A Greek cookbook entitled Starvation Recipes has proved hugely successful. Tell us your culinary belt-tightening tips

Raisin pulp instead of sugar? Stray dog instead of a rib-eye steak? Cupful of crumbs instead of a slice of bread? Things might be tough, but has it really come to this? Well, if the success of an apocalyptically named Greek cookbook Starvation Recipes means anything, then planning frugal meals is something we should all be preparing for. Compiled by Eleni Nikolaidou, a Greek historian and high-school teacher who combed through 6,000 newspaper clippings written during the Nazi occupation of Greece during the second world war, the book aims to help readers make the most of meagre food supplies.

Do you have any austerity busting recipes? Anything you’ve concocted during harder times that you’ve stuck with ever since? Share your top tips for turning meagre rations into culinary delights.

Readers’ favourite photographs, songs and recipes

Snapshot: The hop years of our lives

This photograph of hop-picking was taken in 1924 in Paddock Wood in the Weald of Kent, where my gran, Annie, (pictured, on the left) moved after her marriage. Like many generations before her, she was born near Cranbrook, deep in hop‑growing country. Her father and both grandfathers worked on hop farms, and probably their fathers and grandfathers did too.

This is the area where it is thought Flemish weavers first introduced hops to England in the 1300s, and I like to think that our family may have been involved even then. Sadly, the hop-picking tradition in our family finished with my sister and me in the 1960s, when mechanical harvesting was introduced, and there was a new fashion for lager, which needed fewer hops than traditional English beer.

My dad, Bert, at the time of posing for this photograph, wouldn’t have known that later on, as a teenager selling sweets to hop-pickers, he would meet his future wife, my mum, as she was picking hops with friends. You could say that I owe my life to hops. Dad never left Paddock Wood, where he was born, and neither did his younger sister, Dorothy, also known as Babs, who is beside him in the photo. As well as hop-picking, one of the jobs she regularly did as an adult with other local women was hop-tying, done in May to train the new bines.

The other hop-picker, their cousin, Ethel, was probably dreaming of a new life as she picked. Not long after this picture was taken, she sailed for a new life in Australia, where she died in 2006, aged 100.

September was hopping month and schools didn’t restart after the summer break until all the hops were harvested. My sister and I still refer to those times in late summer, when misty dawns develop into warm sunny days, as “hop-picking weather”.

We remember the canvas-covered folding wooden bins, into which we put the picked hops, and the bushel baskets that measured them. We also recall hands blackened with picking, the call of “Pull no more bines!” at the end of the day, and the pay packets collected from the farmer’s kitchen at the end of the harvest. It’s well known that Londoners flocked to Kent every year at hopping time, crucial to the harvesting of hops, but the farm where we picked just employed local people, so we were surrounded by friends and neighbours. My first new bike was bought with hop-picking money.

I was born in Paddock Wood, too. Then a village, it is now a town, with houses built in the former hop fields. The only reminders of the past are a few roads named after varieties of hops, and oast houses, formerly used to dry hops and now converted into dwellings. Even the Hop Pocket pub, named after the large sacks in which the dried hops were stored, has now gone. My dad’s work took him on a daily commute into London, but he remained a country boy at heart. In his last years, he and I made an annual pilgrimage to a hop field, even though it became increasingly hard to find one.

I now live by the Bristol Channel, but in my garden is a hop plant. I only have to crush a hop in my fingers for the familiar scent to transport me back to Kent, the hop gardens and my roots. Liz Youngs

Playlist: Easy money from the Seekers

I’ll Never Find Another You by the Seekers

There’s a new world somewhere / They call The Promised Land

Many years ago there was a wonderful theatre in Glasgow called the Alhambra. My mother, sister and I had the good fortune to run a snack bar backstage for three years – up until its closure in 1969. During our time there, we met many famous artists such as Frankie Vaughan, Max Bygraves, Marlene Dietrich, Betty Grable, the Shadows and my favourite group, the Seekers. Each night as they performed, I would stand at the back of the wings and listen to their music.

One night, the theatre housekeeper asked if I could help out. Apparently, the Seekers’ manager was fogbound at the airport in London and wouldn’t be able to get back to Glasgow. The manager usually helped Judith Durham, the lead singer, to change dresses halfway through the act. The housekeeper asked if I could lend a hand. I can remember how excited I felt. I was told to wait until the end of the song I’ll Never Find Another You, and then rush along the corridor to the dressing room.

As Judith Durham came off stage, I followed her into the room and opened the wardrobe. There hung three or four beautiful, sparkling evening gowns. I can remember commenting that it must be wonderful to wear such glamorous clothes. She was such a lovely person and very friendly.

I did this for two nights and the housekeeper handed me an envelope with 15 shillings in it as a thank you from Judith. That was quite a lot of money in those days – but I would happily have done it for nothing.

Consequently, every time I hear that song, it brings back memories of the easiest money I ever earned. Elizabeth Nicholson

We love to eat: Doorstep elevenses

Ingredients

One doorstep

A tin of Brasso

Newspapers

Several old rags

Two soft yellow dusters

A good friend (most essential)

In the early 1950s, to get my weekly pocket-money, I had to clean my mother’s brass collection – a job I loathed so much that I offered Kathleen from next door half my earnings if she would help me. As she didn’t get any pocket money she jumped at the 6d.

