Come dine with His and Hirsch’s

The Hirsch family of Hirsch’s home stores appears to be not only business-savvy but food-savvy too. Hirsch’s managing director Richard Hirsch and his wife Simone turned their love of food into something creative and 143 pages later the His & Hirsch’s cook book is on shelves across the country.

“We have been writing down recipes for the last couple of years and towards the end of last year we decided to create a cook book”, Richard said. “It took two to three months to complete.We had to re-cook everything to make sure they worked.”

Writing cook books is a Hirsch family tradition. Hirsch’s mother, Margaret Hirsch, who began the Hirsch’s franchise and is owner of the Hirsch’s store in Strubens Valley, wrote a cook book in the early 1980s, as did Richard’s sister Luci last year. “So it just seemed like a natural progression to also write a cook book”, Richard said.

Most recipes belong to the Hirsch family. “We did, however, ask friends and family to put a few recipes through, like the Easy Spanish Tortilla. That is Simone’s Spanish grandmother’s recipe.”

When 99 percent of the book was finished the Hirsch couple realised they did not have a name for the book, and a Facebook naming competition followed. “The wonderful thing about Facebook is getting loads of people’s ideas and input. Two front runners were ‘Hanging with the Hirsch’s’ and ‘Hirschilicious’.”

But the final vote went to His & Hirsch’s. “Every recipe in the book is our favourite. That is why we included them all. But if I were to choose one, it would have to be those that are the easiest to cook,” Richard concluded.