The 12 Books of Christmas | Comfort Eating with Grace Dent
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Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm Head of Programming, Conor Boyle. We're looking back at some of our favorite books of the year in our 12 books of Christmas.

Thank you so much for coming.

Thank you so much for coming tonight. Grace Dent is intelligence, and I am meant to be squaring that. So it's a great deal of pressure because I have been listening on audiobook to Comfort Eating all week and alternating that with episodes of the podcast.

And can I tell you this, Grace? Firstly, I feel like I know you really well. It's the first time we've met. And I feel like I live with you. Good. Secondly, I've been trying this new thing, you know, when you go through phases of, you know, with your eating. And I've been really trying to be mindful about what I eat, you know, to just like absolutely zen it and go, am I hungry? Or is this what they now call food noise? And if it is, can I let that go? Like all of those things. Okay, so this is my first week of doing this.

And two days in, I started reading, I started eating comfort eating. I started reading comfort eating and I decided to walk home as part of the Zen. I'm not kidding. You talk to me for a full half an hour about butter. Oh, yeah. And I got home. It makes everything better. Oh, my God. I got home and I just went, oh, fuck this.

And I got a bagel that, yeah, it was a bagel from a fancy place, which I know is not the spirit of comfort eating. It's meant to be, you know, non-fancy things, but it was a bagel from, and then I was just like, I got this butter and I was just like, and then I continued to listen to you talk about butter. Sounding a bit pornographic now. Was it tooth butter though? Was it butter that when you ate it, it left like a tooth imprint? That's why it's got to be so thick. Was it that butter? Yeah.

It wasn't far off, I admit. If you were on Comfort Eat and I wouldn't let you have a fancy Gales bagel. No, you have to have one that's, you know, when you get kind of six for a pound in Asda. Yes. And they're not anything fancy and they would survive some kind of nuclear winter. Yeah, absolutely. Although I've got to say people have started trying to be more fancy.

I don't know if you listen to the podcast. You don't have to. It's not compulsory. There won't be a quiz, but the entire point of the podcast is people are meant to bring the things to my house that they actually eat. I'm not interested in celebrities. I think that we have two modes of eating, don't we? We have the things that we pretend we eat when people say...

That we might roll out for a dinner party. I go, yes, yes, I just did this in an hour. No, it took you about three days. Three days of sourcing ingredients. And then we have the things that we eat like a wild animal in private. You know when we were talking about dancing like no one's watching? Yes. Eating like no one's watching. It's the only way. Eating when something's so delicious, when a tin of beans, you open it up and you have a spoon of the cold on the way to the microwave. Mm-hmm.

And then you walk back from the microwave. You've already had a piece of toast while waiting for the microwave. You're eating the toast up to see if it's done and having just a bit of it and pushing it back down. Yes. So that's it. That's the whole point. It's a confession about food. But I won't talk any more about the podcast if you don't want me to. I always feel like I'm kind of like ramming that down people's throats. And there's so many other podcasts to listen to, but they're just not as good. No.

um present company accepted obviously um uh the yeah the the podcast is wonderful because you are exploring people's lives and their childhoods through those early iconic foods that might mean something to them but might to other people be you know like oh yuck i wouldn't want to eat that but it reminds you of a time yes and the book is

is really more of your exploration and it's about grief. Oh God, yes. And I just thought that was wonderful because if I have a friend and they have a death in the family or somebody close, I always send cake because you can't eat flowers. And...

People come. People are there. And so recently we had a friend and it was a group of us wanted to send something and they were like, shall we send flowers? I was like, but they're just loads of flowers. You've got to find water and a vase and so I said, let's send a hamper. And we sent a

a Fortnum's hamper because and he was like oh my god my family was so excited because you know it's there's people over and there's something and it's just a bit of something I love the fact that the problem had the person even died by that point they just ignore they were just ignoring the person dying oh it's like that would be my family be like Grace is she dead he had a good innings look

at this yeah um i uh okay i'm gonna drop a name i'm not a name dropper but i was just talking to richard d grant about an hour ago like and uh i know but we were talking about this uh because we're talking about grief and food and how important it is and he said that so often when people are going through times of grief or someone's dying someone's on their way out we all go

Give us a shout if I can do anything. No one's going to give you a shout. Who's going to give you a shout? And then he said, actually, he said this on the podcast. Somebody famous, every single Sunday, sent an Uber to their house with a load of home-cooked food. Didn't ask for anything. So exactly every Sunday, he opened the door. It was Nigella.

And again, I would be, that would completely distract me from my caring duties. I'd be like, morphine? I'm not a minute. It's a wonderful thing to do, the gift of food. Especially if you know what they like. You know, if someone, I know someone doesn't want cake, I might send the cheese or something like that. But it's just, and sometimes if someone's having, if one of my friends is having a hard time, I'll send them like a Deliveroo voucher just for like 20 quid.

because then they can just have a curry to the door or something like that. And that's very comforting. Yeah, I think that the book is definitely about grief. But I think that over the last few years, I've lost both my parents. And I just think that every time I sit down to try and write, because my books are always funny.

But the reality of things do always seep in. You know, all of my books, I always say, are like kind of coughing up a big furball. You know, sit there and kind of go, right, we won't talk about your mother's death this time. And then before you know it, it's there. And I think that with comfort eating, we talk about pasta, tinned pasta. And, you know, the chocolate that when you see it by the supermarket counter, it just gives you that little kind of frisson of...

Oh, a lion bar, the wrapper of a lion bar. And all these things drag you back. It's that whiplash that you see when you're walking down a supermarket aisle and suddenly you see serene. You know what I mean? Serene, serene, serene. How do you say that posh? Serene, serene.

And you think it's all those things are going to be important. So, yeah, there is grief all the way through. There's laughs as well. But it's what... Oh, it's very funny. It's very funny. First of all, the chapters. As soon as I got this, they were like, do you want to do this? And these were the chapter titles. Cheese, butter, pasta, bread, potatoes, sweet treats. Yes, I'll do it. Yes. I was like, I've never seen greater chapter headings. And...