The brass collection itself had begun, unwittingly, during the war, when we children one day gleefully picked up from the pavement shell-cases that had rained down from German planes, as we walked to Sunday school – the target was a bus factory opposite Garner’s bakery, where we sheltered (a shop with little more than bread on sale in those days). Like a fool, I would go on to give my mother brass knick-knacks for birthdays, Christmases and even holiday souvenirs. There was far too much of it.

Our back doorstep faced Kathleen’s, and dividing us was a low wire fence that dipped where Kathleen would climb over and join me once the brass was set out on opened newspapers. From the moment we dipped our rags into the Brasso, while all the time talking and sharing confidences over our week’s happenings, this normally loathsome task was transformed into a really pleasant one.

We didn’t rush, for we knew that by the time we’d rubbed and polished all the assorted brass objects until we could see our mirror images in them, my mother would return from shopping – her last port of call having been Garner’s bakery.

As she pushed her laden bicycle up the path, we knew what was in the greaseproof bag she carried teasingly over our heads and into the kitchen. We heard the kettle boil and cups rattle. Mother then appeared and handed down to each of us a cup of tea and a tea-plate. Spread across the entire surface of the tea-plate was a huge choux pastry cream-filled bun topped with soft, sweet chocolate. One bite and we were in heaven as cream oozed and clung to our lips, cheeks and chin. Should Garner’s be out of choux buns, we were just as happy with a many layered, jam and cream-filled vanilla slice topped with pink and white soft icing.

My mother’s home-baked cakes were to die for, but these Saturday morning indulgences were actually bought! And somehow that made them special. There was as much pleasure in sharing the hated task with Kathleen as there was in sacrificing half of my one shilling for such a treat. Sheila Isherwood

guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle

What did Samuel Pepys have for dinner, which fish did Alice B Toklas cook for Picasso and how did Victorian cooks get their cakes to rise? We sample recipes preserved in historic food books and talk to the editor of a new series of books featuring 20 historic food writers. We’re joined by Mrs Beeton’s biographer Kathryn Hughes in a discussion of changing food fashions and what it is that makes today’s chefs bestsellers.

We also discuss literary responses to the 10th anniversary of 9/11. John Freeman, editor of Granta, joins us down the line from New York to explain his latest edition featuring fiction, reportage and poetry from around the world, while Richard Lea talks about the short stories that have been running throughout the week on guardian.co.uk/books.

Reading list
Penguin’s Great Food series
Granta 116: Ten Years Later

guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle

Readers’ favourite photographs, songs and recipes

Snapshot: My big fat Greek summer

In the summer of 1974, my brother John spent the summer with three students from Aberdeen University, studying the breeding biology of falcons and shearwaters on the uninhabited island of Dragonada, off the north-eastern coast of Crete.

My friend Carolyn and I, also penniless students, flew out in August to join them for three weeks in nearby Sitia – at that time not a popular tourist destination. We stayed at a youth hostel that had no rules at all; everyone slept where they liked, including on the roof. Sometimes, to save money, Carolyn and I shared a sleeping bag on the beach. Whenever the boys came back to the mainland, we helped them record their observations from mist netting and ringing migrating birds. It was hotter than anything we had known, and we covered ourselves – with coconut oil.

Two Greek boys we met on the beach caught and cooked an octopus for us. Carolyn became violently ill and the doctor cost us just about all our remaining money. We lived on side salads, bread, chocolate cake, bottles of Coke and grapes. The boys were getting skinny too; and by this time John Parrott’s shorts had disintegrated into a skirt.

We started to notice a lot of tanks and soldiers, and the few Americans around were advised to leave. Turkey had invaded northern Cyprus and the Cretans were mobilising. Letter boxes were taped up, and we had to present letters unsealed to the post office – as if they could have read our scrawl.

It was time to leave, so Carolyn and I took the ferry from Heraklion to Piraeus, hitched to Patras and from there took another ferry to Brindisi to continue the all-too easy hitch north.

In Rome we had £5 left and spent £2 on ice cream. By Calais it was raining hard, and our flip-flops were as thin as tissue paper. The plan was to hitch a lift with someone heading for the hovercraft, which charged per car not per passenger. But the weather was so wild that the hovercraft wasn’t running.

We were overheard discussing our plight by an English family who kindly lent us the fare home, which our irate (but hopefully relieved) fathers had to later reimburse. Julie Tese

Playlist: Where I find the calm in the storm

Grown Ocean by the Fleet Foxes

“Children grown on the edge of the ocean / Kept like jewellery, kept with devotion”

We nearly missed the Fleet Foxes – we were running late for their pre-Glastonbury concert at Wolverhampton civic hall. There was no parking to be seen, winding around the centre, trying not to look at my watch and tired husband who had arranged this birthday present … but we just made it to the beginning of their set, with this playing.

The beautiful wave harmonies and shimmering watery images of this song remind me of the times I have felt most free and content; when I’ve waded through rock pools and walked along the shore: clear water, crystal blue, shiny turquoise and peridot green, skies wiped clean of storm clouds and troubles. Tiny sea life and fresh salted seaweed and soft sand, rock chairs to sit and dream on. In these moments I lose track of time and I am for ever in the moment with my son.

