Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Lauren Laverne
Food writer and broadcaster with 21 million books sold and a four-decade TV career, who taught the nation to cook.
Eight records
Silence means a lot to me. It's a very important part of my life. But also just him, his beautiful voice and the acoustic guitar, I still love it.
the culmination of their whole contribution is in the Sgt. Pepper album … it's just the greatest album ever and Within You Without You was combining two continents together with different music so cleverly and the words. I think if you write the words out, which I've done, you don't need any other lessons in life.
one of the things about the desert island is you're only allowed to have a bit of something. So I've gone for this one, which is Satie, because I think it has such a lovely depth to it. It's just this wonderful piano, so gentle, but there's something really lovely and beautiful and deep.
this is incredibly special, this wonderful voice of Pavarotti. It comes across so powerfully and so beautifully, the anguish and the pain of loss. I can't really ever listen to it without feeling a few goose bumps.
Kyrie / Call to Prayer (from African Sanctus)Favourite
this particular piece of music, he went up to the top of the mosque outside Cairo, recorded the call to prayer, then went back and with the help of, I think it's the singers of St. George's Chapel at Windsor, recorded the Kyrie from the Mass. He put them on the album both together. And there's something much deeper than religion going on … [it's] revealing how people are connected … and they're connected by their communal longing for peace.
I've chosen this woman's work not because of the lyrics, but just the whole range of it.
And I have great admiration for her, for what she is, what she stood for and she's a special person and I'm sorry she's not with us anymore, but thank goodness we've got all her music.
you've reminded me of how lucky I've been and what a lovely life I've had and I've always been happy and I love Pharrell Williams. He's one of my current favourites.
The keepsakes
The book
Sister Wendy's 100 Best-Loved Paintings
Sister Wendy Beckett
If I was on a desert island, I can't think of anything nicer than reading scriptures and Shakespeare. So I'm going to read scriptures and Shakespeare because I'd love to read more. So what I'm going to choose as a book is a book of art. I've got a book at home which is Sister Wendy's 100 Best Paintings starting from the sixth century and coming right the way through. So I would be able to look at art all the way through those years.
The luxury
if I could have as much of the archive as possible of Desert Island discs, then I'll have all the people around me.
In conversation
Presenter asks
Where do you think the desire to share what you know, to teach, comes from?
I don't know, but it's an instinct and what I had in the back of my mind was to take the fear away. I think people are afraid to cook … I just wanted … to make everything really, really explicit and infallible. And why should you be able to cook if no one's ever shown you? … you need to be taught. It's like giving people the keys to a car.
Presenter asks
How would you describe your relationship with your mother?
She was very strict and she was my fiercest critic … my feet were kept very firmly on the ground, and so I never had a chance to get big headed … If I could have anything I wanted, I would want her ability to sort of attract people. She attracted people like bees round a honeypot.
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Presenter
BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs Podcast. Every week, I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book, and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. And for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.
Presenter
My castaway this week is Delia Smith, arguably the most successful food writer and broadcaster the country has ever produced. With more than 21 million books sold in the UK and a TV career spanning four decades, she's earned a very special place in British kitchens and popular culture. So great is her influence that Delia was added to the dictionary. The Delia effect caused a run on everything from omelette pans to cranberries and the late Queen, rumoured to be a reader, made her a companion of honour.
Presenter
She even has a place in rock and roll history as the baker behind the colourful cake on the cover of The Rolling Stones Let It Bleed. Not bad for someone who left school at 16 without any qualifications. What's more, she did it all without raising her voice. Not for her the theatrics and tantrums of the TV chefs who followed in her footsteps. She quite simply dreamed of teaching the nation to cook and then did it, with reliable recipes and constant encouragement. These days, you're just as likely to find her in the stands as by the stove, pursuing her other great passion, football. She and her husband of 52 years have been majority shareholders of her beloved Norwich FC since 1996. She says, I was never a great cook, not one who was making people gasp at what I was doing. I just wanted other people to be able to do it too. So I went the extra mile to make sure they could.
Presenter
Delia Smith, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Hello.
Presenter
So let's start, Dealia, with that desire to share what you know, to teach, because I think that runs very deep in you. Where do you think it comes from?
Delia Smith
I don't know, but it's an instinct and what I had in the back of my mind was to take the fear away. I think people are afraid to cook and I myself found reading cookery books there was always something that they didn't say or I wasn't sure about. So I just wanted in order to take the fear away.