And each one has a brilliant opening sentence. But they're the proper, they are the things that give comfort. Like, you know, you could go, they are the cornerstones of the things that are going to change your day. They're the things that nobody, nobody is coming in at the end of a hard day after a fight with their boss and thinking, mmm, superfood salad. Yeah.

Lovely, lovely. Let's get that kale simmering. And these things... Sorry, I know you've got questions. No, no. I was just going to say, thank you so much for all coming out. I honestly...

I don't know if my friend Hugh's here. Hugh, oh, hello. This is one of my best friends, Hugh, and I told you again that nobody was going to come. There you go. And I was going to walk on and off to the sound of my own feet.

Yeah, again. And I mean, I know that the weather's been terrible and I would have completely understood if you cancelled. So thank you so much. It's the perfect time of year to do a show about comfort eating. Yes. Because in the summer, we are happier to have the superfood salad. Yes. Because you go outside, it's sunny. And as soon as this weather changes...

Yes. Immediately. You go down the street and there's like, you know, do you want a cinnamon latte or do you want a little treat? Yes. And yes, you do. I think that this is one of the most wonderful times of the year for women because this is when you can put on 60 denier tights again. Oh, yes.

And I think this should be a national holiday. Absolutely. I think that as women, we should all send ourselves cards, send each other cards, where I would say to you, happy 60-day New Year tight day. And I would send you a video of me doing that kind of weird kick that you have to do to get into them. But is there anything more wonderful than suddenly being able to eat more pasta, more potatoes, more bread, and just be able to kind of pull the waistband over your wands, dimpled midriff? Not that I have that.

But it's that kind of... I think that this is the perfect time of year. This is the greatest time in the eating calendar. Absolutely. From now until Christmas. And we... Instead of meeting outside, you meet inside. And what do you do inside? Eat. Eat. And so if you're meeting friends, it would be... What kind of friend would you meet in this weather and they wouldn't want to share chips? Not a friend of mine. Yeah. Yeah. So I loved all of that. I loved that the opening...

The opening sentence of the butter chapter was, we are hardwired to love butter. Yes. It's in us. It's true. There's something about butter. Of course, you need the bread chapter to put it together. But actually, you came back to butter in every chapter. I think it's why it's the foundation. I would think I'm past butter now. We're all right. We're back with the mindful eating. And then every chapter, by the way, you need butter with this.

But butter is the... I mean, I think that when we all say, during lockdown, we all missed restaurants. We missed restaurant food. But I mean, I live my entire life in restaurants and what makes restaurants good is butter. And people don't realise that. Why they say...

gosh, this pasta is so much more delicious than what I make at home. It's got 200 grams of butter in it. That's why. And you would never do that to yourself. You would never come in on a night because we're so hardwired. It goes with guilt and with...

especially Gen X, I talk about this. We've been hardwired to feel, trained to feel that butter is wrong. It wraps itself around your heart and you shouldn't have it. And what you should have is delicious flora, you know? Yes. But then we go to a restaurant and...

And especially one of those fancy restaurants where they suddenly bring you, just before everything else comes, they bring you 150 grams of Marmite whipped yeast butter on a rock. Always on a rock. I don't know why. And it's on a rock. And then they just bring you a load of homemade treacle bread. And then they just go, you just have that. You don't have to eat all of it.

And then you go, you know. So I think this is why restaurants are so amazing. It's the hardest thing. I have to just say no to the bread all. Do you? Or it'll be all. Yeah, but how long does that go on for? I think that we all go through stages. Oh, alternate. I think one time I say all and one time I say none.

Because I am capable of saying reasonable amount every time. Yes. So I've just got to alternate. That's all I can do. Yeah. I love the way that you talked really about the history of margarine coming in and being promoted as a sort of healthy alternative to butter. But also when you talked about your grandparents. Oh, yes. And their butter was off because they... Yeah. And their milk was off, but they ate it anyway. Well, I mean, I think that I start off the Buddha chapter and I kind of talk...

you know, this fantasy world of how butter is so nourishing and it's in us and it's hardwired. And then my mother, God rest her soul, who just lives on my shoulder sometimes going, well, that's not right, even though she's no longer here. And I could hear my mother going all the time saying, oh, it was always off. You know, when she was a kid, you know, she grew up on the

side of a hill in Cumbria with like you know we're kind of farming people they didn't have fridges so all the butter was always off the milk was always off you know you go to great aunt beat's house and she would give you a cup of tea with you know the milk just floating in lumps at the top and then the butter that was kind of rancid and um you know I always think that for my mother her generation just born on the

The Cusper Second World War. And by the time they had spending power, it was like, Flora, this stuff lasts forever. Yeah, it does for a reason, of course. That's why it lasts forever. And I think, you know, all the way through my childhood, we were...

We were fed this idea by the huge companies that butter wasn't good for you, whereas something like, not just flora, you know, Corona, all this, I don't believe it's not butter, all these different things, that these were the things that were going to make us happy. You know that one where whenever you got used to

one type in my house because my family were all my mother and me were always on a diet and whenever you got used to one really bad marjorie my mother would take it to an even an even weaker one you know like she would go like oh this is the weight watch this one oh it's the light one and it's that's just slippery sadness and you're kind of like putting it on a rye vita going i write about that in the book a lot about the um the whole idea of growing up in the

Growing up in the shadow of beauty contests and my earliest memories are...

you know was all watching the old beauty did you go out in Britain Australia did you have the beauty did you have Eric Morley and the beauty contests and women coming on and 36 24 36 I mean I I wasn't a big hallmark of my childhood my parents became Jehovah's Witnesses when I was 14 so we weren't allowed to watch things like that there was none of that going on in your house then was there but there was also because I'm generation x as well yeah yeah there was and young people I

you're going to think, yeah, but there was. No, there wasn't. There was no body positivity. None. And you were constantly aiming to look like a billboard of a really undernourished woman. Yeah. And if you could not be that, and even that, now I realise that I have my photo taken and it's, you know, you realise not even that woman looks like that woman. Like she's looking at that billboard going, thinking I don't really look like that or I've, you know, my body's changed a tiny bit. I've got to get it back to that or whatever. Yeah.

