They chose the right person in Prue... it’s a good mix
Rachel Allen has only good things to say about Bake Off. After all she has her own big TV hit... and it’s just as saucy
It’s all great fun: Guest judge Paul Ainsworth, Rachel Allen and restaurateur Glynn Purnell on My Kitchen Rules on Channel 4 Rules was probably a cakewalk for recession and people were like, the Cork star. These days, Rachel “Baking? Really?” And then Great is now something of a foodie British Bake Off came out a year veteran. later.
She notes that her head isn’t ‘A couple of years alter I remember swayed by gourmet trends that saying to my publishers that I come and go: ‘I go with what I wanted to do something on a want to do,’ she says. ‘When you clean, lean programme and they see a certain trend coming, I don’t were like, “no. You’re family, accessible, like to do that thing where you cosy, home food”. I was jump on the bandwagon because it’s going to be too late anyway.’ thinking, “this is the food you
And in many cases, Rachel found want to eat if you want to have the herself ahead of the cultural curve: sort of life where you can eat cakes ‘About 9 and a half years ago, as well”. Sure enough a few when I was pregnant with Scarlett, months later, the whole clean eating I did my book Rachel Allen: thing was in.’ Bake. It was the depths of the The ‘clean eating thing’ she is referring to is the onslaught of gurus who encouraged a diet of eating unprocessed, whole foods in their most natural state. For some clean eaters, dairy, gluten, refined sugar, caffeine and alcohol were also off the menu.
THE clean eating craze eventually met a ferocious backlash, and it’s a trend that Rachel isn’t sorry to see the back of, either. ‘I think people were being really irresponsible, writing about leaving whole groups out of the diet,’ she says. ‘I’m really against it. I think, especially as you’re addressing quite a vulnerable age group like teenagers who follow these bloggers on Instagram I’m really against all that.’
Of course, when Rachel made her first TV show almost 15 years ago, the media could barely believe their luck: a woman who managed to effortlessly combine come-hither sexiness and homespun, approachable personality, and was a part of a major foodie dynasty to boot. At the outset of her career, she fell comfortably into her own niche in Ireland.
Fast-forward via time’s giant wheel some 15 years later, and the foodie scene is somewhat more… crowded.
Everyone fancies themselves as a specialist, while others have managed to parlay a profile as a model or blogger into a lucrative career as a guru or bestselling cookbook author.
I ask Rachel if she feels a bit elbowed to the side by this new wave of hungry, ambitious and industry savvy types.
‘You now what?’ muses Rachel. ‘Perhaps it’s because I have the cookery school, but I’m okay with that. It’s like everything in life, someone else is always going to come along and that’s the natural cycle of things. I totally respect the people who are coming up. There are definitely some people where you will look at the recipe and think, “well, that’s definitely not going to work”, and then there are others where you know that knows her stuff.’
Rachel has no intention of beating them at their own game: ‘I’m really bad on things like Instagram,’ she admits. ‘I don’t want people knowing certain things about me. It was my birthday yesterday and we went out for a lovely dinner, but I don’t need anyone to know where I was going. I admire people who did it well – Clodagh McKenna is very good friend of mine and she’s great at this stuff – but I think we’re all very different.
‘I suppose the advice I’d give to those people is having something other than just being a blogger,’ she adds.
‘A lot of them are very good at the commercial aspect of this, but I think you do need to have a USP. Actually, I feel more for the people who are starting out from modelling, as that’s an area that seems really crowded. When the media side of things goes (from my life), and it will go, that’ll be absolutely okay.’
That fateful day is likely some way off yet: Rachel returns to Channel 4 next week for a meeting to discuss further projects, and another book on baking is being prepped for publication next year.
In the meantime, the Ballymaloe dynasty looks likely to continue and flourish. Her sons have pursued other interests – Lucca is a rising star in the car-racing world – but Rachel remains hopeful that her illustrious career won’t be the end of the line.
‘I really hope the tradition carries on, and there are so many members of the family working in Ballymaloe, and so many cousins, that I’m sure someone will become involved,’ she says. ‘Everyone works really hard there, and when you see them loving their work, you know that’s what you should be doing. Darina in particular is never not inspiring. It’s just a massively exciting and interesting business to be in right now.’ ÷Catch Rachel Allen as she cohosts and judges alongside Glynn Purnell on My Kitchen Rules UK series 2 on Monday – Fridays at 4pm on Channel 4.