Delia Smith
to make everything really, really explicit and infallible. And why should you be able to cook if no one's ever shown you? How strange that people are expected to just leave school or go to university and then suddenly start cooking. It's ridiculous. You need to be taught. It's like giving people the keys to a car.
Presenter
And saying off you go, drive the car. You've created hundreds of recipes, and I know people come up to you all the time to thank you for them. I mean, it literally happened on the way to the studio today. What do people talk about the most?
Delia Smith
Definitely Christmas. And you're right today. One lady said she always makes the pudding. Another one said in the lift she always makes the mincemeat. And it does bring it sort of right up to the surface at Christmas.
Presenter
Delia, very few people visit the island twice, but this is your second time as a castaway and a lot has happened since your first conversation with Roy Plumley in 1982. How have you approached choosing your music this time?
Delia Smith
differently. I think this time it's about things that have lasted, you know, things that are have made such an impression on me that they're always going to be there.
Presenter
Well, with that in mind, let's start with disc number one. What's it gonna be?
Delia Smith
The wonderful, amazing Paul Simon.
Delia Smith
When I was learning to cook I worked in a restaurant and every night when I was clearing up after all the guests had gone I used to put Paul Simon song book. It's one of my favourite albums and then I used to go off to a little folk club because you can't go to bed when you've been in a busy restaurant.
Delia Smith
I used to go to a little folk club in Wardour Street called Les Cousins and they had different guests there and sometimes at one stage they had Paul Simon. I didn't see him but he's been with me all my life, Paul Simon, I love him.
Presenter
And why have you chosen this track in particular?
Delia Smith
Silence means a lot to me. It's a very important part of my life. But also just him, his beautiful voice and the acoustic guitar, I still love it.
Speaker 1
Narrow streets of cobblestone
Speaker 1
Neath the halo of a street lamp
Speaker 1
I turn my collar to the cold and damp
Speaker 1
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of an eon light
Speaker 1
Let's split the night.
Speaker 1
And touch the sound. Yeah.
Presenter
Uh
Speaker 1
A cell
Presenter
Violence.
Presenter
Paul Simon and The Sound of Silence. So, Delia Smith, let's go back to the beginning. You were born to Ettie and Harold in nineteen forty one and brought up in Bexley Heath, South East London. What do you remember about your early childhood? Well, it was wonderful.
Delia Smith
We lived next door to my grandparents. After the war my parents lived in my grandparents' house and then the house became available next door and we were able later on to buy it. So I was brought up most of my childhood living next door to my grandparents and apart from my father they had three daughters as well. So it was quite a good family thing and very, very happy memories. You have a brother I think you were eight when he
Presenter
Hmm.
Presenter
He came along?
Delia Smith
Yes.
Presenter
Uh Did you enjoy being a big sister?
Delia Smith
My parents said, What do you want for Christmas? and I always said, A baby brother please and so I got my baby brother. But he was quite independent, so if I took him off shopping or something like that, he wouldn't hold my hand or but I did watch him being brought up. My mother taught me a lot about bringing up babies and considering I don't have any children, I know quite
Presenter
quite a lot because she taught me. So tell me about the food that you were brought up on, Delia. You were born so during rationing then, in a really time of economy and frugality, was that the attitude at home?
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Delia Smith
Yes.
Delia Smith
Yes, it was because nobody had any choice. Everybody's sweet ration was two ounces a week. Can you imagine the health of our nation now if that was still going? My mother was a great cook, both my grandmothers were, and we couldn't afford to have holidays abroad or things like that, but we had wonderful food.
Presenter
Everything made from scratch. Yeah. So it was your mother and grandmother who taught you to cook and and your mum happily lived to see your success. She was often pictured with you at Norwich Football Club, lived to be a hundred. Tell me about your relationship. How would you describe it with your mum?
Delia Smith
She was very strict and she was my fiercest critic.
Delia Smith
So I think I owe her a lot in all the success I had. My feet were kept very firmly on the ground, and so I never had a chance to get big headed.
Speaker 1
Uh
Presenter
Done with
Delia Smith
Yeah.
Presenter
But I wonder what she was proudest of because your legacy obviously goes beyond your success and the numbers and the sales and all that kind of thing. It's also about connecting with people and community and obviously everything you've done at the football club speaks to that as well.