There was no body positivity. There was one thing you could be, and that was very, very, very thin, and that was it. But I always remember around when you had to get down to that, trying to get to that weight, it was always these pull out, cut out and keep...

brochures that came in the sun and there was those piles of slimming magazines in my house and it would be like 900 calories until summer and it would always give you suggestions of food and it would go...

Instead of having chips, why don't you have two small potatoes and an artist joke? That's not the same thing. We used to do a fruit diet where one day you'd only eat pineapple, the next day you'd only eat pawpaw, the next day you'd only eat blueberries, which you couldn't get in Australia. And so that was a day off food altogether. But then you would do that, and then we would do that. I would be dieting with my mother to kind of keep her company because obviously I wanted...

I wanted to be Linda Lussardi. I wanted to be Sam Fox. I wanted to be... She wanted to be Crystal Carrington of Dynasty. She wanted to be what? Crystal Carrington of Dynasty. Oh, yes, yes, yes. And then we would, we'd starve all week. And then on Friday, I mean, I say this in the book, my dad would go...

Chippy tea? And that would be like, yes! You know, and then before you know it, everybody would have a pickled egg and scraps. You don't have scraps, do you? That's when they sell you just the batter. It's a funny place, the North. I have been there. I don't remember anyone giving me scraps, but it sounds delicious. And

I mean, this is, I wish they weren't. That constant pull of these weird diets, but we did really weird diets. Like you would only eat egg and grapefruit or you'd only eat one thing. There was a lot of one thing diets there. It was before they'd figured out like protein or it was just sort of eat grapes for a week.

and then you're allowed a pineapple day, something like that. And you'd be like, now we look back on that and we just go, what were you doing? We're just talking about metabolism. Sorry to create your own system. No, no, I was just going to say, I just was speaking to someone just before I met you and they said, they were talking about a famous person and they went, they must be on a Zen pic. And I went...

I don't know. I don't know. They've never mentioned it. And they went, oh, everybody's on a Zempic. And I went, well, I'm not on a Zempic. And they said, oh, everyone is. It's fine. And I said, well, we don't know the, we don't, it's a very new drug. We don't know the side effects. And they went, no, the side effects, all the side effects are constipation, vomiting, diarrhea and bad heads.

But they look amazing. They look amazing. And I was thinking, God, this is just the cabbage soup diet again where you're sitting in the house with diarrhea and flatulence. God, I look amazing. Look at me.

You know, I'm sorry. I'm completely... I know you have questions. No, not at all. I mean, this is just as long as the conversation is. We're not having any trouble speaking. Are you having a nice time? Are you thinking she's not answered the next question? You're not, are you? Because it's flowing. So it's fine. So yeah, the point is, I think that let's not do a Zen pic. Let's not. I think that... I think let's not do it. I will permit if you will permit. Let's not do it. Let's not do it. Let's not do it.

And about two years' time, you'll be like, you're on a Zen pic, aren't you? When you see me, yes, I'm running to the toilet with vomit. No, no, I promise you I'm not going to do a Zen pic. No, I don't know why you would. But I love that, because you're this famous restaurant critic, so you get to eat some of the most phenomenal food in the world. Yes. But your podcast and your book is all about this kind of, like, downtown world.

what you really eat when you're not at a fancy restaurant, but you're thinking, oh, I really need a comfort evening at home. Yeah. Those things that you really eat. And I don't think many restaurant critics would admit to ever having that because they'd say, no, my palate's too refined. What made you want to talk about this kind of food? I find people talking about the posh restaurants that they go to. I shouldn't say this, but really quite dull. Like, I mean, I write my column about,

And I do that for a reason to bring... They're coming for us. It's such a dad joke and I love it. Whenever you hear it, whenever you hear it, it goes on the rear. I write my column for a reason about the finest places...

And I do that because I'm very determined that normal people don't get ripped off. I don't do it for the restaurant PRs. I don't do it for the chefs. I certainly don't do it for the chefs. I do it because I think that I want people to, when they go out and they spend 200 pounds on dinner, which is so easy these days, they're not going to get ripped off. But when a celebrity walks in, you interview celebrities, when a celebrity walks in, is there anything more boring than

a celebrity talking about the fancy restaurant that their PR booked for them the night before. It's really, it doesn't make me excited. Oh God, whatever you went to, a great restaurant, you got great service at a restaurant that probably no one's heard of. I always think that, especially with celebrities, my years of interviewing celebrities, they can be so, they can turn up

with an agenda of the three things they're going to talk about, the bigger the celebrity, the bigger the celebrity, the bigger the entourage around them, usually the more that you've got literally two things that they're going to talk about. And you're usually kind of tied in knots. And then as the sound man is putting their microphone on, the sound man always, always says to the person, can you just tell me what you have for breakfast? Just tell me what you have for breakfast. And that is when the celebrity says,

three cream eggs and you're like... Because that's fascinating, isn't it? Why three? Why cream eggs? Who bought the cream eggs? And that's when you get the most fascinating stories when people go, oh, I just ate a chicken tikka out of the fridge. Oh, well, why do you get that? Well, we always get it from this place and it reminds me of my dad. So I always said...

that if I did a podcast about food, we would talk about the actual real things. And then as, and I started to realize how much, how much disgust and shock people had on their faces when I said, I really like, I really like oven chips with gravy, but that powdered gravy that you get, that you make in a cup. And, and I have them with mint sauce because that's like, it's like a kind of instant Sunday lunch.

people were like, it wasn't that I was saying anything radical. I wasn't saying, you know, I worship Satan. I was saying what people do all the time. But it's this, again, eating, talking about food like no one's watching. And both these things can go together. I can turn and suddenly discuss a 16-course tasting menu where, you know, it's

fragments of yeast and squirrels tears on a bed of blah blah blah blah blah you know um i can talk about that and i can talk about it in the most you know eloquent and articulate way and but i love to talk i i know that people's eyes light up when i absolutely nail why cabris purple will always be love to me you know like and i don't i don't think

I will agree I don't think Cadbury's is the same. Say it quietly. No, say it loudly. I don't think Cadbury's chocolate is the same these days. I don't know. But I do know that when I see those little packets of chocolate buttons and they've got...

little Bo Peep on the back, you know, or little Jack, little Jack Horner sits in his corner. Right away, I'm like, and I'm holding my dad's hand and we're walking through the army base that I, that I was born on. And we're going to the Naffy shop.

