Delia Smith

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

Speaker 20:05

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1982, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:30

Our castaway this week is Delia Smith, who lives in Suffolk and who writes and talks about cooking. Delia, at home, do you cook to music?

Delia Smith0:40

Yes, I do sometimes. Sometimes I go and put the music on. If I don't have to concentrate too much, if it's something, you know, like a sauce that might curdle and I need to concentrate, the music wouldn't be any good.

Presenter0:49

Music is important in your life apart from

Presenter0:52

There was moments of stress at the stove.

Delia Smith0:54

Yes, I've always enjoyed music, yes.

Presenter0:56

inducing

Delia Smith0:57

Not properly, no. But uh I have a go. I mean, I sing in the bath and I sing when I'm round the house, cooking and things.

Presenter1:03

Now you have eight discs to help you on your desert island. Could you endure loneliness for a long time?

Delia Smith1:09

I think at the beginning I'd really welcome it. It would be lovely to be peaceful and silent. But then I'd be a bit worried, I think, as time went on. I don't think I'd be very good eventually.

Presenter1:20

What would be the worst thing? Is it any particular phobia that comes to mind, anything that you hate to be near?

Delia Smith1:26

Yes anything creepy, really, that's likely to hurt me. I mean, I don't mind spiders and things, they're quite friendly, but the thought of scorpions and snakes and things really does make me feel very

Presenter1:35

Yeah.

Speaker 21:35

Uh

Presenter1:35

Uh

Presenter1:36

We found variables.

Delia Smith1:37

Yes, land crabs my goodness, yes. Perhaps I'd better stay in land.

Presenter1:41

Right, let's think of something more cheerful. What's your first record?

Delia Smith1:45

My first record is a Simon and Gar Funkel record.

Delia Smith1:49

I was always a Paul Simon fan right from the beginning. I went through a period of really liking folk music.

Delia Smith1:55

And I admired Simon and Garfunkel because when all the other music was becoming very aggressive, you know, they managed to still be peaceful.

Delia Smith2:03

And I like the the sentiments behind this song, you know, too much superficial communication and not enough real communication. I think that's a problem we have, and um I really like this song.

Presenter2:14

What's it called?

Delia Smith2:15

It's called The Sound of Silence.

Presenter2:18

Ten value

Speaker 32:18

Dozen people, maybe more

Speaker 32:23

People talking without speaking.

Speaker 32:27

People hearing without listening

Speaker 32:32

People writing songs

Speaker 32:35

That voices never share

Speaker 32:40

No one did.

Speaker 32:43

Disturb the sound

Presenter2:49

Simon and Garfunkel The Sound of Silence. Where were you born, dear?

Delia Smith2:54

Well, I was actually born in Woking in Surrey and I was brought up in Kent, just outside London.

Presenter3:00

And you're Welsh by family.

Delia Smith3:02

My mother is fluent Welsh, yes, she speaks fluent Welsh and my family come from Mid Wales.

Presenter3:07

Yes.

Delia Smith3:07

and my father came from Yorkshire.

Presenter3:09

Is your mother a good cook?

Delia Smith3:11

Yes, she is, and I was brought up on good food.

Presenter3:14

Are you one of a large family?

Delia Smith3:15

No, I just have one brother.

Presenter3:17

What was your first ambition? What do you think you wanted to be?

Delia Smith3:20

Oh, first of all, I should think a ballet dancer, and then later on, an air hostess.

Presenter3:26

What were you best at at school?

Delia Smith3:28

At school I was very bad at most things. I was good at drama and good at reading the Bible. That was my two things that I used to get chosen for at school. Everything else, you know, people didn't really talk about much.

Presenter3:41

Any O-levels or anything like that?

Delia Smith3:43

No, nothing.

Presenter3:45

What did you do when you left school?

Delia Smith3:47

Well, I hadn't got any academic qualifications, so everybody thought that perhaps I ought to use my hands, and I went to be a hairdresser.

Delia Smith3:55

But unfortunately I wasn't very good at that either.

Presenter3:58

Where were you doing that?

Delia Smith3:59

We're in the West End, in London, and um I enjoyed it enormously. I really did. I had a lovely time, but I just didn't turn out to be a particularly good hairdresser.

Presenter4:10

Were you apprenticed?

Presenter4:11

So you had to stick out your two years or three years or whatever it was.