Delia Smith
Yeah.
Presenter
And it
Delia Smith
If I could have anything I wanted, I would want her ability.
Delia Smith
to sort of attract people. She attracted people like bees round a honeypot and the all the players really loved her and she'd walk down Carra Road and she would bump into a player and say, you were rubbish today.
Delia Smith
And the player the player just burst out laughing. And then when she died they all collected and bought me a tree with yellow flowers on it and a plaque.
Presenter
And the plan
Delia Smith
To say, you know, from the footballers in the class of whatever year it was, great lady.
Presenter
To say
Presenter
Oh, how wonderful.
Presenter
It's time for some more music, Delia. Your second disc today. What's it going to be and why have you chosen it?
Delia Smith
One of the things I look back on and so grateful for that I was young at the time of the Beatles. I loved their music but they had more than music to offer. A lot of their songs were
Delia Smith
poems and they were about life and about wisdom and
Delia Smith
The culmination of their whole contribution is in the Sgt. Pepper album.
Delia Smith
It's just the greatest album ever and Within You Without You
Delia Smith
was combining two continents together with different music so cleverly and the words. I think if you write the words out, which I've done, you don't need any other lessons in life. I was cooking for somebody, I was doing one of their dinner parties and I was in their kitchen.
Delia Smith
up high and in a roof.
Delia Smith
Outside the kitchen there was another flat and I could hear this music. I'm thinking, what is that? It's fantastic. And that was the first time I heard it.
Speaker 2
Uh
Speaker 1
We wanna talk
Speaker 2
Okay.
Speaker 2
I'm back in love.
Speaker 2
Uh
Presenter
To try
Presenter
The Beatles and Within You, Without You. Delia, your father Harold didn't see you until you were three when he was demobbed and returned home from the war. Do you remember him coming back?
Delia Smith
I do. I remember going into my mother's bedroom.
Delia Smith
And wondering why one of Grandad's cufflinks was on the floor. And that's not Grandad.
Delia Smith
And it was happening all up and down the street where I live. There were people being demobbed and coming back home. And so it was a very happy time. What did he do for a living, your dad?
Delia Smith
Well, he was actually a buyer of tools in a big department store in London called Gammages and then he went into partnership with somebody locally and they did a tool shop together.
Presenter
Your mum and dad didn't stay together. They divorced when you were 15. It must have been very tough for you. What kind of impact did it have?
Delia Smith
Well, I would like to say that don't anyone ever think
Delia Smith
that that isn't going to affect the children.
Delia Smith
People say, oh, children bounce back, they're alright. They don't. It's a terrible, terrible thing to happen to a child. And I found it terrible.
Speaker 2
Dunno.
Speaker 1
Uh
Delia Smith
You feel rejected by a parent. You go through a long time when you don't want to have anything to do with them at all. But then that does calm down.
Delia Smith
And then later on, you know, it was fine. Uh So you're
Presenter
were able to maintain the relationship with your dad, but tough. And what about your mum? How did she manage after the divorce? Well, heartbroken.
Delia Smith
Yeah.
Delia Smith
You can't really describe it in any other way.
Presenter
Mm.
Delia Smith
I remember the most painful time at all was packing up all the things in our house. We were packing them. It was, yeah, not very nice.
Presenter
So I'm wondering about those difficult years afterwards and how that shaped your attitude as you grew into adulthood, watching your mum have to
Presenter
pull everything together and kind of start again for the family. She was amazed.
Delia Smith
Acing
Presenter
Yeah.
Delia Smith
And she became a personnel officer, which is quite right because she was definitely a people person. It's time for your third disc, Delia. What are we going to hear next?
Presenter
Uh
Delia Smith
One of the things about the desert island is you're only allowed to have a bit of something. So I've gone for this one, which is Sartre, because I think it has such a lovely depth to it. It's just this wonderful piano, so gentle, but there's something really lovely and beautiful and deep.
Presenter
NOTIAN NUMBER ONE BY ERIC SATIE, PLAYAD BY ALLEXANDRA Thoreau. Delia Smith, people might be surprised to hear that you left school at sixteen without any qualifications, but what do you put that down to? Looking back.
Presenter
Uh
Delia Smith
I can't really put my finger on it. I just don't know. I did enjoy some school. I enjoyed music lessons and I enjoyed literature and English. What about cookery? Presumably you you shone there? There was cookery lessons then. I think that was the only A I ever got. Do you remember what you made?