And he's swinging me around. No, you're not allowed big girl chocolate, which is like a Turkish delight. Yes. Little girl chocolate. Yeah, I love that. It's the idea. Well, you completely believe that, don't you? If you ask for a Turkish delight when you're a little girl and your father says that the police will arrest you for being too... You're like, OK, I'll wait till I'm 18. Yeah.

In fact, that siren, I think, was them coming out. That was them they'd heard. They've just got evidence. But isn't it weird with... Sorry, I'm going off on one about Cadbury's chocolate, but Cadbury's, to me, will always be...

you know, two Cadbury's caramel or just Cadbury's chocolate Easter eggs, one for me and one for my little brother, bought on about the Thursday of Easter and then put on the cabinet and we're not allowed to touch them until Sunday. And just the deferred gratification of waiting, you know, and

Or buying chocolate. That's one of the things... The one thing that I always knew I could get around my dad with. You know, a bar of fruit and nuts. But those things... Yeah, I just think those things are so important. And we were talking before we came on about... I said it's... I'm so...

I'm so determined. You know, this book isn't kind of a smack in your face for the people that write about hyper-processed food and ultra-processed food. I'm not by any means saying, everyone throw your scales out, let's live on Finder's crispy pancakes. Although I would say that if I was standing for parliament, just to see how far it would get. LAUGHTER

Another thing I would do is I'd put the architecture back into the Viennetto, which has gone frankly downhill. Thank you, madam. Thank you. I have one vote there. The architecture would go back into the Viennetto. I'm not saying that we should all just live on these things. And I am thoroughly aware that...

That we've all got a very complex... We've got a complex relationship with these things. Like, I know that... I know Cornettos aren't good for me. I know they're not good for me. I know they're not part of a balanced diet. But a Cornetto for me is...

The ice cream van coming when I was seven or eight and everybody else having money for a funny feat and me going, if I keep my money for two nights, I can have a Cornetto. And when you get to the bottom, the bottom of the cone is thick chocolate. And how exciting is that? And sitting on the couch with my dad under my dad's arm and him watching Monty Python and watching...

Kenny Everett and Only When I Laugh and all of these amazing shows and me watching anything just watching anything like I grew up in the north in the 70s I mean I grew up in sepia right and there was I and there was three channels and just watching tv and you know going to the freezer cabinet and a choc ice and these little things how do you say to people like me never again

You know, never again. These things are bad for you. And so I do. I read all these books by these amazing doctors and I meet them at book festivals and I agree. I agree. I think that these things...

I think that these things can be very bad for you. And I think that these things, some of the stuff that's in these things, I don't even think we know what they are, you know? And I know that when I take them all out of my diet and live on an Abel and Cole box, which I do sometimes, and that is a very long week. And I say, oh my God, hearty joke. But I know I feel better. I feel lighter, I feel blah, blah, blah. But God, I love a potato waffle.

I love a potato waffle. You're not exclusively living on potato waffles. Yes. Having an occasional or even a weekly potato waffle. I'm going to say psychologically, like we are not just bodies. Yes. We are whole human beings. So, you know, and sometimes I think, yeah, I could just eat kale and superfood salad. I might not live longer, but it would feel twice as long.

And that would feel the same. But I want to live wide as well as long. I mean, wide perhaps in more than one sense of the word. But I feel like if we can't... Our psyche is part of it. And being happy is part of being healthy. And I feel if I committed to a life with never having chocolate, even at Christmas...

Well, that wouldn't be a happy life. So maybe I would live a little less long or I would be a little bit ill at the end. I just feel like...

We just, none of us are real, no one who's come here tonight is going to do that because they've come to a show called Comfort Eating, what we eat when no one is looking. So I know that everybody who's turned out tonight does this kind of eating. But there's not that saying that we, or if someone want to declare themselves as no, I just wanted to have a look at you.

to look at everyone else and sit and just, does anyone come here tonight to feel superior? No, I've given it all up and I feel a lot better in myself. But most of us go through phases. Now, this brings me to what I've made you. Sorry, darling. Well, I was just going to say that when my... So my father...

had Alzheimer's and eventually went into care. And when he went into care, he was there for the last three years of his life. And we're talking about this, about the, when people, I was, you know, he was in care with lots of other people who were end of life. And every time I went in there, they'd have the menu for the week on the wall of what everybody was getting every day. It was printed out in big letters. So if people still had the

ability to read they could see and it was like a primary school you know and that menu was bloody amazing because it was all the stuff that we though you know it was it was sponge it was sponge pudding made with sewer with pink custard

You know? And like every time, every 20 minutes, people were just doling out gypsy creams. And I just thought, this is living. This is dying, right? But this is living. Exactly. Nobody was coming around at the end and saying, I tell you what, yeah, who wants... I would like some sushi from Nobu. Yeah, who wants some of this three...

Nothing sadder on those thousand calorie diet charts than two boiled potatoes. No fat. If you had a week to live, you would live in a way that might mean you only had four days. Yeah.

Darling, let's do the thing. I'm going to do the thing now. Because we were going to do it at the beginning. Because you also have to read from the book before we go to audience questions. So if anyone is thinking, I've got a question, soon you will be able to ask it. So get one ready if you haven't. This episode is sponsored by NetSuite.

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I would explain that on Kung Fu Eatin', if you haven't listened to it, that every week the celeb comes in and they bring their snack. And I don't know what it is at all. I have absolutely... And we have to go to great lengths for me to not know because I'm very nosy and it happens in my... The podcast happens in my house.

That causes an enormous amount of stress, as it is, because I'm a northern working-class woman, so everything has to be absolutely clean before the celeb comes round, which means that Richard E. Grant is arriving and I'm basically putting dirty dishes into the back of my car. LAUGHTER You know, like taking pants off radiators and hiding things. But the other thing is, they bring their snack. So... OK, so just to explain...

um in the book grace says the best ones are when the guest brings something that's kind of embarrassing like some some celebrity guests will go oh what i really love is spaghetti puttanesca yes and grace because that's not really in the spirit we try and veto that kind of stuff so that's what stanley to be honest oh really yeah yeah i can sort of see that with stanley that's his whole brand isn't it yeah now

So I've lived up to that. So I would say don't judge me, but the point is judge me. Can I just say here, sorry to put in, that one of my favourite things, absolutely my favourite things about the podcast...

