using the example of when people were sharing the ‘All Eyes on Rafah’ AI image. “That’s already been proven to not be an effective form of activism because it doesn’t do anything. Raising money does something!” he exclaims.

Will brings up a good point that his platform isn’t somewhere where he’s going to educate people successfully because a lot of people aren’t willing to listen. He explains that if you have a smaller account and the people that follow you are mostly your friends, you’re more likely to have someone lean into your way of looking at things. “I wouldn’t try and change someone’s views because I think it’s an incredibly difficult thing to do” he sighs, “Especially when you have a lot of followers, because you will get a lot of flak from people who don’t agree with you.”

“Whether anyone likes it or not, it’s an incredibly sensitive topic when it comes to talking about what’s going on in Gaza. That’s not to say it shouldn’t be talked about, but going about it online is different to having a conversation at the pub with your mates, where you’re actually open to what your friends are saying.”

Will explains that he doesn’t consider himself an activist whatsoever, but that it’s about doing something rather than about his responsibility to educate. “If I can do something good then I will!” he says, “When it comes to educating, I don’t think I’m clued up enough on what’s going on to be able to articulate how someone else should feel.”

We talk about what it was that made him want to centre Gaza and the Palestinian cause for his summer fundraiser this year. 

“It felt like the right thing to do. I just wanted to do something that would help and so I thought that was where the money should go. Last year we did two events for the charity Shelter because as someone who lives in London where there’s a lot of homelessness I felt it would be good if I could make some change. So when it came to doing this year’s event I wanted people to feel like they’re being a part of something that was actually conducive to the greater good! The privilege of having lots of followers on the internet is being in a position where I can just decide to put on an event and choose where the money goes.” 

I ask if Will thinks if his event for Gaza was well-received online, to which he replies “It definitely was. When people are dying you should never have to pick a side. I think that that’s how people respond to this conflict immediately, but as someone who is actively on the internet, I obviously got loads of negative comments. However, I feel I’ve been quite lucky over the past five years because I’ve never drawn masses of negative feedback. I think people look at my videos and if they like it they stay and if they don’t, they don’t and that’s fine! That’s been the majority of my experience. I do read the comments but in the case of this event, it was more someone messaging me that they were going to unfollow me because they didn’t agree with my political views. But I picked this charity because the money is going to Gaza, where I want it to be going!” 

We move on to whether he thinks food is political or not. Will nervously laughs at the question, and says “I use food to be creative and I like elements of cooking from all sorts of cultures. I think people politicise food quite a bit. Food is a universal thing. Everyone’s got to eat. I always think it’s way better to have a good understanding of the cultural side of specific dishes, but I think as long as you’re not monetising it it’s fine.” 

“I think that people do try and politicise food. Unless you have an inherent understanding of a particular cuisine – maybe you’re not from that culture – but if you do have an understanding and you’re doing it justice, then no one should be able to tell you that you shouldn’t be cooking that food, just because you’re from here and this food’s from there.”

“Sometimes people get stuff wrong, but that doesn’t mean that it should be such an offensive thing, because we all eat at the end of the day!”

I find myself agreeing with Will here, although I do share with him my unnecessary anger at the invention of tahini brownies (as an Arab myself), which we laugh about because why am I so angry? 

“It’s so easy for me to say what I’ve just said though as a white man that’s from the UK, because we don’t have a particularly interesting cuisine. We’ve got roast dinners and fry ups. If it’s coming from a good place and you’re just inspired by flavours from different parts of the world, that’s fine. Obviously as someone from England you’re going to be far more inspired by food from literally anywhere else.” 

We touch on fusion foods and London as a melting pot of cultures and Will says “Some of the best ideas come when you actually marry cultures. That’s why parts of London and the UK are as great as they are, because we have multiculturalism. In the same way that different cultures should be able to live amongst one another, making food that uses multiple cultures is always going to yield interesting results. As I said, it is very easy for me to say that as a white bloke. I actually do hate shepherd’s pie, but it would definitely be nicer if it was made with miso braised beef shin!”

I respond with the reason that I think the fusion genre triggers ethnic communities in the West because of trauma from colonialism. Will strongly agrees saying “Oh definitely! A million percent. But think about it, one of the best sandwiches – I’m very passionate about sandwiches, I’m not very passionate about colonialism – the banh mi, was invented when the French colonised parts of Vietnam. That is a fact, and that’s still a thing in Vietnam and still being made by Vietnamese people in London, because it’s a perfect sandwich. It’s never good when things remain from colonialism, unless it’s a delicious sandwich.”

As I finish writing, I realise that although we spent most of our interview laughing and joking, we definitely touched on some real and taboo topics. I certainly left our conversation feeling understood, entertained and educated. Will’s blasé but informed approach to life, culture and politics is something we can all learn from. 

If you want to keep tabs on Will, follow him on Instagram @whatwillycook, go buy some gorgeous crockery from his new brand ‘Pleasant Homeware’, and keep an eye out for his next fundraiser in December.