Delia Smith
No, but I remember disasters.
Presenter
Will take a disaster. It'll make anyone listening to this who's just had one feel better.
Delia Smith
We were supposed to make Yorkshire pudding and my Yorkshire pudding at the bottom was Reicher Blange.
Delia Smith
And I took it home and the dog wouldn't eat it.
Presenter
Oh wow. Luckily for you Delia, when you left school at that time there was a lot of work around. So you were able to try several different things. You were a hairdressing apprentice, you worked in a travel agent, went to secretarial college. Nothing quite seemed to gel for a while. It took a while for anything to stick. I wonder what your mother's thoughts were at the time. Was she worried about you at any point? Were you?
Delia Smith
Yes, my mother was very worried and she said to all her friends and all the rest of the family, please don't ask me what Delia's doing.
Delia Smith
Uh
Presenter
I haven't a clue what she's doing next. Your career started at a French restaurant in London called The Singing Chef. You went back so often and asked so many questions that the chef offered you a job. What did you love about it?
Delia Smith
What?
Delia Smith
He said, yeah, we need a dishwasher on Saturday nights. And I did suddenly realise that, you know, I'd been brought up on really good English cooking, but being in a French restaurant and having all these different things, I thought it was really glamorous, you know, and I wanted to learn how to do it. So I went to be a washer up and then I graduated to be a chopper up. And the chef actually really did teach me quite a lot. And I did some waitressing too, and I think that's where my career came from, was going out into the restaurant and serving people and understanding how little they knew.
Presenter
So Delia, how quickly did you progress after starting out as a pot washer and making it to waitress?
Delia Smith
There was round the corner from the restaurant there was a big photographic studio and I had friends who worked in the fashion.
Delia Smith
Photography there.
Delia Smith
And I went and helped a little bit on that because the restaurant was in the evening, so I was able to do all kinds of other things in the daytime. And they had someone called a home economist who came in and cooked the food, and then they photographed it. And I said, I like to do that. So he said, well, come and have a go one day. And I did. And that just blew up into me being for about three years. I was doing food photography in the daytime and restaurant in the evening.
Presenter
We'll find out what happened next after your next record if you wouldn't mind. Disc number four, what have you got for us, Dealers?
Delia Smith
Yeah.
Presenter
Uh
Delia Smith
Ah, they're all special, but this is incredibly special, this wonderful voice of Pavarotte. It comes across so powerfully and so beautifully, the anguish and the pain of loss. I can't really ever listen to it without feeling a few goose bumps.
Speaker 2
Before your brand is fine.
Speaker 2
My friend to turn.
Speaker 2
Hey, Rocket!
Speaker 2
And I'll remember
Speaker 2
Esha Yesan went into furnace.
Presenter
Luciano Pavarotti singing Caruso with the Bologna Opera House Orchestra. Delia Smith, after starting out at the singing chef, you started working as a home economist and what we would now, I think, call a food stylist, so ads and photo shoots. And one early commission was to make a gaudy cake for what turned out to be the cover of the Rolling Stones album, Let It Bleed. How did it happen? In such an ordinary way.
Delia Smith
Hey, just a phone call from a photographer. Delia, are you free on Thursday? Can I book you? Yes, that's my daily work. That's what I do. But what is it you want? Well, I want a gaudy cake. It's got to look really sort of, you know, horrible.
Presenter
So that was the direction. So it's pink, it's green, it's white, there's tons of icing. Yeah, and that was all he said. So, how did you find out?
Delia Smith
Yeah.
Delia Smith
Uh
Presenter
I think
Delia Smith
Keith Richard arrived.
Presenter
It was a big clue.
Delia Smith
Clue.
Delia Smith
It's like sometimes you feel like a spectator on your life. You think, how did that happen? And there it was and it's still there. I get albums sent to me to
Presenter
So I'm going to go to the next one.
Presenter
So in nineteen sixty nine you you got the job of writing a cookery column for the newly launched Daily Mirror Colour magazine. What sort of recipes would you have been creating for that publication back then?
Delia Smith
I remember my first cookery column.
Delia Smith
And I think it was kippa pato, beef braised in beer, and it was five
Presenter
Minute cheesecake. Nineteen sixty nine was a pivotal year for you, Delia. You also met your husband, Michael Wynne Jones. He was then the deputy editor of The Mirror magazine. I used to
Delia Smith
deliver my handwritten copy and Michael used to put it into English.