And we have to usually... Because I have editors, we have to always cut from the most confident people. You're one of the most confident people I know, I've come across. We always have to cut 15 minutes of self-explanation before they open it. They go to pieces. If I'd have asked you to come on and do a one-woman show... Oh, fine. But when you ask somebody to just show me what's in the box... Look, just show me...

Give me the box. Can I just say one more thing? No qualifying statement. Oh, God. God. Getting hungry. I take it back. I didn't bring anything. This is shoes. Still going. Still going. Okay. All right. Open the box. All right. Fine. Open the box. Do you want to open it? Because you normally take the tea towel off, but I've put it in a box. Okay. So you can open it. Don't. Don't open it. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Open it. Open it. It's fine. Yep. Go on. Okay. Now...

Okay, so... What I want you to do is I want you to explain... Oh, thank you very much. That's on the side. I want you to... That's on the side. This is on the side. Can I just take that? I just need to show them. But I'll take this tray out. I've put it on a silver tray. She's gone very territorial about this box. No, no. I'm just... Darling, whatever we can do to make this better, you have that box.

Nothing will make it better. Okay, all right. It's gone under the table. The point... It smells amazing. Okay, so what I've done... I'm just taking the sides down a bit. Okay, so what I've done is... And please bear in mind, I used to cook a tiny bit before I met my husband. And he's such a good cook and I don't enjoy cooking. So I haven't cooked since I met him. Okay.

And that was... It was definitely awesome. Open the box. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Okay. Open. Okay. So it is this.

Okay. Okay. To me, that looks like a... They don't really know what reaction to have, and I understand why. Okay, but can I explain what it is now? Yes, yes, yes, yes. I met my husband... It was definitely after the Blitz, and it was a long time ago, so I haven't cooked for a long time. To the extent where I said to him, I think I should put some tinfoil over it, he said...

It's in the cupboard next to the oven, thinking I would not know where the tin foil was, which gives you an indication of how little I cook. He basically explained where the kitchen was. It's down the hall to the right. I see it seems to have created a force field. It's like a healing. So this is something we used to make when we were teenagers because you don't have to cook it. And the point is it's embarrassing. So just stay with that.

Tell me what the ingredients are. It looks like a Yule log. That's what it is. So what you do is you take a chocolate biscuit and I don't mean a chocolate biscuit with chocolate on top. I mean a chocolate biscuit. Oh, bloody hell. It's good. Is it? Yeah. Grace Lynn said it was good. Thank you. I will accept my Michelin star now. Um,

What you do is you take a chocolate biscuit, and I don't mean a chocolate, I mean a biscuit like, what I had to do was get half, I'd get Oreos and take the middles out, because it's very hard to get chocolate biscuits now. You then dip it in sherry, you dip the chocolate biscuit in sherry, then you put jam on it, then you put cream on it, and then you do another one like that, and you put them together and you line them up in a log. It's kind of like a, it's like a Yule log that you'd make if you went to...

Called you school up north and that was what you would kind of make at school in home economics. But you would make it with a... You just put the biscuits with all this stuff on it in the fridge with cream over the top. And then overnight, the sherry and the jam seeps in...

And the cream seeps into the chocolate biscuits, creating a cake. What? That's quite boozy. It is a bit boozy. I did think, God, suddenly at the last minute, I did think I probably should ask you, is it okay to give you such a boozy cake? But I know you don't because I've read your book. No, no, no. I mean, this is it. I don't drink. So I haven't tried it yet. So it's fine. This is actually, no, this is free getting drunk, I think. I think that's what they call it. It's like, darling.

Tell me... I'm so sorry, I've got a microphone. I'm so sorry if you've got that thing. What's it called when you hate people eating in a microphone? This is your idea of a nightmare. When would you cook this?

Make it. I was going to say cook is an exaggeration of the situation. I would, well, as teenagers we used to make it because it was something you could make and not cook. And then in my 20s, when I was first having dinner parties, sometimes if I thought, oh, I don't have any time, but I can do it the night before. And it's really, really easy sometimes.

But then as you get older, you think you can't serve that at a dinner party. In fact, the last time I served it at a dinner party, I didn't leave it in long enough. And someone who's in the audience tonight went, is this just biscuits? And it was one of my friends who's in the audience. It's not a stalker who's followed me here. I went, is this biscuits? And I went, what? Yes, it is. And explained how I made it. And I think that was the last time I made it because I thought, you're too old for this now. And does the flake go on the side? No. Well, then you put grated chocolate on the top or...

If you're me, you just flake because it's just easier than grating chocolate, isn't it? I feel like MasterChef. Deborah has put flake crumbles over her. Oh God, I wish that people would cook things like this on MasterChef. I have grinned too much at scallops. I have done my life to grinning at scallops. I would kill for someone to go in and go, Grace, I've just got a load of flake.

Jam and sherry. And I hang it. Every time they ask me to set a brief to go in the kitchen, I always do. They always say, it's just something that they can really get stuck into. And I always go, how about potatoes? Every time. And I always think they're the nicest tasks because...

You know, it often comes from the heart. I'm so sorry. I'm so used to eating when people are looking at me because that's my job. I'm so unattractively shoving this flake into my mouth. You go for it. The flake is a very specific taste though, isn't it? Like a flake tastes... Again, it tastes different to a dairy milk. It tastes different to the chocolate on a cream egg. I know these are all similar. But there's something about that that to me is...

putting my hand down the back of the sofa, hoping that my, the money had fallen out my dad's pocket and going down to the, there was an off license near my house when I was a little girl. It's different times. Gen X, you literally, you stole money from the back of the sofa and then went to an off license that was sold. Oh, you know, just, it was a boozy off license and then bought chocolate and crisps and peanuts from a,

from a piece of cardboard that the more that you took the cart, the thing, the more that a woman's boobs became visible. Sorry, I should put this down. No, no, don't put it down, don't put it down. And yeah, you would get sent off over two lanes of moving traffic often to go and get 10 regal king size and chocolate for everybody. Now, my mother, again, she used to deny this. Absolutely, because my mother had this kind of,

She had this revisionist idea of looking at history that would have made Chairman Mao blush. Anything that happened like this, she would basically go...