Delia Smith4:15

Yes.

Presenter4:16

But then you didn't really take to it.

Delia Smith4:18

No.

Presenter4:19

What did you do then?

Delia Smith4:20

Well, I went to work in a travel agency. I was a bit of an embarrassment really,'cause I didn't have any career and um

Delia Smith4:27

I just sort of drifted around and did bits here and bits there.

Presenter4:30

Are there any perks in being in a travel agency? Do you get airline tickets to romantic places?

Delia Smith4:36

No, no, I didn't, I didn't. I got a thirst for travelling.

Presenter4:37

No?

Delia Smith4:39

And I went, at the age of twenty one, to work in Italy for three months, which was good for me.

Presenter4:44

What we're doing.

Delia Smith4:45

Well, I was actually working in a hairdresser's shop, though not doing any hairdressing, I was just sort of helping out in the shop.

Delia Smith4:51

But it was good for me to be in another country. I hadn't been abroad before.

Speaker 34:54

Yeah.

Delia Smith4:55

But I was supposed to stay six months and I came back after three, so I was true to form.

Presenter5:01

Let's have another record. What next?

Delia Smith5:03

This record is the Westminster Cathedral Boys' Choir singing Missa Brevis. I've chosen the Kyrie. This was written for them by Benjamin Britton, especially for that choir. And this reminds me of the age of twenty-two when I actually became a Catholic.

Presenter6:20

The Curie from Benterman Britain's Missa Brevis recorded at a service in Westminster Cathedral.

Presenter6:27

What did you do when you came back from Italy?

Delia Smith6:29

Well, I think it was about that time that I began to be interested in cooking and thought I would go along to a little restaurant and become a washer up one night a week just to enable me to cook.

Delia Smith6:43

My way through life, you know, I thought it'd be handy to know how to cook properly.

Presenter6:47

Was this in London?

Delia Smith6:48

Yes, um I'd been going to this little restaurant, a little French restaurant, and the chef used to come out with the main course and serve it, and I was always saying, How do you do this? and how do you do that? And he said, Look, if you're really interested, come along on a Saturday night. We're short of a washer up, and you can see how it's all done.

Presenter7:03

And after a bit, as well as doing the washing up, you were allowed to help the chef.

Delia Smith7:07

Yes, I was allowed to help the chef, and I did some waitressing, and I suddenly realized, for the first time in my life, that that was something I really did enjoy doing, and I had a great sort of interest in.

Presenter7:15

Uh

Presenter7:17

Were you going to classes as well?

Delia Smith7:19

No. I used to take a little note book along with me and write down all the recipes, and I must say the the chef who was at the restaurant was a good teacher.

Presenter7:27

Did you have any idea of running your own restaurant?

Delia Smith7:30

No, no, I didn't really.

Delia Smith7:32

It obviously cropped up.

Delia Smith7:34

But uh it was something that never has appealed to me.

Presenter7:37

You started doing some dinner party cooking, freelance work.

Delia Smith7:41

That's right, I answered an advertisement in The Times from a family who lived in Harleigh Street, who wanted somebody to go and cook their dinner parties.

Delia Smith7:48

And they were absolutely lovely, terribly enthusiastic about eating and food. And I was able to really cook whatever I liked, and I worked my way through all the good cookery writers. I remember cooking my way through the whole of Elizabeth David, for instance, and they were very pleased for me to do so. So that was an important part of my

Presenter8:01

And

Delia Smith8:06

Formation as a cook.

Presenter8:07

You began doing it for other people, for other families.

Delia Smith8:10

No, I didn't actually do that, but I did start at that time doing some cooking for food photography. And this was a very interesting branch of cooking that uh

Delia Smith8:21

I enjoyed enormously. I've always enjoyed everything I've done and doing food photography was exciting and different.

Presenter8:26

Because a great deal to do with cooking is the presentation and the colour and the look of it, isn't it?

Delia Smith8:31

Yes, yes, and I was very privileged to be able to work for some really top food photographers, and I learnt an awful lot from them.

Presenter8:39

With a suspicious mind it sometimes occurred to me that some of that food one sees on commercials

Delia Smith8:43

One

Presenter8:44

In advertising photographs, it looks a little too good to be true. I suppose there are.

Delia Smith8:46

But

Presenter8:50

ways and means of making it look too good to be true.