He has special needs, and has opened my eyes to all manner of beautiful things: the precious moments of communication we share most days, the emotional and spiritual dimensions he has opened for me as a mother. I’m a tiny but important part of the universe, a pebble on the beach, rubbed smooth by the ripples and tides of my son’s behaviour. His storms and squalls, and peace, have helped refine and define my spirit.

So much energy goes into my son on holiday … I can feel spent as my tides of strength flow out ceaselessly wave after wave. This is not an unusual feeling for people who are bringing up children, and my feelings are magnified when I’m tired; when I think why is it my lot to have a child who can’t talk, with whom I can’t rationalise, who can’t describe what troubles him?

I try to understand his frustration and calm always follows the course of a storm, and the energy given out in a positive way seems to come back … “Still as starlight reflected in fountains.” Helen Manthorp

We love to eat: Generator sandwiches

Ingredients

Sliced white bread

Cheddar and edam cheese, grated

Thinly sliced or chopped onion

Butter, if you insist

When I left university and moved on to my first houseboat with Tom, we had unlimited free electricity because there was an abandoned substation in a disused building next to our mooring. You can’t get through that much power on a 40ft barge, but we could use things such as electric heaters, hairdryers, and my beloved toasted sandwich maker without thinking how much power they used.

When we started a family, we moved here to our lovely but off-grid mooring near Bristol. From April to October, depending on the weather, our solar panels give us as much power as we need, pretty much. But in the winter, we have to use a generator. Anything with a heating element will overload our batteries, so we can only make toasties when the generator’s on, hence the name. The toastie-maker goes in a cupboard in the summer, but in generator season, it stays on the worktop, dripping little puddles of cheese and bringing crispy, melted, diesel-powered joy to both of us, and now to our little daughter too.

The recipe is obviously too simple to describe – it’s a sandwich – but in the old days we argued about whether butter was needed. (And I do mean properly argued, possibly because of the way the toastie’s popularity rises exponentially post-pub.)

Now, in our sobriety, we agree to differ – I’ll eat Tom’s oily, exo-buttered abominations (and I’ll secretly enjoy them – there are no calories in butter you didn’t choose to eat) and he’ll tolerate my crunchier variation (“dry”, he claims – whatever).

Our almost-two-year-old doesn’t seem to have a preference, yet, but prefers her onions finely chopped. Kate Simants

We’d love to hear your stories

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From Cliff Richard’s passion for chicken tikka to Noel Gallagher’s favourite cuppa and Tinie Tempah’s love of seafood linguine, music stars give us a taste of their favourite foods and drinks

• Interactive: Love music love food

Tinie Tempah loves seafood

Life is good when you’re Tinie Tempah. The Plumstead-raised artist – otherwise known as Patrick Chukwuemeka Okogwu Jr – has won a tonne of praise for uniting the disparate music scenes of grime, underground rave and radio-friendly pop without selling any of them out. He’s had two No 1 singles, a No 1 album and two Brit awards.

One of the fringe benefits of fame is that you get to discover new experiences in eating. Born in London to Nigerian parents, Tinie has always appreciated his food. He reminisces about an “amazing” roast chicken with garlic and thyme jus that he had at the Salon Millesime in the Carlton Hotel, New York. “They warned me it would take 45 minutes. After about 35 minutes, they brought out an almost-cooked chicken and told me it was coming along nicely, and 10 minutes later I ate the best chicken I’ve ever had.”

Whenever he visits a new country, Tinie heads off the beaten track to try some traditional food – the old town in Dubai or backstreet places in Australia. “Didn’t enjoy kangaroo,” he says. “It was like a cross between beef and chicken, smoky and really chewy.” He’s kept a picture of the receipt on his phone: stubbie, stubbie, stubbie, kangaroo … and chips.

Nigerian food is a fundamental part of his life. It’s what he grew up with and it builds up the palate because it’s packed with flavour. “Nigerian food is lots of flavour, lots of tomato purée, rice, yam, beans… it’s a whole load of stuff, really good.” His favourite would be pounded yam with egusi soup, a savoury soup with meat and spinach which exists in countless variants across West Africa.

He has a couple of favourite Nigerian restaurants, both on the Old Kent Road in south-east London: the classy 805 and the more home-style Presidential Suya Grill. They’re both family-run businesses, friendly and personal. Presidential, in particular, is one of those places where you feel like you’re in Nigeria, he says. “There is a real nice atmosphere. When I come back from travelling the world, I do like to go there and chill. It’s humbling.”

He’s a recent convert to seafood. Tinie used to be apprehensive about shellfish and squid. Then he saw that his Maltese mate, who ate it all the time, was light on his feet and full of energy, whereas a steak would wipe Tinie out. Then he tried a seafood linguine, “and all my prayers were answered. It just felt right – it was light but it filled me up. I could still run around and do my thing.”

The recipe: Seafood linguine

Serves four as a starter.

325g linguine
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
A knob of butter
75ml olive oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1 red onion, peeled and finely chopped
200g raw prawns, peeled and deveined
4 large scallops, shelled, cleaned and halved
4 langoustines, cleaned
The tail of 1 small lobster, cooked, peeled and sliced
4 ripe plum tomatoes, peeled,

deseeded and diced
8 basil leaves, finely chopped
100g clams, cleaned
Lemon juice, to taste (about ½ lemon)
A pinch of dried chilli flakes
Lemon wedges, to serve

Three-quarters fill a large saucepan with water and bring to a boil. Add the linguine and a good pinch of salt, and cook over medium heat for 10 minutes, or until just cooked.