Delia Smith
So was it love at first sight for the pair of you? No, I don't think so. But I mean it was obviously he liked food a lot and I liked food a lot and that was something that drew us together.
Presenter
Michael also introduced you to football, I think, which has been another great passion in your life. And the two of you have been shareholders since 1996 in Norwich City FC, investing heavily over the years. I know the club's about so much more than scores and a balance sheet for you. What do you get back from your involvement? What does it mean to you?
Presenter
Well
Delia Smith
I think first and foremost it's a beautiful game.
Delia Smith
So it is a beautiful game. It's irritating, it's disappointing, you have pain, you have...
Delia Smith
ecstasy, it's all those things. But I think one of the things that's so good about it now in this day and age is its community. And it's one of the few
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Presenter
Mm-hmm.
Delia Smith
places where community really does thrive.
Presenter
You're a passionate fan, Delia, and the passion went viral in two thousand five when you urged fans to get behind the team who were losing to Man City. I believe the phrase you used was let's be avenue. Tell me about that moment.
Delia Smith
Well, I was trying to get somebody to put it on the message board. Come on, you know, where are you? Because they were like church mice and we were losing. And somebody just gave me the microphone and said, say it, and I forgot, Lauren, I just forgot.
Delia Smith
That sky were there'cause you don't know they're there. You know what I mean? There's always cameras anyway. And that's what happened.
Presenter
And the moment went viral because people connected with your passion as a family.
Delia Smith
Yeah. I had letters from football supporters from one end of the country to the other. It was wonderful. N the first week wasn't. The first week there were people in the press saying I should be brought before a disciplinary committee at the FA.
Presenter
Do people still come up and say it to you?
Delia Smith
I go to way matches and they all call out, let's be having you, Delia. It's lovely, I love it.
Presenter
Uh
Delia Smith
Uh
Presenter
Delia, you you and Michael have put so much into the club, so much passion and time and money. I mean, would you ever consider selling it? There aren't many clubs that are owned by individuals who we can name and call to.
Delia Smith
Not correct.
Delia Smith
Well, the answer to that is no, but we do now have an equal shareholder.
Delia Smith
A Lovely Man from America.
Delia Smith
And so when it comes time for us to stand down, hopefully he's going to be the one that's going to take it over.
Presenter
And and when will that time be? I know you're still you still you know, your heart is is still with Norwich City.
Delia Smith
Yeah.
Delia Smith
I know that one thing's for sure, that souls don't have ages, so I'm still 19, but the body does.
Delia Smith
And there might come a time when we can't do it any more, but at the moment that time hasn't yet come. I mean, we may not be board directors, but we'll still be going to football with our Zimmer frames, I think.
Presenter
It's time for your next piece of music, Delia Smith, disc number five. What are we going to hear? This is very special.
Delia Smith
Yeah.
Presenter
Yeah.
Delia Smith
It's a man called David Fancha, who sadly is no longer with us, who went to Africa and
Delia Smith
did an album called The African Sanctus where he just took a microphone around to all different tribes, different churches and the album was meant to be about peace in the world and it means so much to me because Michael also was there with him in Khartoum writing an article for the Radio Times and so he was there while he was doing some of this. This particular piece of music, he went up to the top of the mosque outside Cairo, recorded the call to prayer, then went back and with the help of, I think it's the singers of St. George's Chapel at Windsor,
Delia Smith
recorded The Curie from the Mass. He put them on the album both together. And there's something much deeper than religion going on.
Delia Smith
It's revealing how people are connected.
Delia Smith
And they're connected by their communal longing for peace. And that is deeper than any kind of religion. So when I'm on the desert island, I'm going to be reminded that that is the truth.
Speaker 2
A new workbook bungalow.
Speaker 2
A shared one now.
Presenter
Kyrie, Call to Prayer from African Sanctus by David Fanshaw, performed by the Muezzin from the Muhammad Ali Mosque, Cairo, Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and the Choristers of St George's Chapel, Windsor. Delia, you presented many decades worth of hugely successful T V programmes and they brought so much pleasure to so many and shaped the way that the country cooks. Your ambition was to teach us how to cook and you did it. The Delia effect was such that shops would regularly run out of ingredients included in your recipes, whether it was cranberries, limes or anything else. Did you enjoy making T V programmes?
