Is it in the genes?

This is my great-great-great grandfather Robert Mollett (1784-1867). He was a pastry cook/confectioner and he had a shop in London's Holborn district in a street called Snow Hill which no longer exists, as it was demolished to make way for the Holborn Viaduct. His great grandfather John was a baker, and I believe that some cousins were into designing ovens. This lovely drawing or watercolour or whatever it is was sent to me by a distant cousin. I really must get it framed. He looks a kindly man, and everything that I know about him would support that. A canny businessman too, for his father had a humble job as a cow keeper in Norwich, which I think means that he kept a cow and sold milk. Robert junior, for his father was called Robert too, came to London where he served an apprenticeship as a pastry cook, and thereafter made, if not exactly a fortune, at least a very comfortable living. Enough to be described as Gentleman on his death certificate. He looks a gentleman in the portrait - not like a pastry cook. But then he is in his later years and probably retired. I would love to find an advertisement for his shop some time. There must have been some and maybe one day I will find one. For I don't really know what he made. Elaborate confections and cakes, or meat pies and sausage rolls? Ice-creams? Who knows.

But the genes must have skipped a few generations for the descendants do not show any signs of an interest in food. None of them. His son John did become his apprentice, but I suspect he didn't last long. He certainly did not finish the apprenticeship, becoming instead a ship's broker and insurer, and rising to be chairman of the Baltic Exchange at one point.

When I was finishing my school career and looking to get into university, my alternative path was into what was then Battersea College of Technology and a four year course in hotel management. My mother took me for the interview, and was invited to sit in on it - just because she was there I think. One of the questions I was asked was whether anyone in my family had any hospitality connections, and I answered no. My mother rebuked me afterwards pointing out that my father, in his role of Chief Steward on P&O boats did just that. And he certainly did. How on earth could I have forgotten this?

But I don't think that my father had followed a career in hospitality because of his genes. It was a sort of choice but not really. With his mother and father dead from TB, his brother and sister afflicted (or soon to be afflicted) by the same terrible disease he was advised by a doctor to either be a farmer or go to sea.

Irrelevant advice we now know, but still at the time it seemed like a good idea and so a week or so after his mother's death he enlisted with the P&O as a cabin boy. He was only about 18.

From there, over the years he rose through being a steward to a barman, Second Steward and Chief Steward - in which role he organised the catering and stores, the entertainment, such as it was, the bar and the pay of the crew. I guess looking back it was a big job. And I assume he enjoyed it or he would not have stuck at it. But did it come from the genes? I think not, though the general kindness and bonhomie may well have done.

As to myself, although I was indeed interested in a career in hospitality, and I was offered a place, I chose instead to go the university path. My mother felt that there were not many opportunities for women in hospitality - and she may well have been right at the time. Well maybe not. The times they were a-changing. Anyway the die was cast and any leanings I had to hospitality were just channelled into a love of cooking for family and friends. I occasionally thought of doing some kind of home catering, but for a lazy and unconfident person such as I, it was all too hard. A shop in a block of flats called The Quiche Niche was one of my ideas, turning the Gatehouse into a kind of gite was another. But as I said, I am lazy.

I have been playing with family history for many years now and it has been an interesting exercise. Good for the brain too because you have to constantly think of new ways to find your information. When you see those Who Do You Think You Are? programs you often see somebody almost obsessed with finding ancestors with similar interests - usually artistic or musical because of the nature of most of the guests. Me I wanted to find a French ancestor - and I did have high hopes because my father's family seemed to think they were Huguenots - but no I don't think so - no Huguenots so far - and I'm back to the 16th century, so I think that's wrong. My mother's side of the family are largely seafarers of one kind or another or gypsies - and there is my father - obviously not genetically connected - who was a sailor. So travel is in the blood on that side of the family - and I do like to travel, but not on the sea. My son just adores to travel. So maybe genes do play a part in all of this.

Anyway it was quite a thrill to find Robert the pastry cook, although the genes obviously skipped several generations, if indeed it has anything to do with genes. It's a tantalising thought though isn't it?

My mother was a good cook - so maybe I just got it from her. And the French who entered my life at an impressionable age. Maybe I'm just greedy.