Delia Smith8:54

Well, it became quite an art, and I think the most in thing was to have the food looking absolutely natural as possible.

Delia Smith9:02

But obviously if you had to show say three dozen mince pies then you wouldn't have to put mince meat in them.

Presenter9:12

Well, that would be a waste.

Delia Smith9:12

And so you would what you would do is you'd put sort of wet kitchen paper inside this

Presenter9:17

I see certainly they swell up enormous.

Delia Smith9:19

I can remember having great fun when one of the cameramen came up and pinched a few mince pies and I heard him scream behind a screen.

Speaker 39:26

Yeah.

Delia Smith9:27

Because he'd bitten into this sort of wet, soggy paper. But the actual food itself, i.e. the pastry, has got to be absolutely real.

Speaker 39:27

Yeah.

Presenter9:35

Yes.

Presenter9:37

Can you remember any particular incident when things went wrong?

Delia Smith9:39

Yes, I can. I can remember I had to go to France and cook a Henry the Fourth banquet in a chateau.

Delia Smith9:47

This was for a television commercial for chicken, and there was this big marble staircase, and I had to run up and down the stairs with the chicken as and when they needed it, having cooked all the props. And uh I can remember just falling down the stairs and all the chickens.

Presenter10:03

But

Delia Smith10:03

greasy chicken all the way down this beautiful marble staircase which is not very

Presenter10:06

You'd got a spare chicken, had you?

Delia Smith10:08

Oh yes, I've got dozens and dozens and dozens of spare chicken.

Presenter10:11

And it was authentic period Henry the Fourth chicken.

Delia Smith10:14

That's how it had to look.

Presenter10:16

Good, let's have the next record.

Delia Smith10:18

Well, I think on the Desert Island I get to miss my husband a lot, and this is a piece of music that we both like and listen to together. This is Al Binone's Adagio, and this will sort of remind me of him.

Presenter11:28

The Adaggio in G minor for organ and strings by Albinone, arranged by Giozzotto.

Speaker 311:30

Uh

Presenter11:34

Played by Douglas Haas with the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra.

Presenter11:39

So you were doing this commercial cookery. Yeah, I suppose it was a short step from that to journalism. Had you done any writing?

Delia Smith11:46

No, I hadn't, but the restaurant I worked in was French, and I suddenly got this feeling that, um

Delia Smith11:53

It was a shame that everything in cooking had to be French, and I really began to investigate English cooking, and I found out that in the eighteenth century the English were actually eating better than the French, if not better than anyone else in the world, and the cooking of that period was really good, so I started to research that period of cooking.

Delia Smith12:11

And um I got a ticket to go to the British Museum reading room and get out all the eighteenth century cookbooks and study them, copy down recipes, nip back to Harley Street and try them out.

Delia Smith12:23

Then somebody suggested I ought to collect these recipes and put them in a book.

Delia Smith12:27

And they introduced me.

Delia Smith12:29

It was a food photographer, in fact, and he introduced me to a literary agent.

Delia Smith12:33

And uh she tried to get this eighteenth century cookbook by an unknown cookery person published and uh nobody wanted to publish it.

Delia Smith12:42

But we formed a relationship. She got very interested in my plan.

Delia Smith12:47

And she believed in me, and she actually eventually got me a cookery column, so that's how I started.

Presenter12:52

That was in the Middle magazine, wasn't it?

Delia Smith12:55

The first one, yes, the first cookery column.

Presenter12:56

First cookery column.

Delia Smith12:58

No, just a year, just one year.

Presenter13:00

Well, you did marry the assistant editor.

Delia Smith13:01

That's right, yeah.

Presenter13:03

So it wasn't wasted time at all.

Delia Smith13:05

Absolutely not. No, no.

Presenter13:08

And after that, a long spell on the standard, which is still going on.

Delia Smith13:12

It is, yes.

Presenter13:12

After how many years?

Delia Smith13:14

I think it's probably coming up to ten now.

Presenter13:16

I suppose, of course, you've got to go for your reading public, rather more sophisticated cooking for the standard than you devised for the mirror.

Delia Smith13:25

Well, the nice thing about working on the standard is that because I have a recipe that goes in every day, Monday to Thursday, I've got the opportunity to do something for everyone. So sometimes we can have something really sort of um expensive and sometimes cheap and cheerful, but you know, I've got this enormous sort of range that I can use, which is good.