No, it didn't. It didn't. I never, you never had a key to let yourself in. You're like, really? Really, mum? So like, I do, I find it, I find it fascinating looking back and looking at what we got away with. Yeah. Yes, it was, it was a, it was a very different time like that. But also, my parents also have revisionist history on what went on. And I think it is just the way of the world that one's parents cannot understand.

fully admit everything that went on because it would just, if we all admitted it, it would just explode the family unit. Is there a point in a woman's progress through life where she stops being truthful?

Because I think I'm in my, I'm in peak, I mean, I've just passed 50. I'm peak truth now. Anybody, like roll up, pull up a chair, I will tell you the truth. And then I'm just very little estrogen going around right now. But is there a point where you get, where you just, again, just start to randomly lie? Because I think that my mother hit that point where you just start going, that didn't happen. I think what it is, is when you're young, this is what I'm feeling now.

when you're young, you always feel it's your responsibility to bring sex appeal into the room because it kind of is. That's what youth is. Youth is everyone's got to fancy you and does anyone fancy you and does everyone fancy you and nobody fancies you. And I've hit a point recently where I just love being out or going out or doing a show because I just think,

look it's just not my responsibility to bring the sex appeal I mean it's not saying I don't have any I absolutely it's the sort of relaxation of it because it's like if I have any that's an extra bonus to what I'm meant to be bringing which is you know a certain amount of skill or talent or you know whatever behind you and I sort of think in some ways the relaxation of not having to bring any means you know whenever you get a sign that you've got to be you go and I've brought a bit of

But it's your job, young people. You're young. To bring the sexiness. It's your job to bring it. Bring it. Yeah. If I have any extra in the bag, that's fine. But no one's expecting it.

And so there's something lovely about that. And that's where you can tell the truth, because the great relief of always having to be somehow attractive is gone. Not that I don't think I'm attractive. I'm not saying that. It's just more, it's not my main job. And when you're young, you don't have a lot else usually. So it feels like your main job. I think we should quit while we're ahead here before this is over.

Before younger people in the audience start pelting us with things. No, I think... Shall we talk about pasta and things? We were going to talk about that because I was going to... Absolutely. Right. I was going to read. Yes. Please read. I was going to read. I do have issues around seeing at the moment since my... Since I got old.

Do you want to borrow my glasses? I need some. They're lovely glasses. I tell you what, what were you going to ask me about, Pastor? No, I was just going to say, again, another, while you were getting your book ready, I was just going to say, another brilliant line was the opening of Pastor, which is, Pastor is the most unreliable narrator of one's true appetite. And never, I mean, it's hard to find a better line than that. I think that, I think, well, you know, Pastor is one of,

My most favourite in the whole world. I always feel, we've talked a lot about guilt tonight and trying not to have guilt. But I think that, again, from a young age, we're kind of, we start to think that we shouldn't have more than 100 grams. And 100 grams is really not a lot. Somebody, I heard a nutritionist, nutritionist, nutritionalist, nutritionist.

So recently on one of those on a YouTube channel, I was foolishly looking at that. There's so little of anything good or useful in pasta that it shouldn't be classed as food. It should be classed as a recreational item. I'm good with that. Yeah. So basically having a load. She's like, you know, it's fine if you want to have a lot of people around and like have a big bowl of pasta each. That's a very joining and nourishing thing.

But you really shouldn't do that very often because there's nothing in it at all. It makes sense. Well, yeah, but I just think that, you know, I mean, last night I made a very quick

like a tomato sauce with a ton of butter in it, like a tin tomato. Have you ever done that recipe where you just get a tin of tomatoes and whiz it up and then loads of butter and loads of herbs and it's just a very rough pasta sauce? And I had a bag of tiny little pasta shapes that someone had gave me at some point and I just put some of it in it and I just thought, this is just joy. You know, it's sweet and it's stomach-lining and that tomato, I just thought...

There's something about that. But I do think that whenever I'm talking to people about Italian food and pasta,

especially in my industry, there's this idea that the best pasta has always got to be hand-rolled. Obviously, it's got to be handmade. And then the sauce has always got to be very, you know, it's got to be stewed over for hours and it has to have carrots and celery and, you know, whatever, all the fresh herbs in it. And there's always a little thing in the back of my mind that goes, yeah, but tinned ravioli is quite nice. You know what I mean?

Quite nice. If I ever do MasterChef, I think I'm going to win if you're the judge. Because I'm going to be like, I have, Barbara has prepared ravioli out of a bus. And bring a big cake for Greg. Yeah, bring a cake for Greg. And basically, yeah, something, yeah, pastry. So, I've tried to think, you know, why...

I'm going to talk about pasta. I'm going to talk about tinned pasta. I need to find the thing on tinned... And tinned pasta for me... Tinned pasta for me is always synonymous with caravans. And it's synonymous with caravan holidays. Oh my God, my eyes are so bad. When I go to restaurants these days, I have to choose between...

being pretty or seeing right and like I put I try to put my if I've got contact lenses in at the moment and I have to go in and I've got the the menu so far away from me these days that now I've just started handing it to really hot waiters and going you choose I mean the thing is the waiters might not be that hot no no it could be anybody it's just a large yucca plant or something yeah

Holidays were not gastronomical adventures when I was small. If we were lucky, we might get as far as a chalet at Ponton's Holiday Camp in Southport, where the canteen served lumpy mash and battered fish slice. Fish slice? Yeah, maybe that was just a northern thing. Kind of an indiscriminate part of fish, basically. Fish slice, 14 times per week.

After which, at Pontins, there would be a Dance With Your Dad competition. Sometimes we'd go to a small hotel in Rhyl, North Wales. I'd eat a sugar dummy on a rope during a day trip to Llandudno Pier. Or I'd have a Walls Cornetto at Liverpool International Garden Festival. And then it'd be back to Kirby to see my scouse nan and she'd get out the Rover's Biscuit Assortment. The pinnacle of all of this was Sillith on Solway.

