Alicia: Hi, Nigella. Thank you so much for being here. 

Nigella: Well, it's a real pleasure to be here. 

Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate?

Nigella: Well, I grew up in London, really central London. And obviously, it was a long time ago. I was born in 1960. I do remember the Kings Road in the ’60s, when it was all happening. 

Now, we were a very food-focused household. My mother was a wonderful cook. I mean, never from books. I think she had two books. Very instinctive, but—and really just doing things by what they tasted like, and as far as I was aware, not technique in any particular way. I get my sort of impatience, I think, from her. And sometimes that's useful in the kitchen, actually, but sometimes not at all. 

Now, she cooked slightly differently. When I was a child, a lot of my friends would—they'd be eating kind of, much more, I suppose, what people abroad would think of as English foods—quite plain. And if it was pasta, it was what we call spag bol. We don't even do it the proper way. In Italian spag bol, spaghetti bolognaise. In a way that would make an Italian weep.

My mother actually had learned, had—it's quite, rather interesting. When she was a child, they had an Italian—her mother, not terribly maternal; always had to get lots of people in between her and the children. Yeah, her grandmother got various people. And there was one, Antonia, who was an Italian au pair, as much as that existed in the time. So my mother was cooking spaghetti aglio e olio and things with real flavor. But what really made the difference was that it was considered among people who felt they were respectable—not that I don’t, I don't think my mother thought that about herself—but respectable. And it wasn't done to talk about food a lot now, so you didn't really mention it, whereas it was very much the subject about what we were eating and so forth. 

But the thing that is quite strange now is that I didn't really eat as a child. I really dreaded mealtimes. It was old-fashioned even when I was a child. But what would happen is I didn't eat, and if you didn't eat, it was like being—it was very Victorian. If you didn't eat, you had to sit at the table until you finished. And if you still didn't finish it, at the next meal, you would be given your cold plate. It's a miracle I love food so much. 

But of course, my parents who had been children in the war; they had grown up with rationing and really no food in the shops. So I can see why, for them, it was a waste. And I have inherited that thing about waste, as well. But I really didn't like it. I didn't like eating.

But my mother didn’t believe—she got us in the kitchen. Well, in a sexist way. My brother, who's older, never had to be in the kitchen, but—because that was how they were then. But I had a sister 16 months younger, and we really would help in a way that children don't help now, because it wasn't to amuse us. We would help cook when we—when I was six, and she was five, and we'd stand on a rickety chair. 

We had this thing called the New World Range, which was this big gas cooker. And we'd have to stir things. We'd make mayonnaise. So my mother, being very impatient, one of us would whisk egg yolks, the other one would be pouring the oil. And if you got the pouring job, it was terrifying. But it meant that I didn't know I had learned to cook, but I did. So she didn't give lessons or say why, but I saw what she did. And I've always cooked.

I don't like being forced. I didn't enjoy the state of childhood, at all. You have no autonomy, really, as a child. And you certainly didn't then. And so, once I was a bit older, and I could cook for myself and choose what I ate, then I really loved it. 

And I loved it with my grandmother. I'd go there every Friday in the morning. I mean, when there wasn’t school. Or after school, we’d go shopping together. We'd cook certain things. And it felt much more collaborative and that I had some say in what we were going to do. And I was an odd child. I adored brains and spinach. 

So we never had sweet things. My father didn't have a sweet tooth, so that was that. It was very old fashioned. We weren't actually allowed to eat with him in the evening, or anytime—until we were about eight. It was a bit ‘children should be seen and not heard, and preferably not either.’ But the weekends, we'd have lunch together. And it was always great tension, because I'm very clumsy. And that would drive my mother mad. I’d knock something over, or be like that. And that thing of, that tension of sort of fitting in with people wasn't really what I was good at. 

Alicia: Well, it's interesting, because you started your career then as a journalist. And you didn't move into, toward food until a bit late. What made you want to be a journalist? And how did that segue into food? How does journalism, that background, influence? 

Nigella: I wasn't a reporter. My first job was in publishing, because I loved reading. And then I realized, ‘Oh, this isn't about reading. This is a business.’ I mean, I know everything is. It wasn't really for me, and I started reviewing books for various periodicals and that sort of thing. And I liked it more. 