Presenter13:43

Which is good.

Delia Smith13:47

Yes, and of course that's another thing where I'm very lucky working on the standard, because I know that people in London can get everything.

Delia Smith13:54

You know, and I can even tell them where to get it, so

Presenter13:57

Please.

Delia Smith13:57

That's an enormous help.

Presenter13:59

Play code number four, we've got to.

Delia Smith14:01

Four.

Delia Smith14:02

Well, this is The Days of Future Past by The Moody Blues. I've always had a sort of weakness for pop music, and when I was choosing what I wanted for the programme, I found that many of them didn't really stand the test of time, and many of them I felt I'd get fed up with very quickly. But this one is a pop record that reminds me very much of the sixties when I was young.

Delia Smith14:25

And uh I think it'll stand the test of time and I shall enjoy listening to it.

Speaker 314:39

I to you.

Speaker 314:44

I'm just beginning to sing

Speaker 314:48

Now I'm on my way

Speaker 314:52

It doesn't matter to me Chasing the clowns away

Presenter15:00

Days of Future Past by the Moody Blues and the track Forever Afternoon.

Presenter15:05

When did you start cooking on television, Delia?

Delia Smith15:08

Well, I think that came about through being on the Evening Standard. A producer rang me up and said the BBC were looking for somebody new to present cooking, and would I go along and do a pilot programme?

Delia Smith15:19

So I went along, and I did this pilot programme.

Delia Smith15:22

And then they had to take the pilot programme to the programme controller for him to make up his mind. And we had to wait ages. I think we waited about three months.

Delia Smith15:31

And they rang up and said that he'd agreed that we could do a series of ten programmes about half an hour before he'd actually left the BBC.

Presenter15:39

Oh, Palace Revolution or one of those things.

Delia Smith15:42

Yes, his name was Paul Fox and he went to Yorkshire Television.

Presenter15:45

Ah, indeed.

Delia Smith15:46

I mean, he'd said yes, you know, apparently the same afternoon that he'd left, so I just got it by the skin of my teeth.

Presenter15:52

Out of interest, what did you give them for your pilot?

Delia Smith15:55

A recipe called Alpine Eggs, which is cheese and eggs baked in the oven, and I can remember telling the girl who was helping me not to grate the cheese in front of the producer, because we should have done it before we got to the studio. But I'd forgotten that I was all wired up and the producer was listening to what I was saying.

Speaker 316:13

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Delia Smith16:15

So, um, you know, it took me a while to get into the sort of um mentality of working in a studio where everybody hears every word you say and I was whispering.

Speaker 316:16

Um

Presenter16:16

Yeah.

Presenter16:22

Were you given specific terms of reference as to what you were to cook? Were you to cook particularly simply, or?

Delia Smith16:28

Yes. I was told to cook simply, and to do sort of every day family dishes, really. That was my first commission.

Presenter16:36

What was the series called?

Delia Smith16:38

Family Fair.

Presenter16:39

That's right, you did two or three series of family affairs.

Delia Smith16:42

Yes, I did three.

Presenter16:43

And then well it all developed into a a three-year complete cookery course.

Delia Smith16:49

Yes, after I did the three series, the controller of uh BBC Two which they were broadcast on didn't particularly like cooking.

Delia Smith16:58

So um

Presenter16:58

He liked his food raw.

Delia Smith17:00

Well, I don't know, but there wasn't another series in the offing, so that was more or less, you know, the end of that.

Delia Smith17:06

So then at his suggestion we went to the continuing education department of the BBC and I offered them my sort of dream which was to teach people basic cooking and so I devised this plan of doing um a cookery course.

Delia Smith17:22

which would teach people in their own homes without them having to trek off to night school.

Speaker 217:26

Uh

Presenter17:26

Fears.

Delia Smith17:26

How to Cook in a basic simple way to get all the background to cooking as well as recipes.

Presenter17:31

Now this is quite a project, that's thirty half hour programmes.

Delia Smith17:34

That was right, yes. And three quite complicated books, you know.

Presenter17:38

The box to go with it now. So you had to do the whole thing of utensils equipping the kitchen.

Delia Smith17:43

That's right, yes, yes, it was uh quite some project, but enormously worth while, because when I went to do it I was convinced that that's what the British people wanted.