Now, Silith-on-Solway is a seaside port. It's only 20 miles from the front door of Carlisle, my front door in Carlisle. I don't know, I think anyone that's listening to this is probably somewhere near your house that was about 15 miles away that whenever the sun shone, you got took there. Silith will always hold a special place in the heart of millions of northerners and folk from the southwest of Scotland. For me, it's very much the Las Vegas of Cumbria. LAUGHTER

experiencing a bit of pushback against that. We'd leave the urban landscape of Currac Carlisle with its graffiti and its pebbled ash, and very quickly we'd end up somewhere with places that sold buckets and spades and ice pops, and there were penny arcades, with one of those push machines where you might even win a ten-pack of Regal Blue Kingsize with a five-a-cellar tape to it if you fed it enough two-pence pieces. Now, whenever I've read that piece in somewhere like Bath, right, they always go...

Oh, bless her. I look like I'm kind of like a Ken Loach, walking Ken Loach movie. And I always think, oh, that was the best bit. A 10 pack of cigarettes with a fiber on it. Okay. It always felt like holiday time at Silith because the postcards, the shops had naughty postcards of women with large boobs having their bums felt and

That's without mentioning the chunky little, a chunky little van that would go around the street selling homemade ice cream. Sometimes we'd go to the tea rooms and mam would buy us a jam tart and a glass of banana Nesquik and we'd eat fish and chips in the paper. Sat on my mam's, sat on the bonnet of my mam's British Leyland princess overlooking the Irish Sea. In the summer, when the sun shone.

We'd be down to the beach on the Firth, building sandcastles on the dunes, close to Sellafield until our shoulders peeled. Then, when the holidays finished, we'd return to school, only to be taken back to Sillith on a school trip. Yes, back to the only place we'd ever been. LAUGHTER

But this time carrying tracing paper to do rubbings of stones and packed lunches with egg sandwiches that stunk the bus out. None of this compares to the excitement of Easter 79 when we spent 14 full days in Sillith. Mam took me and my little brother for an extended sojourn in a static caravan and I thought it terribly brave of her to take us on our own, although I look back now and understand she was simply sick to the back teeth of my father.

Sick of his asthma, sick of his moaning, sick of the washing pile. I think she'd found one snotty hanky down the side of the settee too many. It was an ambitious April trip and the forecast said that it would be raining the entire time and terrific winds would be blasting across the Irish Sea, liable to knock over our caravan. Mam, however...

was determined we would venture to the shop. We weren't bothered by the rain at all because the thing is about a static caravan is that the more it rains outside the snugger you are inside and rain just made it even more exciting when man would fold down that caravan table and serve us lunch and it would always be something out of a tin and it was almost always pasta on white toast.

A lot of the time it would be ravioli, small plumps, plus small plump envelopes of salty, mole-coloured sludge. Or noodle doodles that came in the shape of butterflies. Or spaghetti hoops. You can't beat spaghetti hoops and tomato sauce. It tastes nothing like the original fruit. That delicious blend of modified cornflour, citric acid, sugar and garlic salt.

Tin pasta is on my grocery delivery every time. It's available in every supermarket when I'm far from home. It's my saviour when I'm sad and tired and when hotel room service has stopped serving. It's when I buy my small tins of pepper pig spaghetti and I can eat it with a teaspoon. Tin spaghetti has this particular special place in my life. It's basically adult baby food.

Tinned spaghetti is day nine in a static caravan and the rain has poured to such an extent that the parking area is flooded. But we are adventurers. Tinned ravioli is my mum making tea and she's reading us James and the Giant Peach. She's reading us Pamir's poems to make us laugh. I wish I'd looked after my teeth, she would say.

And it's Kid Jensen on the radio and it's us dancing to Physical by Olivia Newton-John and it's watching Starsky and Hutch on a portable telly. And it's dad arriving, trying to make amends and her saying, get off me you scouse get. And I sit, I sit on my dad's knee and he reads me, he reads me today's handicap. Silas is a constant as the years pass. I'm taken as a tween, less impressed by the Penny Arcade.

and the little van with raspberry ripple. And then I'm taken as a sullen teenager, a teenage goth in the 80s. I'm only there because I can't be trusted to have a house party. If left alone, and I walk along the beach 20 meters behind my mum and dad, fuming that I'm not in Berlin with the Sisters of Mercy. In the late 80s, my parents splash out, and they buy their very own static caravan.

they spend every weekend on a beach they walk their dogs they listen to foster and alan on cd they eat microwaved spaghetti hoops on warburton's with a utterly butterly and then i'm there back from uni finding still as depressing trapped in time and heroically quaint

And in the noughties, they have to get rid of the caravan and Dad can't go anymore. He's got dementia. It's too much. And with my mum and her health, it's a bit too cold. But still, sometimes we drive out there and we have chips and a walk and we go very slowly along that seafront, holding Dad's hand so he can't get lost, suggesting to my mother that she uses her wheelchair. She won't be seen dead in one. She says someone might see her in it and think she can't walk anymore. LAUGHTER

And then, with microwaved pots of spaghetti hoops eaten on toast one Saturday morning for breakfast, I load into the car with my two brothers, all of us older and greyer, and we head to Sillith, and we park the car where the static caravan once was, and we walk over sand dunes, and we walk over wet sand, and we stare out far into the Irish Sea, and it's a blustery February day, and we throw mom and dad's ashes into the wind.

And we just watch them and they just disappear in seconds. And life, it's impermanent. Everything changes. And I love tinned pasta because I like to cling to the small things that are constant. And that's it. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Sorry, it's a bit sad. I'm so sorry. No, it was beautiful. It was really moving and it really does... You write so beautifully about the sentimentality of food and why it is more important than clear arteries. You know...

It is. It is. Like, it just is. Because we're here to live. We're not, and we're here to connect. And what you're talking about there is the connection you felt as a little girl.