Delia Smith
They were quite challenging and quite difficult to do. I had a lot of critics, an awful lot of critics. You know, I was boring and um you know I was like um a Volvo car, reliable but not very exciting and people only watched my programmes if they really wanted to know how to cook. And luckily for me a lot of people did.
Presenter
Is it a little bit satisfying that some of the bright young things who were throwing around those insults haven't stood the test of time quite so well as you have?
Delia Smith
Um I wouldn't say that, but um
Delia Smith
It's the people. They're the ones that choose. They're the ones that come back for more. There was this relationship that was really good.
Delia Smith
So you always felt that
Presenter
Did you draw strength from it?
Delia Smith
Yes, I still do. I mean I still have lots of friends that I don't know.
Delia Smith
If you can understand that.
Presenter
And it's lovely. Time for your next piece of music, Delia Smith, disc number six. And I think this might be someone that you've cooked with in the past, or at least I've seen you share a meal with her.
Delia Smith
Yeah, like I have a passion for Paul Simon, I have a passion for Kate Bush. I just love her, I love her music. To me, her music is like abstract art and it just goes on and on. You still get something different when you listen to it.
Presenter
And I saw the two of you um having a chat about vegetarian food over a nut roast and a rather delicious looking Waldorf salad.
Delia Smith
That was my first cookery course series on television and she just was sensational then with her first record and I thought well let's get a vegetarian that everybody loves on the programme and I was invited to her house and yeah it was amazing. She gave me one of her recipes which is still in the cookery course.
Presenter
Yeah.
Delia Smith
And why have you chosen this track in particular, Dean? I've chosen this woman's work not because of the lyrics, but just the whole range of it.
Speaker 2
I just come in and show. I should be hoping, but I can't stop thinking. All the things I should've said that I never said. All the things we should've done, that we never did. All the things I should've given, but I didn't make it go.
Speaker 1
It's a shot, sir.
Presenter
Kate Bush and this woman's work. Delia, you started the now well established tradition of T V cooks writing Christmas books. You've written two. Do you still refer to them at this time of year? Yes.
Delia Smith
Yes, I have to follow it myself because I can't remember anything and I must say it's very useful. Christmas Eve, yeah, do this then and then do that and
Presenter
And it must be special to you that you're part of people's Christmas. I mean every year they must like as you said, this is the time of year that people will say, Oh, I'm just about to make your trifle. It is, it's incredible. And amazing that initially the BBC apparently weren't keen on the idea of a Christmas. They didn't want to do a Christmas.
Delia Smith
Why not? Oh, because they didn't think it would sell. I think the publishers felt, oh, well, they didn't want to publish a book that was only going to sell in December. And I think the TV was the same, you know, it wasn't going to be. And then it sort of like exploded.
Presenter
Your first Christmas book is dedicated to your mother and you say thanks for all the lovely Christmases.
Delia Smith
I wonder what Christmas means to you now? I still think it's brilliant. I know there's there's lots of criticisms about the commercial thing, but it's a people thing. It's people coming together and people travelling across the country to see their friends and their relatives. And I just think this whole idea of people having a celebration and eating too much and drinking too much.
Delia Smith
Uh
Presenter
Hey, that's what life's about.
Presenter
And you mentioned, you know, the dishes that take you back to your mother and your grandmother's cooking. I wonder are there any that that you always want to have on your Christmas table, that you always make?
Delia Smith
Yeah, would you
Presenter
Both my Christmas cake, the
Delia Smith
Traditional Christmas cake
Delia Smith
and the pudding are both a combination of my grandmother and my mother's recipes.
Presenter
Now in your book you mentioned the the kind of timetable, the lists. In your book you've got a very precise Christmas Day cooking timetable, including the suggestion to have a pre-lunch glass of champagne at one point. Everybody loves that. Just after you've turned the chipolatas and the bacon rolls over.
Delia Smith
Yeah.
Presenter
Now at this stage of the proceedings, what's your best tip for any home cooks listening to help them get through the day without a disaster?
Delia Smith
Well, if they're following the plan and following the recipe, it won't let them down. And just keep thinking of the when it's all over, you can put your feet up.
Delia Smith
It is difficult. I wouldn't pretend it isn't difficult. It is difficult to get it all done, but it is wonderful.