Delia Smith17:55

But, I mean, that was just my own instinct, and it was lovely that it did get such a good response. You know, people really did respond, and it was lovely to know that they really did want that.

Presenter18:06

How do you work? Does the BBC give you a permanent kitchen set up, or do they have to build a set every time you you do a program?

Delia Smith18:13

Oh no, they build the set in the morning. When I arrive it's probably not quite complete. And while I'm rehearsing, you know, there are saws going and hammers going.

Presenter18:21

Now the number of lists you must have to make about props, about utensils because you need several of everything, don't you? I mean here is um what it looks like when it's raw and there it is half cooked and there it is completely cooked. Now all that's got to be regulated and listed and worked out and timed.

Speaker 318:31

Yeah.

Delia Smith18:35

That's not a good thing.

Delia Smith18:40

Yes, yes, it's it's a real

Delia Smith18:43

Well, it's really difficult and, you know, a lot of pressure and all these various lists, you know, that have to be gone through and ticked and packed up and everything has to be taken to the studio.

Presenter18:53

How much help do you have an assistant?

Delia Smith18:55

I have uh

Delia Smith18:57

Three, usually, yes. I have one person who looks after ingredients.

Presenter18:58

Three

Delia Smith19:01

One who does the washing up.

Delia Smith19:04

And another one who helps me with the finished dishes, who actually does cooking.

Presenter19:08

Now you've all got to rehearse together so that everybody's doing the right thing at the right time. Yes. So how many rehearsals do you have?

Delia Smith19:12

Yes.

Delia Smith19:15

We have one rehearsal, one or two rehearsals.

Delia Smith19:20

about three days before we go into the studio.

Presenter19:22

When do you do that?

Delia Smith19:23

We actually do that in a magazine.

Delia Smith19:26

a London magazine where they have a cookery department and we borrowed their kitchen.

Presenter19:29

We borrowed it.

Delia Smith19:31

And we take a stopwatch and we go through everything and work out what's going to be in the programme, what we've got time for.

Delia Smith19:37

So that's one rehearsal, and then on the studio day we have three more rehearsals and then a recording.

Presenter19:43

Then there's an awful lot of stuff that you're going to expend at the rehearsals. Imagination boggles at the number of everything that you must have.

Delia Smith19:50

Well, I did one programme that had thirty-nine ingredients, so they had to be brought five times over, thirty-nine ingredients five times over.

Presenter19:59

And at the end, you've got all this cooked and half-cooked food. Who grabs that? The crew on the floor?

Delia Smith20:03

Yes, we take a big roll of polythene bags, and then everybody takes home little doggy bags full of

Presenter20:08

Yeah.

Presenter20:09

I'm sure yours is a very popular programme to work on.

Delia Smith20:12

Well, it is, and it's funny, because I don't know how many people normally work in a studio, but towards the end of the recording there's always twice the amount that there has been all day long.

Presenter20:21

People have just drifted in. They've smelt the cooking in the corridors.

Delia Smith20:24

Mm-hmm.

Presenter20:26

Let's have another record.

Delia Smith20:28

Well, this is a piece of music that I'm very, very fond of. It's Forêts Pavan.

Presenter21:32

The fort pavan, played by the New Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by David Wilcox.

Presenter21:38

You mentioned briefly the books that back up your cookery course. You have done a number of books.

Delia Smith21:44

Yes, I've written

Delia Smith21:46

Eight books altogether.

Presenter21:47

The first one I notice with delight is called How to Cheat at Cooking.

Delia Smith21:51

That's right, yes. I was asked to do an article for The Observer on how to cheat at cooking, and

Delia Smith21:57

It sounded abhorrent to me first of all.

Delia Smith22:00

But then I thought it was a challenge, so I did the article, and then I realized that an awful lot of people are not going to cook anyway, and they need to be served, as well as the people who are going to cook. So that's what motivated me, and I decided to do a cookery book for people who really hated cooking.

Presenter22:16

Yeah.

Presenter22:16

And the kind of dishes that look as if they're expert but actually very simple. Is that the idea?

Delia Smith22:21

Yes, um a lot of them were using sort of convenience foods, but I very cleverly put in a lot of fresh foods that were just simple and easy to cook, and uh people have been very happy. I'm amazed at that book that it's still in print. I mean I think it's in its thirteenth printing now and I always think, gosh, that can't go on much longer, but it still goes on selling. So there obviously, in spite of all my other efforts, there are still a lot of cheats around.