Meanwhile, heat a large frying pan over a medium heat. Add the butter and all but a dash of the oil, and gently fry the garlic and onion until soft. Add the prawns, scallops, langoustines and lobster tail slices, and fry quickly for about two minutes.

As soon as the pasta is cooked, drain, toss with a dash of olive oil and add to the frying pan, along with the tomatoes, basil, salt, pepper and clams. Pop the lid on the pan for a minute, or until the clams open, then remove from the heat.

Divide between four warm pasta bowls and finish with a squeeze of fresh lemon, a sprinkling of chilli flakes and salt to taste. Serve with a wedge of lemon on the side.

Johnny Borrell loves salmon

Johnny Borrell was a latecomer to the kitchen. “But cooking’s creative – it’s the same impulse as writing or painting. If you’ve got that interest, it will transfer to cooking. There’s the macho gamesmanship aspect, too. I’ve got at least three friends who reckon they’re the best cooks in the world – as all blokes do.”

He likes to cook dishes that take plenty of time: “Something with the quality of a grand project. Get a few cod fillets and leave them salting in your airing cupboard for a week, to get that deep flavour. Something epic.”

Borrell grew up on fish fingers, chips and pizza, and discovered food by travelling the world with his band, Razorlight. (They chose to sign with Universal in part because the label took them out for a better meal than rival bidders.) Most bands don’t take enough advantage of the places they visit, he says, but Razorlight consult the Zagat guide and try to go local.

At home he loves the Bell in Oxfordshire. “I’ll turn up starving and without fail they’ve got an incredible hot, crusty roll with coarse Ardennes pâté.” And the Food Lab in Islington does a brilliant Italian-English breakfast. Then there’s the temple of nose-to-tail eating, St John in Smithfield. “It’s not for the squeamish – it’s brains and hearts and tails – but I’m not squeamish. There’s nothing I wouldn’t eat off their menu.”

But the best thing he’s ever eaten was a little less exalted. When Borrell was first trying to become a musician, he lived on the dole with a friend who wanted to be a writer. One week their benefits didn’t come through and they applied for – “This sounds very dramatic” – a hardship loan. They queued for three hours, filled in the forms and waited. “We’d spent all our money on alcohol and cigarettes, and hadn’t eaten in two days.” When the £35 loan came through, they ran straight to Safeway on Holloway Road, bought lamb chops and ran home. “The feeling of just getting these chops home was sheer delight. We chucked them in the pan – I think we seared them for only a minute on each side – and just devoured them. It’s got to be the most satisfying thing I’ve ever eaten. That’s my Proustian lamb chop, the one I’ll always remember. It’ll never get better than that.”

The recipe: Smoked salt and chilli crispy-skin salmon

Serves four.

Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp smoked sea salt flakes
½ tbsp chopped fresh parsley
½ tsp dried chilli flakes
4 salmon fillets, about 150g each, descaled
Oil, for brushing and frying
4 tbsp soy sauce

In a small bowl, mix together the lemon zest, smoked sea salt, parsley and chilli flakes. Put to one side.

Check over the salmon for pin bones, removing any you come across. Lay the fillets skin-side up on a board and score the skin with a sharp knife. Brush with some oil and rub in most of the salt mixture.

Heat a large frying pan over a high heat and add a little oil. Lay the salmon skin-side down in the pan, fry for three minutes, then turn over and sprinkle with half of the lemon juice. Cook for another minute or two, until the fish is cooked through.

Transfer to warm plates, drizzle with the soy sauce and finish with the remaining salt mixture and a squeeze of lemon.

VV Brown loves Marmite

“My boyfriend says I’m a bit of a jazz cook,” VV Brown says. “I experiment, chuck everything in. You don’t know what you’ll get until you try.” Her successes include lamb joint glazed with chilli sauce and wine, and putting couscous in a pineapple and refrigerating it overnight: “You get pineapple-flavoured couscous in its own bowl.” Among her disasters, salad cream on mince: “It went hard in the fridge and looked disgusting.”

Her parents ran a school in Northampton, and the dinner lady was her Auntie Corinne, who cooked fish and chips, Caribbean and the occasional Chinese. “Much better than ordinary school dinners,” she says proudly.

“I’m a simple girl; I don’t like flashy restaurants.” She prefers quiet Thai or Japanese places, or a “gorgeous” place in Greenwich Village, where her meal is lodged in her memory: fried mushroom, scallops with cauliflower and crème brûlée. “There were maybe 15 people in the restaurant and it was like home cooking, really cute and cosy. Just what I like.”

The recipe: Marmite and red onion scones

Makes eight scones.

75g butter
1 red onion, peeled and diced
180g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
100g wholemeal flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp Marmite
1 medium egg
2 tbsp plain yoghurt
3 tbsp milk, plus extra for brushing

Heat the oven to 190C/375F/gas mark 5. Melt 50g of the butter in a frying pan over medium heat and sweat the onion until soft. Set aside to cool.