Speaker 2
Is this difficult?
Presenter
It's time for some more music, Delia Smith. Disc number seven. What are we going to hear? It's.
Delia Smith
Yeah.
Presenter
They're just including.
Delia Smith
Credible voice of Sinead O'Connor.
Delia Smith
And I have great admiration for her, for what she is, what she stood for and she's a special person and I'm sorry she's not with us anymore, but thank goodness we've got all her music. And this is the track He Moved Through the Fair.
Speaker 2
And away from me and this he did say
Speaker 2
And when
Speaker 2
Not belong loved.
Speaker 2
Or wedding day.
Presenter
Sinead O'Connor and he moved through the firm.
Presenter
Delia Smith, you began your cookery career with a sincere wish to teach people how to cook, and you were made a companion of honor for your services to cookery and cookery education in twenty seventeen. What does that award mean to you?
Presenter
Oh, wow.
Delia Smith
It was incredible, absolute so completely unexpected and I still can't quite believe it. The most special thing was after I'd received the award, Michael and I were invited to Windsor Castle to have dinner with the Queen and stay the night.
Delia Smith
Tell me what was on the menu. The food was brilliant.
Delia Smith
And there are about twenty people altogether, but it was very, very, very special.
Presenter
I wonder if the Windsor Castle kitchen crew feel any pressure when cooking for you? They told me so.
Delia Smith
So they did tell me so. But that's not what I'm about at all,'cause I only ever did anything everyone can do.
Presenter
I wonder about reflecting back as we have been today for the little girl who was told she couldn't sit still at school and what we're going to do with her and your mum who's don't ask me what Delia's doing. You know, you've achieved everything that you have.
Delia Smith
What we're going to do
Presenter
Yes. How does it feel reflecting on that and thinking about it?
Delia Smith
I feel very privileged, incredibly privileged, and nothing I've done I've done alone. I've had my husband, I've had my wonderful agent and a whole team of people and all the people who worked with me and supported me. I couldn't have done anything without all of them.
Presenter
We're about to cast you away to the desert island, Delia. Will you be able to fend for yourself when you're there? I'm not sure.
Delia Smith
If there's plenty of fruit to pick off the trees, but I'm not going to be creative in making things, no. Tools and things, no.
Presenter
Turn.
Presenter
Last time you were cast away you told Roy Plumley that you wouldn't try and escape because you'd be too scared of the water of the sky. Yeah, I would be, yeah. Still at the same answer. I'd wait for somebody to come and get me, yeah.
Delia Smith
Yeah, it would be.
Delia Smith
Me yeah.
Presenter
Before we send you off to your desert island, then, Delia Smith, what's your last choice today? Well, I'm very lucky.
Delia Smith
Yeah.
Delia Smith
Yeah.
Presenter
Bye.
Delia Smith
And you've reminded me of how lucky I've been and what a lovely life I've had and I've always been happy and I love Farrell Williams. He's one of my current favourites. So therefore, still loving pop music, a contemporary pop singer now is Farrell Williams singing my favourite Farrell Williams, which is happy.
Speaker 2
Well I should probably warn ya I'll be just fine.
Speaker 2
No offense to you, don't waste your time.
Speaker 2
Yeah, why? Because I'm happy I'm alone if you feel like a room without a room.
Speaker 2
If you feel like happiness is a truth
Presenter
Pharrell Williams and Happy. So, Delia Smith, the time has come. Again, I'm going to send you away to the desert island. I will give you the books, the Bible, and the complete works of Shakespeare to keep you company. You can take one more of your own choice. What would you like?
Delia Smith
If I was on a desert island, I can't think of anything nicer than reading scriptures and Shakespeare. So I'm going to read scriptures and Shakespeare because I'd love to read more. So what I'm going to choose as a book is a book of art. I've got a book at home which is Sister Wendy's 100 Best Paintings starting from the sixth century and coming right the way through. So I would be able to look at art all the way through those years.
Presenter
Wonderful sister Wendy, who herself is in our Desert Island Discs archive and I think was a friend of yours.
Delia Smith
The disks are not.
Delia Smith
Yes, he was, yes.
Presenter
How did you get to know each other?
Delia Smith
A long story. I was asked if I would mind taking her to hospital for treatment.
Delia Smith
in Cambridge and I started just by giving her a lift, driving her there and taking her back again and we became friends.