Speaker 222:36

And

Presenter22:45

I'm told cookery books have enormous sales. I mean, it looks that way. You go into any bookshop and and there are tables stacked with

Delia Smith22:54

Yeah.

Presenter22:54

All sorts of cookery books. Isn't the market a bit overstocked?

Delia Smith22:58

I would have thought so, yes but there is this sort of insatiable thirst people have for recipes. I don't quite understand it.

Delia Smith23:06

I mean, if I go on to a book shop and do a book signing.

Delia Smith23:09

and I sign three copies of the Cookery Course for somebody, they'll say to me, When are you going to do some more? and I say, But, Heavens, there's five hundred recipes in there. Do you really want more than that? and they sort of look at me and say, Oh, well, we'd like you to do some more.

Presenter23:22

If it isn't a personal question, how many copies of the cookery course have you sell?

Delia Smith23:26

Well, that's been very, very exciting because I think it was about a year ago now I received a telegram from BBC Publications to say that we'd reached the million mark.

Presenter23:36

A million.

Delia Smith23:37

Yes.

Presenter23:38

That's a tremendous

Delia Smith23:38

Um

Presenter23:39

Understand.

Delia Smith23:39

Yeah.

Presenter23:40

So what it must be now, because the programs are being repeated.

Delia Smith23:43

Well, it's very it's been very, very exciting. I think it's about a million and a third now, but it certainly has been very exciting, and two of them have been the best-selling paperbacks of the years that they were published as well, which has been really thrilling. I'm delighted.

Presenter23:57

I think so. Congratulations, Piggy. I had no idea.

Delia Smith23:59

Put her.

Presenter24:01

Another record.

Delia Smith24:03

Well, this record brings out two important aspects of my life. One is that I'm partly Welsh, so I'm sort of emotionally attached to anything Welsh. The other is my Christian faith. And this is a Welsh hymn.

Delia Smith24:17

It's a

Delia Smith24:19

I'll try and pronounce the Welsh name. My mother speaks Welsh and I've been rehearsing with her, so I'll have a go now. It's called Hle.

Delia Smith24:29

I hope your Welsh listeners approve, but what it's actually it's it's yesimaar, which I think means powerful Jesus.

Speaker 324:29

I hope you're

Delia Smith24:37

Come and help me. And I think that if I'm on a desert island, you know, and I'm getting a bit lonely, I think I might want to pray this prayer.

Speaker 325:39

It's right.

Presenter25:45

The Ross male choir singing a Welsh hymn, and the title Delia once again I'll throw it at you.

Delia Smith25:51

Oh no, not again.

Delia Smith25:53

Flare

Delia Smith25:54

Uh

Presenter25:54

Right.

Delia Smith25:54

Yeah.

Presenter25:55

Well that's what it was.

Presenter25:56

Where do you live now? Somewhere in Suffolk.

Delia Smith25:58

Yes, I live uh near Stowmarket.

Presenter26:01

And your husband is now a freelance writer.

Delia Smith26:03

Yes, that's right.

Presenter26:04

Writing what sort of thing?

Delia Smith26:05

He writes books on social history, which is something that he really loves doing. He really enjoys his work.

Presenter26:11

And you're in a thatched cottage.

Presenter26:14

Um of course your husband is the one who gets all the dishes tried out on him.

Delia Smith26:18

Yes, he does, yes.

Presenter26:18

Probably.

Presenter26:19

He doesn't complain.

Delia Smith26:20

Does he have a

Presenter26:21

Does he have a weight problem?

Delia Smith26:23

Yes, we both have to struggle quite a lot with weight, yes, as you can imagine.

Presenter26:25

Right.

Delia Smith26:27

But uh it's not a serious problem, you know, we're just sort of uh rather round.

Presenter26:34

Well, I wouldn't call you rather round

Presenter26:37

As slim as a lath. Are you a believer in in in natural food or do you accept the precessed stuff? I mean, do you

Presenter26:43

Talk to your viewers and listeners about the quality of the food they should buy.

Delia Smith26:48

Yes, I do. Um I've been

Delia Smith26:51

quite keen on the Whole Foods movement because I think we were in danger of technology really running away with itself. And I think now people are much more interested in eating fresh foods.

