Friday Night Chicken

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE JANE GRIGSON AWARD 2025

'Aaron’s heartfelt memoir will leave your heart and mind full … but your stomach craving latkes.' Tim Anderson, chef & award-winning writer

'Full of heart and warmth. A joy to read!' Angela Hui, author of Takeaway

In this captivating coming-of-age memoir, Aaron Vallance gives you a seat at the enchanting and delectable meals that shaped his understanding of the world growing up in an Ashkenazi Jewish family in 1980s Manchester.

Through exceptional storytelling, Aaron re-creates the particularities of his childhood - one where he would have chicken on a Friday, eat Challah every Saturday, bagels every Sunday, and then a smattering of chopped herring, chremsls, chrain, and latkes in between. With a stomach full, he explores the traditions, rituals, festivals and meaning behind these foods we might all recognise, celebrating the nuances of a tight-knit, if often insular, Jewish community along the way.

Written with warmth and joy, Friday Night Chicken is a one-of-a-kind story for all lovers of food and personal stories to delight in.

Aaron eloquently unites the personal and the universal in his heartfelt story of food and family among the Jewish diaspora. This is a fascinating, moving, and generously detailed look at a culinary tradition that has always intrigued me.
Tim Anderson, award-winning chef and writer

About Aaron Vallance

Aaron Vallance is a writer, lover of food and part-time NHS doctor. His food writing blog 1 Dish 4 The Road, has been shortlisted three times for a Guild Food Writers Award and he has also been published in Vittles, Lecker Magazine and Pit Magazine. He currently has a role at the Guild of Food Writers as a Special Officer for Diversity. Friday Night Chicken is Aaron’s debut book and was shortlisted pre publication for the highly prestigious Jane Grigson Trust Award in 2025.

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