Delia Smith
I learned an awful lot from knowing her, but I've also got most of her books, so I continue to learn things from her. And one beautiful thing she wrote once was that peace is a better word than happiness, because if you're at peace, then
Presenter
You're obviously happy. Sister Wendy's One Hundred Best Loved Paintings is yours, and what would you like as your luxury item?
Presenter
Well, I'm not sure I can
Delia Smith
I didn't have it, but you mentioned people.
Delia Smith
Well, if I could have as much of the archive as possible of Desert Island discs, then I'll have all the people around me.
Presenter
It's sneaky, it's cheeky, but there is precedent for this. I remember very well that it's been granted before. On that basis, yes, David Mitchell took it for one.
Delia Smith
Right.
Presenter
as a testament to humanity and seen as it's Christmas.
Delia Smith
Yes.
Presenter
It's yours.
Delia Smith
And that's what it is, a testament to humanity. Uh
Presenter
Finally, which one track of the eight that you've shared with us today would you save from the waves if you had to?
Presenter
Oh, I'll go for African Sanctus.
Presenter
Dealia Smith, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs and have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thank you so much, same to you.
Delia Smith
Yeah.
Presenter
Hello. It was lovely chatting to Delia, and I do hope she's happy on the island with all those former castaways for company. There are more than 2,000 programmes in our archive which you can listen to. We've cast away many cooks and chefs over the years, including Delia's first visit to the island with Roy Plumley, Nigella Lawson is in there, and Jamie Oliver too. You can find all of those programmes if you search through BBC Sounds or on our own Desert Island Discs website. And you'll also find Keith Richards' fantastic Desert Island Discs 2. The studio manager for today's programme was Emma Hart, the assistant producer was Christine Pavlovsky, the production coordinator was Susie Roylance, and the producer was Sarah Taylor. Thanks for listening to our podcast this year, and I wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from all of us on Desert Island Discs.
Presenter
Hello, this is Marion Keys. And this is Tara Flynn. We host a podcast you might like for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds called Now You're Asking. Each week we take real listeners' questions about life, love, lingerie, cats, dogs, dentists, pockets, or the lack of, anything really, and apply our worldly wisdom in a way which we hope will help, but also hopefully entertain. Join us, why don't you? Search up Now You're Asking on BBC Sounds Tanking You.
Presenter asks
Your parents divorced when you were 15 — what kind of impact did it have?
… don't let anyone ever think that that isn't going to affect the children. People say, oh, children bounce back, they're alright. They don't. It's a terrible, terrible thing to happen to a child. And I found it terrible … you feel rejected by a parent.
Presenter asks
What does your involvement with Norwich City FC mean to you?
I think first and foremost it's a beautiful game … It's irritating, it's disappointing, you have pain, you have … ecstasy, it's all those things. But I think one of the things that's so good about it now in this day and age is its community. And it's one of the few places where community really does thrive.
Presenter asks
Your ambition was to teach the nation how to cook and you did it — did you enjoy making TV programmes?
They were quite challenging and quite difficult to do. I had a lot of critics, an awful lot of critics. You know, I was boring and … I was like a Volvo car, reliable but not very exciting and people only watched my programmes if they really wanted to know how to cook. And luckily for me a lot of people did.
Presenter asks
What does the Companion of Honour award mean to you?
It was incredible, absolute so completely unexpected and I still can't quite believe it. The most special thing was after I'd received the award, Michael and I were invited to Windsor Castle to have dinner with the Queen and stay the night.
“I don't know, but it's an instinct and what I had in the back of my mind was to take the fear away. I think people are afraid to cook and I myself found reading cookery books there was always something that they didn't say or I wasn't sure about.”
“If I could have anything I wanted, I would want her ability [my mother's] to sort of attract people. She attracted people like bees round a honeypot.”
“People say, oh, children bounce back, they're alright. They don't. It's a terrible, terrible thing to happen to a child. And I found it terrible.”
“I forgot, Lauren, I just forgot. That sky were there 'cause you don't know they're there. … And that's what happened.”
“I know that one thing's for sure, that souls don't have ages, so I'm still 19, but the body does.”
“I feel very privileged, incredibly privileged, and nothing I've done I've done alone. I've had my husband, I've had my wonderful agent and a whole team of people and all the people who worked with me and supported me. I couldn't have done anything without all of them.”