So when I started in journalism, it was in arts journalism. I was in the arts pages. I did something which they thought was ridiculous. I had a contract with The Sunday Times, which is pretty rare. And I was young. I think I was 23 when I went there. I mean, I know it was a different time and there were many more people on staff there. But nevertheless. I was deputy literary editor at The Sunday Times, and I was 26, which was great. But then by the time I was 27, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, I'm being paid to worry, not to think.’ I didn't like that. And I just thought, ‘No.’ 

It was then I traded it in for a writing contract. So I wrote about books and arts, interviewing people. I wasn't good at that. But anyway. I mean, I found it difficult. I found it difficult. And then I became a columnist, an op-ed columnist, which, in a way, is a bit like cooking, isn't it? Because if you're reviewing a book—and I did review restaurants, too—if you're reviewing a book, you have a sort of something there to return to. Or a film. I've done about everything in journalism. Only pages I haven't written for are business pages. I’ve even written on sport. One piece only. 

The thing of when you're writing a column, you're weaving an idea. And all you have to go on is that paragraph will lead to the next one. But it's just your thoughts, and you're creating something. You're making something for someone to read and sort of either savor or disagree with. In this country, most columns are written for people to disagree with. 

I suppose what's happened is that when I had to write a column and think about what I was going to say, or indeed what subject I was going to choose, I would often make soup or something because I found chopping—I mean, I always cooked. My friends were journalists and editors. And then they kind of said, ‘Well, you should do this or you should write this.’ And I didn't really pay an awful lot of attention. 

My husband, my late husband, John Diamond, he said to me once, ‘You know, you're very confident about your views in food. If we go out to a restaurant, you will say things like, ‘That needed more salt,’ or ‘I wouldn't put that with that,’ or ‘This is great wine.’ You should write a book. And you should write a book about how you make your decisions, and call it ‘how to eat.’’ And I thought, ‘John, that is the stupidest idea I've ever heard.’ 

It's an awful thing to say, but it's almost like a wound. And then, because I had these sort of intellectual pretensions; I wanted to be something that people would respect me for. I never wanted fame; I knew well enough that that sort of thing isn't actually what it looks like. I thought, ‘I want to be respected by people I respect.’ That's all I ask in my work. 

But then after a while, I kind of played with the idea of my—I didn't actually know the book was going to have recipes. I hadn't thought through—that sort of came more as I started writing. And I felt I found my voice in a way, doing that. It was an accident. But I think so many things in life that are important are our accidents. I have to say I'm categorically not a planner.

Alicia: I also am not a planner at all. And I truly believe that accidents are the best way to learn things. [Laughs.]

I mean, it's interesting that you say that you didn't intentionally write about food because you wanted to be taken seriously as an intellectual. Do you feel that—

Nigella: I’m now slightly giving a rather shamefaced explanation. I didn't express it to myself like that back then. But I do remember when people said to me, writer friends of mine, because I worked on the books pages and I read all the time, a lot of my friends were novelists and writers. And I remember one of them, someone who'd won God knows how many prizes saying to me, ‘I see you've got a book out this autumn.’ And I was embarrassed. ‘Oh, no, no, it's just a food book.’ 

I'm now embarrassed that I felt embarrassment. And I think I felt as a woman, I didn't necessarily want to be, ‘Oh yeah, of course, she's writing about food.’ That felt sensitive for me. 

Alicia: Right.

Do you feel that food writing is still seen as some sort of lesser form of writing?

Nigella: Not generally. And those who do think it, I really don't—I wouldn't ever think about them. So I don't think that, no. I don't at all. And I don't think other people do, and I didn't at the time. 

I mean, of course it depends. There's various forms. But I also think when you write about food, you're not writing just about food. Now, you expressly or not often, but even when you're just touching on other subjects, it’s still very much not about it. I mean, I could never be interested in either reading a book or writing a book, especially never writing a book, that was just: the recipes, formula. Just that, to me, doesn't give me anything. Doesn't make me understand why someone wants me to cook that or why they cook it in their kitchen.