Mix the flours and baking powder in a bowl, then rub in the rest of the butter until it resembles breadcrumbs. Make a well in the centre. In another bowl, whisk the remaining ingredients, pour into the flour, add the onion and mix to combine (add a little more milk if it’s too dry).

Turn out on to a floured surface and gently roll to about 3cm thick. Using a scone cutter, cut out eight rounds and place on a floured baking sheet. Score the tops and brush with milk. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden. Cool on a wire rack. Best eaten warm.

Noel Gallagher loves Yorkshire Tea

“I am obsessed with Yorkshire Tea,” declares Noel Gallagher, for 18 years the leader of Oasis and now forging a solo career. “I even bring it on tour. It was always on the Oasis rider: ‘Tea – must be Yorkshire.’”

Why does a man whose formative musical years were characterised by cigarettes and alcohol and champagne supernovas feel the pull of this most homely of English beverages? “I’m a northerner,” he says, “and it’s part of our staple diet. Plus, I’m of Irish descent. The kettle always seemed to be on when I was growing up. It’s part of the fabric of your life.”

Gallagher gets through about five cups a day these days, but he used to have a debilitating 20-bag-a-day habit. When he was younger and worked on building sites, his standard brew was two bags, one cup. “I liked it really strong,” he says. “Then, one day, I saw how brown and manky the inside of the cup was and I thought, ‘That’s what my insides look like – better get off it.’”

Like a true tea drinker, Gallagher has rules that must not be broken. Milk goes in last. Put your sugar in first, with the teabag, then fill it up to about an inch from the top and leave it for a good while. And what colour should the tea be? ”You know the Quality Street toffees in the yellow wrapper?” he says. “It’s got to be the exact same colour as them or it’s going down the sink.” When in London, he makes his own cuppa because “there’s a lack of good tea-making down here. Paul Weller’s tea-making leaves a lot to be desired. It’s pretty watery and the colour’s not right.”

And, like a true connoisseur, Gallagher wonders about the mysteries of tea. How old should you be before you start drinking it? Why can’t you get a decent cup of tea in America? “Because the whole country runs on coffee, caffeine and people talking a load of shit.” And why, as Nicky Wire of the Manic Street Preachers has pointed out, do people in London never use teapots? “Tells you a lot about London, that,” says Gallagher.

He admits he is not a great cook, although insists his missus is. “She’s truly excellent – she could have made a profession out of it.” He retains a taste for the things he loved as a kid, like fish and chips. With his mum raising three sons on her own, the Gallaghers were “on the breadline. We were just eating to survive.”

He didn’t go to a Chinese restaurant until he was about 21, and still rates his first ever Chinese – at the famously brusque Wong Kei on Wardour Street, London, with Inspiral Carpets, for whom he used to roadie – as probably his favourite meal ever. “It was like a whole new world,” he says. “I used to live in that place in the 90s. Best hangover cure ever – that and a can of Coke.”

Mick Hucknall loves lobster thermidor

Reputations once earned tend to stick, and Mick Hucknall will always have a name as a lover of both food and women. The latter is a bit out of date – he is now happily married with a daughter – but the former passion remains intact. He’s been a vintner since the late 90s, producing wines under the name Il Cantante (“the singer”) from grapes grown in the volcanic Sicilian soils of Mount Etna, but Hucknall tries to let his own offerings speak for themselves. “It’s all well and good being a pop star, but what does that have to do with wine?” he asks. “I’ve tried to avoid the celebrity angle.”

Hucknall has owned restaurants in the past, too. There was a minor stake in a bar in his native Manchester, and a Parisian restaurant, Man Ray, co-owned with Johnny Depp, Sean Penn and John Malkovich, an experience he recalls with a shiver. “It becomes a chain round your neck. I’d advise any aspiring pop star or actor to never ever invest in clubs or restaurants. You’ll get screwed. Stick with what you’re good at.”

A genuinely disadvantaged youth has made Hucknell appreciate the fruits of his success all the more. His mother left when he was three years old and his father, a barber, brought him up “just above the poverty line”. It was mostly northern dishes on the table at home in Denton: “Lancashire hotpot, steak and cow-heel pie… it sounds like Desperate Dan food, doesn’t it? But when they’re made well, these dishes can stand up to anything in the world.”

After Hucknall left home and moved into a bedsit in Moss Side in the early 80s, he learned to cook by default, picking up a talent for Indian food from shopkeepers in Rusholme. When Simply Red took off, he discovered a love of Italian, then French and German food. “German food’s very underrated,” he says. “It’s so beautifully simple. Roast goose, or Schweinshaxe – a roast knuckle of pork with crispy skin… it’s so good..”

The best meal he ever had, he says, was as a guest of one of the founders of Gambero Rosso, the Italian equivalent to Michelin, who took the band to a restaurant in the back streets of Rome. “We ate until about four in the morning, a beautiful array prepared with such skill and care that it was astonishing. The whole band were fainting because of its brilliance.”

He feels he’s come full circle with high-end cuisine. “Having lived in Paris for a number of years, I now loathe Michelin-starred food. To me, it loses touch with what food should be. I like really good quality, fresh, well-bred food, cooked simply. The Michelin thing underwhelms me. You’re supposed to be grateful for a three-inch piece of fish on a huge plate for 50 quid. It bores me.”

