Toast with the most
Prue Leith tells LAUREN TAYLOR about her new book, which celebrates the humblest of snacks
DAME Prue Leith may be TV royalty now, but one thing she says she’ll “take to her grave” is the shame of making the late Queen Elizabeth II a bad cup of tea.
“I couldn’t get out of the Palace how she liked her tea, so I ended up with a tray with all these options on it: silver teapots, a jug, bowls of lemon and different sugars, milk and cream,” says the Great British Bake Off star.
It was 1975 at the opening of the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre in London. The Queen finally reached Prue.
“I said, ‘Black or white Ma’am?’ She said black, so I put a piece of lemon in. She said, ‘No lemon’, so I had to fish the lemon out as I hadn’t got another cup,” the 82-year-old recalls.
“Then I topped up her tea with water because most people who have black tea like it quite weak, and she said, ‘I like it strong’.
“So the poor woman got weak lemony tea when she likes strong black tea. I’ll go to my grave ashamed of it!”
These days of course, South African-born Prue is in her sixth series of Channel 4’s Great British Bake Off alongside Paul Hollywood, Matt Lucas and Noel Fielding, and has just published her latest cookbook, Bliss On Toast.
But the controversy garnered by some of the Bake Off episodes centring on cuisines of other countries, like the recent ‘Mexico week’, has taken her by surprise.
“What we’re trying to do is celebrate other people’s cuisines, but we’ve only got three challenges, so obviously we’re not going to cover all the things that any country would want you to cover,” she says.
Describing the popular baking show as “tolerant, inclusive, encouraging and kind”, Prue adds: “I’m just sorry anyone was offended, because that’s not in the spirit of Bake Off.
“It does make you think, if [we cook] any foreign food and it’s not regarded as a sign of appreciation and celebration, and imitation being flattery, then we’re in trouble, because British cooking has always been about taking other countries’ ideas.”
On a lighter note, the funniest part of being on the show, she says, is that she never understands the innuendos. “I’m just too old and my companions are like 15-year-old school children. They go into hysterics of laughter – you say the word sausage and they think it’s rude and I start like looking like a complete nana because I didn’t get the joke.”
It was a surprise to Prue to even be considered for the job replacing Mary Berry back in 2017. “I thought, going to Channel 4, they’d want to change everything, but guess what? They found another old lady.”
When it comes to British food nothing quite encapsulates it like a good old plate of toast. For Prue,
Sunday night is the best time to enjoy it.
“We’ve always had something on a Sunday night because Sunday night is like going back to school, isn’t it? You need comfort because you’re facing the week.
“So we’ve always had scrambled eggs and crisp bacon on Sunday nights, or mushrooms on toast, always something on toast – it’s comforting.
“If you’re feeling ill and you can’t eat anything, you can always eat a piece of dry toast,” she adds.
During lockdown, she’d find leftovers of her big chicken casseroles ended up on toast. “I began to realise that everything tastes better on toast.” So, in the book, readers can expect the likes of figs, blue cheese, thyme and honey on bloomer, Japanese chicken with katsu curry sauce on white toast and peppered steak and salsa verde on sourdough.
Crucially, many are cheap to make. “We’re all very busy and we’re all worried about money and worried about time. Assembling something on toast is easy, stress-free and doesn’t have to be expensive,” Prue says.
Many home cooks won’t necessarily need a recipe for some of the combinations, and unlike baking, there’s no science to making great toast.
“When I usually write cookbooks, I say to the readers, ‘Just trust the cookery writer and do exactly what it says’. But with this book, it’s more about ideas.”
After all, bread is having a moment. “The book opened my eyes to how many artisan bakeries there are now, and how even in supermarkets there’s a mass of different, really good breads,” she says.
And in her early eighties, Prue isn’t slowing down. She’s currently on a one-woman tour around the US (coming to the UK next year), sharing her experiences.
“People think of me as the woman on telly who eats cake for a living, which is true, but I’ve had a very adventurous life,” she says.
When she opened her first restaurant, Prue’s, in 1969, she “was a woman doing stuff that was usually done by men” – earning a Michelin star in the process.
“People often say to me, ‘You’re amazing for 82’, and the truth is, I’m quite healthy, I eat well, I sleep well, I have quite a lot of energy. I think I’m just lucky,” says Prue.
Bliss On Toast by Prue Leith is published by Bloomsbury, priced £14.99, photography by Haarala Hamilton. Available now. For tickets and venue info for Prue’s Nothing In Moderation
UK tour