Sorry, I'm getting a bit emotional. The connection you felt as a little girl is a connection you can find now your parents are no longer with you through something as simple as tinned spaghetti. And that's what it's about. We're here to connect. We're not here to live to 105. We might do, but we're here to connect. And food is connection because it's the one thing sustaining all of us. And so we must use it to connect. And it's...

In that spirit, would you like to connect with Grace right now? Is there anything you would like to ask her? A microphone will come to you. So does anyone want to ask anything? Would you like to wave your hand? There's somebody here. That's the first hand I've seen. And there's somebody lovely coming with a mic. Hello. Hello. Hello, Grace. Hello. I was just wondering, amongst your fellow critic posse,

Is there anyone that you're willing to name that you really enjoy having dinner with when you're off duty? You know, you're just having dinner. Do you know the thing is... You're not saying it's anyone you hate. No. Right. The food critic bunch, they can be a difficult and awkward and ego-driven and irascible old bunch of sods.

That's an old-fashioned word, isn't it? But the aggravating thing about all of them is they're all really good company. And I would love to tell you that, you know, when you see William Sitwell on MasterChef, I think it's very easy to think that you'd like to slap him. And maybe Jay as well. And, I mean, I've thought about it often. But when... I love...

My favourite person to eat with out of all of them is probably Tom Parker Bowles because he's never boring. But Jay, Jay's great. Jay's good fun as long as he doesn't play jazz piano.

and which as long as you don't, I mean, but that is ever present. That is an ever present threat. I have, I know I, Hugh, you know that at the, um, at the Ivy club, they have a piano at all times, don't they? And, uh, and I've seen Jay just drift halfway through dinner and start going like old man river. And you're like, Oh,

But I say this in the spirit of love and he knows that I think that. But yeah, I would love to tell him... Well, he probably doesn't because this is going to go out as a podcast. Oh God, he'll be at home with his tinfoil hat on listening right now, kind of like checking how many people have listened to this tonight. I think that they're all quite good fun. That's the thing. They're all massive personalities. So as much as I'd love to tell you that Giles Corrin

isn't fun to eat with. He's really, really good fun to eat with. And one of the best things about MasterChef is when I do the back room, when I go in and I sit, you know, you walk in and we don't... It's like you very rarely see us in the same room together. You know, I would never... I don't want to be in the same restaurant reviewing that Giles is because that means there's been a bit of a kind of an error in... We don't want to run a column at the same time. But so when we do sit down on that bench...

The gossip is just... Oh. Oh, my God. And as I will say this, I say this to Jay's face, Jay is a messy bitch who loves the drama. LAUGHTER Well, you have delivered on that question, I have to say. Jay is like, kind of, you'll never guess. And I'm like, no. LAUGHTER

You know, it's like, that's the whole, you can see it. So anyway, I'm going to shut up now. No, don't talk on. Any other questions? Given that was delivered on so phenomenally, there's loads of hands now that weren't there before. Right. So like, what else can we get? This should be called Grayston spills the beans onto toast and butter. What was your question? Oh, hold on. Microphone's coming.

That lady does. I love that. She said, I don't need the microphone. She said, I love that confidence. What's the worst thing you've ever had in your mouth? But only food related. Excuse me. Don't give that woman the microphone back. Jay on jazz piano. Go on. Don't do that. The worst. Right. Okay. I'm going to tell you and you're not going to like this.

So if you've got a delicate constitution, I'm going to say it and you can blame that lady there. I once went to a very, very expensive tasting menu in London. The bill for two people was about 600 pounds. And sometimes it makes me...

It makes me depressed. Sorry, I don't want to sound like worthy, but it does make me depressed when it's bad. And he was called the demon chef. Do you remember who this is? I can't remember his actual... I shouldn't say his name. It's going out on bloody intelligence. The restaurant's not there anymore anyway. And the last course...

So the last course was experimental Chinese-Japanese food, everything done with a twist. So there's a lot of clashes with smoke and invisible things and tweezers and moving bits that are probably ants and all that. I can do that. You know, you don't... This doesn't faze me.

And then the last thing they went, would you like to do a supplement at the end for 15 pounds extra? And it's going to be donated. I can't believe I'm telling this in a church. It's going to be donated to an AIDS charity for us. Absolutely amazing, amazing charity is one thing that I really support. And they said it's called Sex on the Beach.

And it came and he had replicated a condom that had been left on a beach that was... So this is it. It was a condom that was left on a beach. And it was sugar sand and a sugar condom. And it was wrinkled. One person is laughing. Everyone else is just gone. Everyone's gone. So it's come back. Now, it was replicated to be a used condom. Oh, wow.

Up until now, this has been a very charming evening. I'm so sorry. I definitely do blame you. I'm so sorry. And if you go onto my Instagram and scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, not only will I get younger and younger and younger, but there's one of me, and I do look very young in it, and I'm just holding up the condom right beside my face. That is the worst thing because I felt as if I had to eat it. And I just felt angry the next day. I felt...

I don't know why that moved me so much, but I do remember you do have sometimes real existential worry and existential, like it hits you that you're,

Because you can see how much... I went and took some stuff to a... This is not me trying to be a saint. I took some stuff to a food bank the other day because I got given so much food. And I took it and I just got such a lovely email. Literally people are going, thank you for the kidney beans. Because it's going to be so really appreciated by people. And then the next minute I'm going...

Here, have 350 pounds for an edible condom with some sugar-spun syrup inside it. I've really just killed the night, haven't I? Shall we just walk off again to the sound of my feet? I'm so sorry. We did not answer your question, madam. I know exactly what you're talking about. Thank you. I know exactly what you're talking about. I think that sometimes these things are the worst things. I don't mind eating.

weird and wonderful things and Pete, you know, I don't eat a lot of meat but when I'm at work if somebody brings me any kind of, you know, valve or tube I'm a bit like, go on, you know. It's like, let's do it, let's eat this, you know, whatever it is. I think somebody saying would you like to add this on for charity and then bringing out effectively a used condom is a betrayal and it is also a violation. It was made a sugar.

I don't care. I absolutely think another great answer. Thanks for listening to Intelligence Squared. This episode was produced by myself, Conor Boyle, with production and editing by Mark Roberts and Bea Duncan.

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