Though he loves lobster, as seen in the photograph, he’s just as happy with a tricolore salad. “Italian food is just genius,” he says. “Tomato, mozzarella and basil. Or garlic, oil and red pepper on pasta – those things are timeless.”

Does Hucknall’s track record prove the old saying that a lad will never be short of a girlfriend if he can cook? “It definitely helps,” he smiles. “I mean, if you can’t take her to a restaurant, you’re either going to her place or yours, aren’t you?’

The recipe: Lobster thermidor with roasted vegetables

Serves four.

2 large lobsters, cooked
40g parmesan, freshly grated

For the sauce
60g butter
2 shallots, peeled and finely chopped
570ml fish stock
2 tbsp medium dry white wine
110ml double cream
½ tsp English mustard
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 tbsp chopped fresh chives
1 tbsp chopped fresh dill
Juice of 1 lemon
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Lemon wedges, to serve

For the roasted vegetables
8 tbsp olive oil
2 large red onions, peeled and quartered
10 asparagus spears, trimmed and cut into long diagonal slices
2 courgettes, trimmed, halved and cut into thick diagonal slices
1 fennel bulb, trimmed, halved lengthways and cut into 1cm thick slices
8 garlic cloves, peeled
1 tbsp fennel seeds, crushed
Pinch of sea salt (ideally Fleur de Sel de Camargue)
4 trusses baby plum tomatoes on the vine
Good-quality balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp chopped fresh basil
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Lay the cooked lobsters belly down on a board, hold firmly and cut lengthways in half. Remove all the meat from the claws, tail and head, saving any coral. Cut the meat up into small pieces and place back in the shell, along with the coral.

For the sauce, melt the butter in a large saucepan, add the shallots and cook until softened. Add the stock, wine and cream and bring to the boil. Let bubble until reduced by half, then add the mustard, chopped herbs, lemon juice and cayenne. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Preheat the grill to high. Spoon the sauce over the lobster meat, sprinkle with the parmesan, and grill for three to four minutes until golden brown. Serve with lemon wedges.

For the roasted veg, heat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6. Pour half the olive oil into a large ovenproof dish and place in the oven to heat up. Meanwhile, put the red onions, asparagus, courgettes, fennel, garlic, fennel seeds, salt and remaining oil into a large bowl and toss. Carefully tip it all into the heated dish.

Cook in the oven for 15 minutes, checking after 10 minutes and turning down the heat if the vegetables are browning too quickly. Add the tomatoes on their vines and roast for a further five minutes, or until the vegetables are caramelised.Serve immediately, drizzled with balsamic vinegar and sprinkled with the chopped herbs.

Sir Cliff Richard loves curry

Harry Rodger Webb was born in Lucknow, India, in 1940 and grew up on curries. His father, Rodger, managed a catering company for the sprawling Indian railways, and though the Webbs were experiencing the final days of the Raj, they lived modestly, in Lucknow and later in Howrah.

“Curry will always be my favourite food because it reminds me of my childhood,” Sir Cliff Richard says, relaxing in his converted farmhouse in the Algarve, Portgual, bought with the proceeds of six decades of hits and 260m record sales, and the place where he likes to spend much of the summer. “It’s the most highly flavoured, the most vibrantly scented food there is. After we moved back to England in 1948, my mother used to hold back on the chilli, but we always used to ask her for more.” He pauses. “Well, I say we came back to England, but I’d never been before. Neither had my parents. But we still talked about ‘coming back to Blighty’.”

In India his father had been relatively wealthy, but in England “we had absolutely zero. We went through real poverty.” One of the standard meals of the day would be toast dipped in tea with sugar on it. “It was that bad.”

But a love of curry stayed with him over the years – not so much the heat as the spice. “Spice is what gives curry all its dimensions,” he says. “The cardamom seeds, the coriander, the cloves… Most Brits don’t like the heat. I do, but I like to taste the food, too.”

In particular, Richard loves chicken tikka masala, that peculiar, unbeatable, ever-changing but always dependable dish whose origins are lost in the past. (Is it Punjabi street food, or was it synthesised in the Indian kitchens of Soho and Glasgow? No one knows.)

When he’s back in England, Richard’s favourite curry places are School Of Spice in Shepperton or, a new favourite, the Tiger’s Pad in Sunningdale. He doesn’t like his Indian food too westernised, though. “The Bombay Brasserie had the most fantastic starters,” he says, “but I always thought the main courses were too posh. I like my curries to have a nice, thick sauce, I like a good mound of lentils and rice. I like it traditional-style, lots of everything.”

The recipe: Chicken tikka masala

Serves four.

4 skinless chicken breasts, cut into 3cm cubes
For the chicken tikka marinade
250ml plain yoghurt
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp ground cumin
2 tbsp paprika
2 tbsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2.5cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and grated
Sea salt

For the tikka masala sauce
15g butter
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1 green chilli, deseeded and very finely chopped or grated
2 tbsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp garam masala
½ tsp sea salt
400g tin chopped tomatoes
250ml single cream
4 tbsp coriander leaves, chopped

For the marinade, mix together the yoghurt, lemon juice, cumin, paprika, black pepper, cinnamon, ginger and some salt in a large bowl. Stir well and leave for 15–30 minutes. Add the chicken and turn to make sure it is well coated. Cover and leave to marinate in the fridge for at least two hours.

