Margaret Fulton's granddaughter Louise columnist for taste magazine

MARGARET Fulton taught a generation of women to cook and now her granddaughter Louise Fulton Keats is taking up the task.

Margaret Fulton and Louise Fulton Keats at Margaret's house in Balmain, Sydney.

LOUISE Fulton Keats was the odd girl out at school with her lunch box of dolmades and mashed avocado sandwiches.

The granddaughter of cooking doyenne Margaret Fulton and daughter of cookbook author Suzanne Gibbs, Louise was the main taste tester for many a recipe.

Louise is one of the new columnists for taste, the new magazine from NewsLifeMedia, which goes on sale from Monday.

TASTE.COM.AU LAUNCHES MONTHLY MAGAZINE

MAKE IT LIKE MARGARET FULTON

The monthly magazine is packed with cooking hints and plus shopping tips and ideas on healthy family eating, an area in which Louise, mother to a toddler, has some expertise.

After studying law, Louise decided she needed a change of direction and she decided to enrol in a Cordon Bleu cooking course in London.

"It was a very fast-paced program. It made my law degree look like a walk in the park in terms of the stress involved," she said.

"When you are a lawyer, you have to achieve perfection, but you have days or weeks to do it. But when you are a professional chef, or studying to be, you've got seconds or minutes to do it.

"When I went to Cordon Bleu I realised I had this great visual encyclopedia of having seen it done before.

"So often when I am cooking now the first thing I do is, without even being conscious of it is, 'Have I seen grandma make this? Have I seen mum make this? What's the first step? How do they do it? It really is a subconscious path."

Despite her pedigree, Louise still had to prove her worth in the kitchen and remembers criticism over some "insipid" looking caramel on a crème brulee.

Louise has also studied nutrition, ironically a course her grandmother declined when offered it in the 1950s.

STELLAR LINE-UP OF CELEBRITY CHEF MAKE TASTE.COM.AU HOME

The new taste.com.au magazine, out on September 9. Picture: Supplied

"We know so much more about nutrition and about what we eat dictates our health," Louise says. "We know all these things but in some ways it's become harder to eat more healthily.

"Although I might not have the butter and drippings and cream that my great grandmother or my grandmother or mother had, there is so much more salt in our processed food, so many more additives. Supermarkets choices are more complicated that ever."

Louise will be challenging Sydney chef Colin Fassnidge with a Naughty & Nice column, outspoken Irishman Fassnidge being the naughty one, of course.

She is also writing a Healthy Showdown column comparing the good, the bad, and the ugly in your pantry, fridge and items on supermarket shelves.

The launch issue of taste also features supergrains and skinny sweets among the many recipes and tips.

Perched on the couch in her Sydney harbourside home of more than half a century, Margaret says Louise is just following the same path that many Australian women have.

"The marvellous thing I think about Australian women is that more than any other women in the world, they have taken to doing something new and exciting in their kitchens," she said.

Despite her love of butter, Margaret said she sees the sense in Louise's new columns outlining the benefits and downfalls of various foods.

"Women love cooking but you don't like cooking the same thing every week. That is the most boring thing in the world," Margaret said.

After hovering around the apron strings of two generations of Australian cooks, Louise is still learning.

"I think the secret to good cooking is taking the best ingredients you can get your hands on and bringing out their best, that's what (Grandma) will do so well.

"She just knows how not to ruin something, which is actually quite a skill."

The first-ever issue of taste.com.au magazine is out tomorrow, with all new and exclusive recipes coming to life with the help of some of Australia's favourite food-lovers including Matt Preston, Adriano Zumbo and Manu Feildel. Pick up your copy for the special launch price of only $2.99! Available in store or online at taste.com.au/magazine.

Naughty & Nice ... Louise Fulton Keats and Colin Fassnidge will write a column.

###