The Scottish Mail on Sunday - You
‘I was fed on liquidised tripe as a toddler’
The British Olympian, 38, tells Tom Parker Bowles about her love of patriotic pudding – and a celebratory burger
My first food memory was being fed liquidised tripe as a toddler by my mum and dad. It was really disgusting!
My mum would cook lots of homemade traditional food with an Italian slant, like lasagne and meatballs.
My dad is Jamaican, so he would do loads of chicken, rice and peas, dumplings and salt fish. It was a real blend of cuisines.
Growing up, I was definitely involved in the cooking.
Both my parents were keen to get me to understand what I was eating. And I do that now with my kids [Jessica has two children with her husband Andy Hill: Reggie, nine, and Olivia, six]. If I’m getting them involved with chopping the vegetables, for example, they’re more likely to eat them.
I liked some of my school food, like cheese flan and the cornflake tart that I still make for my kids.
But the other stuff, like custard with skin on, was gross.
When I started out as a professional athlete I had a nutritionist. But it wasn’t a strict diet. If you’re a boxer, you have to be rigid in your eating plan to keep your weight constant. I certainly ate way over 2,000 calories per day as I was burning so much: good carbohydrates, like pasta and sweet potato, along with lots of protein. When I retired, I realised how much I’d been eating during training. And I was, like, ‘Right, I’ve really got to reduce this now.’
I love cooking and I think that probably comes from seeing my parents cook so much and being included in that when I was a kid. I cook pretty much every day. I have the Ottolenghi Simple book, so I make a lot of dishes from that. I like to experiment with orzo, prawns, tomatoes and marinated feta and make lots of different things, such as chicken Marbella and baked rice with confit tomatoes and garlic. I try to mix it up.
It was always hard to eat out when travelling the world, as you have to go straight to your base, your hotel. Then you have to be careful about what you eat – I certainly couldn’t experiment with local cuisine before a competition. That would be an absolute no-no because of the risk of food poisoning or reacting badly to something. You have your team chef out there, cooking for everyone. But on the few occasions I finished early, I could go out and sample the food. Like in Osaka, Japan, where I ate platefuls of sushi. But the majority of the time it’s hotel food then back to the track.
After winning gold in the heptathlon at the London Olympics in 2012, it was hard to come down from that high.
I got my medal, then had to go through drug testing and everything, and that takes ages. So by the time I got off the track and went to Team GB House to see my family, I don’t think I’d eaten anything at all. I just went straight for a glass of champagne as I was so pumped with adrenaline. And the next day I craved the worst food. I had been so healthy and training so hard that I wanted something really bad. Like a Mcdonald’s. Which I had. Then I had a few days of unhealthy eating and letting loose before going back to healthy food.
I dislike really fishy fish like mackerel.
That’s my worst. Oh, and that liquidised tripe. I’ll never eat that again.
I always have aubergines and avocados in my fridge.
Plus loads of fruit and vegetables, as well as yogurts. And chorizo. Always chorizo.
My comfort food would be a proper roast dinner with a big Yorkshire pudding, being a Yorkshire girl. It’s a bit of an effort, but I’d get my husband to do it.
My last meal would be a big stacked burger with loads of cheese on it.
Plus onion rings and dirty fries with still more cheese. And a big glass of red wine.