Preheat the grill to medium. Thread the chicken pieces on to skewers and grill, turning regularly, for about 15 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through – when pierced with a knife, the juices should run clear. Place on a plate to rest while you make the sauce.

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Add the garlic and chilli, cook for a minute, then stir in the spices and salt. Tip in the tomatoes and simmer gently for 30 minutes. Stir in the cream to enrich the sauce, and cook gently for about five minutes.

Pull the chicken off the skewers, add to the sauce and place over a low heat for five minutes, gently and thoroughly to heat it through.

Garnish with coriander and serve immediately.

Ellie Goulding loves sushi

“I never used to eat fish a lot when I was young, but now it’s like my body craves it. If I’m out, I try to order fish for every meal, and sea bass is the best in my opinion. If you don’t have fish often, you’re more inclined to choose cod or tuna, but sea bass is light and delicious. Grilled sea bass with Thai vegetables is perfect.

I hated sushi when I first tried it, and was quite intimidated by it. But curiosity kept getting the better of me and I kept trying it, until it became my favourite thing.”

The recipe: Miso-glazed suzuki (sea bass)

Serves four.

2 tbsp sake
2 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp light yellow miso paste
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp light soy sauce
4 sea bass fillets, about 150g each, skinned
1 tbsp chopped spring onions
1 tbsp chopped fresh basil

In a shallow dish, mix together the sake, mirin, miso paste, sugar and soy sauce. Place the fish fillets in the marinade, turning them to make sure they are entirely coated. Cover the dish with clingfilm and refrigerate for six hours.

Heat the grill to medium. Remove the bass from the marinade and place on a baking tray. Grill, close to the heat, without turning, until the fillets are just about opaque in the centre – about six minutes. Transfer to warm plates, sprinkle over the spring onions and basil, and serve with sticky rice or soba noodles.

Brett Anderson loves blueberries

“Music, food and sex are the three most important things in life,” says Brett Anderson, singer with reunited glam-punk Britpop Suede. “You can’t do without any of them.” He pauses and considers. “Well, you can do without a couple of them. But you shouldn’t.

“In the 90s, I had a phase of only eating brown rice for two months at a time,” Anderson says. “I was very unhealthy and I had this idea that brown rice would somehow be very good for me. Basically, all I was putting in my body was brown rice and cocaine, and that’s not healthy.”

He kicked the drugs before Suede split up in 2003, and in 2007 he went to see a naturopath: “And that changed my life.” (His wife also studies naturopathic medicine.) A diet tailored to his individual metabolism (no mushrooms, corn, milk or wheat) has “really, really worked, to a startling degree… I feel a lot better and I’m very conscious of my diet now.” Hence the love of antioxidant blueberries. Anderson makes his own muesli with oats, flax and crushed pumpkin and sunflower seeds, and the blueberries go on top: “I try to have them every day.”

In Suede, eating well wasn’t at the top of their priorities. “It was pearls before swine. We’d be in Hollywood or Japan, and we just wanted chips!”

The recipe: Blueberry fool

Serves four.

450g blueberries
Juice of 1 lime
425ml double cream
400g mascarpone
Juice of 2 lemons
6 tsp honey
4 fresh mint sprigs
Icing sugar, for dusting

Blend the blueberries and lime juice until smooth. Whisk the cream to peaks. In a bowl, gently combine the mascarpone, lemon juice, honey and three-quarters of the berry mix, then fold in the cream. Spoon or pipe into serving dishes and drizzle over the rest of the purée. Top with a mint sprig and a dusting of icing sugar.

(A behind-the-scenes video of Brett Anderson’s shoot for Love Music Love Food)

Juliette Lewis loves coconut and papaya

Music is a matter of dark and light, heaven and hell, good and evil, and all that sort of stuff. Thus the star of movies and rock and roll Juliette Lewis – who knows a little about such things, having starred in Cape Fear, Natural Born Killers and From Dusk Til Dawn – has both sinful and redemptive modes. “It’s yin and yang,” she says. “I love the healthy stuff and I love chocolate and ice cream, too. You have to balance it.”

She loves papaya – “It goes with anything, it has natural digestive enzymes and the taste is wonderful” – but it’s clear that coconut is her real passion. Oh, the flavour, the scent, the texture… she uses coconut hair and skin lotions and, when at home in Los Angeles, has a regular coconut smoothie from her favourite juice place at home. “It’s decadent and sensual and natural all at the same time,” she says. “On a purely nutritional level, coconut water is pretty much the most hydrating thing you can drink, and much better than man-made sports drinks. If you’re an energetic, physical person like me, it’s hard to imagine anything better for you. Papaya and coconut are like instant vacations in your mouth.”

Lewis is rare in the ranks of actors turned musicians because, unlike certain movie stars’ vanity bands, her music actually stands up on its own – a raw but poppy garage-punk noise with the magnetic Lewis as its focal point. But how does one move from the comfortable world of movie-making to the grind of the touring rock band?

When you play rock festivals, you’re always “pathetically grateful” if the catering is good, she says. You always remember who feeds you well, such as the German festivals, Leeds, Reading and the Isle of Wight. “If you’re tired and haven’t had a shower in days, you are so glad of any home comforts.” But she does love the touring life, only occasionally missing favourite restaurants in LA, such as Little Dom’s in Los Feliz or La Loggia in Studio City.