Presenter27:04

Foods are not all as fast-food rubbish, which

Delia Smith27:07

No. I don't like to become fanatical about it. You know, I think you can become fanatical about whole foods. But I think there's a balance somewhere, and you've got to find the balance. And um I always advocate, you know, using whole wheat flour whenever possible and eating fresh vegetables.

Presenter27:23

Do you grow your own vegetables?

Delia Smith27:24

We do, yes, that's lovely.

Presenter27:25

Tastes quite different, didn't they?

Delia Smith27:27

Yes, they really do. I mean, that's a a big luxury.

Presenter27:30

Another record, please.

Delia Smith27:32

Well, this is a pop record, and the reason I chose this, I told you earlier that I had problems with pop records because they wouldn't stand up to time.

Delia Smith27:40

But this one I think um this is Boney M, and it's by the rivers of Babylon. Well first of all it's the the Psalm of the Exile, which I think is quite appropriate. But the other reason is I like to dance, and I think on a desert island with nobody looking, you know, I'd quite like to have a little dancing session every now and again to cheer myself up, and certainly Boney M always get me on my feet.

Speaker 328:03

By the rivers of Babylon

Speaker 328:07

Where we stop now

Speaker 328:11

Yeah, we will

Speaker 328:15

When we remember Zion

Speaker 328:20

The Rivers of Babylon

Speaker 328:24

Here we sat down.

Presenter28:31

Rivers of Babylon by Bony M.

Presenter28:34

Now, this um desert island, are you going to be able to look after yourself all right?

Delia Smith28:39

I don't know. I'm not too sure, really. I don't think I'd be all that good.

Presenter28:43

Have you got some ideas on Desert Island cookery?

Delia Smith28:46

No, not really. I think I'd have to be a vegetarian, because I wouldn't want to kill anything.

Presenter28:51

Yeah.

Delia Smith28:51

So I'd be looking for fruits and nuts and Green things, I think, to eat.

Presenter28:55

Could you build a hut?

Delia Smith28:56

Yes, I think I could probably do that.

Presenter28:58

Would you try to escape?

Delia Smith29:00

No, I wouldn't try to escape because I'd have to sort of go out on the sea, wouldn't I? No, I couldn't do that.

Presenter29:03

It's advisable, yes.

Delia Smith29:05

No, no. I couldn't try to escape because I'm afraid of the sea. I'd be terrified of going out on a boat, especially a home made one, so I think I'd have to hope that somebody would come and rescue me.

Presenter29:16

I think you're being very wise. Let's have your last record.

Delia Smith29:19

Well, as I've said before, my Christian faith is a very strong part of my life.

Delia Smith29:24

And if I was on the desert island I think I'd like to spend quite a lot of time in prayer, and I think this O Sacred Head from Saint Matthew Passion would be a very nice sort of run into prayer.

Presenter30:34

O Sacred Head from Bach's Saint Matthew Passion, conducted by Herbert von Carrion, if you could take only one record out of the eight you've chosen, Delia, which would it be?

Delia Smith30:45

Oh, I think it'll be the Welsh hymn.

Presenter30:47

the Welsh hymn, which was called

Delia Smith30:50

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Delia Smith30:53

Oh Yesi Maor.

Presenter30:54

Well, that wasn't the title you said before, was it?

Delia Smith30:56

Awesome.

Presenter30:58

All right, that Welsh him, anyway. And one luxury to take with you any one object that it would give you pleasure to have, but it's of no practical use.

Delia Smith31:08

Well, actually, I think I'd like a luxury that would be of practical use, if that's okay. I'd like to have a supply of pens and paper, because if I was on my own I'd like to be able to write. I love writing, and I think this would be a very good way of passing the time. So could I have that?

Presenter31:23

Yes, of course. And you're allowed one book apart from the Bible and complete works of Shakespeare, which you'll find when you arrive.

Delia Smith31:30

Well, I know I ought to have one of my husband's books because he's always ribbing me because I don't read his books from cover to cover. But uh no, I think I'll have the autobiography of Saint Therese of Lisieux. She's a great friend of mine and uh she'd be company for me.

Presenter31:42

Right.

Presenter31:43

The Autobiography of Saint Theresa of Lisieux.

Presenter31:47

And thank you, Delia Smith, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs.

Delia Smith31:51

Thank you.

Presenter31:52

Goodbye everyone.

Speaker 232:01

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.