Movie versus rock and roll – who’s got the best food? “Oh, please, do you even need to ask?” she says, and laughs. “There’s so much more money in the movie world for food. I make a nice living from my touring, but half the time we live off bread and lunch meat.”

The recipe: Virgin detox cocktail

Serves two.

50g papaya
3 fresh mint leaves, shredded
Juice of 1 lime
Juice of 1 fresh coconut, chilled
4 cherries

Put two martini glasses in the freezer to chill for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, peel and deseed the papaya, then cut into small cubes. Spoon the papaya into the chilled glasses, add the shredded mint and squeeze over the lime juice. Pour in the coconut juice and garnish each with a couple of fresh cherries.

Rolf Harris loves curry

“Curry’s my absolute favourite food,” says Rolf Harris – painter and art educator, musician, creator of the wobble board, late-flowering patron saint of Glastonbury and international treasure in both hemispheres. “My wife and I have withdrawal symptoms if we don’t have one every few days.”

Indian food has become central to the lives of Rolf and his wife, Arwen, whom he married in 1958. They started going to London’s new wave of Indian restaurants in the late 1950s, when curry was far from widespread, and they’ve stuck with it ever since. He has now developed a connoisseur’s knowledge of curry houses in the Buckinghamshire-Berkshire area. They don’t like it fiercely hot, they’re in it for the endlessly fascinating mix of spices. “One of the many great things about curry is that you can find your own personal optimum level of heat,” he says.

When touring, he has made it a tradition to take the band out for a curry after every date. “We get the promoters to scout ahead, and we’re rarely disappointed, because England is the world curry capital.” He admits he’s no great shakes in the kitchen – “Scrambled egg is about as good as it gets” – but why bother when every street in the land offers the finest dishes on earth?

His love of bright, assertive flavours surely comes from his childhood in Perth, Australia, where his diet did not exactly sparkle. Rolf grew up on the “very traditional” English food of the years before the Australian culinary explosion. His mum’s approach in the kitchen was “to cook anything – meat, vegetables, whatever – until it was almost incinerated… Australian food is world-famous now, and rightly so, but when I was a kid it was overcooked British food, tomato ketchup with everything, very, very boring and every day your dinner was exactly the same. No wonder I love curry now.”

The recipe: Poori

Serves four.

200g strong white flour, plus extra for dusting
50g chapatti flour
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp ground turmeric
½ tsp sea salt
Warm water, to mix
Vegetable oil, for frying

Put the flours, curry powder, turmeric and salt into a large bowl and mix well. Slowly mix in enough warm water to make a dough. Turn out on to a floured surface and work with your hands until smooth and elastic. Place back in the bowl, cover and leave to rest for 30 minutes.

Knead the dough on a floured surface until light and springy. Divide into about 12 equal-sized pieces and roll into balls. Keep covered with a damp cloth. Take one ball of dough and roll it out into a 10–12cm round. Repeat with the rest.

Pour a layer of oil into a heavy-based frying pan so it comes a quarter of the way up the sides, and place over a high heat. When very hot, carefully lower a dough round into the oil. Use a fish slice to baste and turn it, so that the poori swells up. It will be cooked in a few minutes. When golden brown, remove from the oil with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper. Keep warm while you cook the rest of the poori.

• This is an edited extract from Love Music, Love Food – The Rock Star Cookbook, published by Quadrille at £30 in support of Teenage Cancer Trust. Concept and photography: Patrice de Villiers (patricedevilliers.com). Interviews: Andrew Harrison. Recipes: Sarah Muir. The book is currently available to buy from Selfridges exclusively, and from high street stores and at a discounted price of £24 from the Guardian bookshop from 5 September

• About Teenage Cancer Trust. Teenage Cancer Trust believes young people shouldn’t stop being teenagers just because they have cancer, so the charity builds units in NHS hospitals that offer young people specialist care, bringing them together so they can support each other in an environment suited to their needs. As well as these specialist units, it also funds a number of services all with the same goal – to help young people fight cancer. To watch a video about the work of the Teenage Cancer Trust, click here

guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle

From VV Brown’s love of Marmite to Ellie Goulding’s sushi cravings, music stars give us a taste of their favourite foods

guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle

Can the actor ever leave the debauched Withnail behind? Here he tries his hardest with tales of fatherhood, carpentry and being Michael Heseltine

Richard E Grant is used to being a slight disappointment. Since 1985 he’s carried the burden of playing the character with whom he’s since become synonymous, Withnail, the reprobate, unemployed actor from writer/director Bruce Robinson’s generation-defining Withnail and I. Deranged, delusional and dangerous to know, Withnail became an anti-hero for the angry youth of Thatcher’s reign. Despite the intervening decades, the impact of his brilliant characterisation is such that you still expect him to come staggering in, bottle of vodka in hand, frock coat flapping and an air of icy malice sending a chill wind round the room.

So it’s a bit of a let-down when the lithe, fresh-faced Grant enters the low-key trattoria off Portobello Road that he’s chosen for our lunch date. He’s anything but the rebel as he winds his way through the sea of white paper tablecloths, apologising that he’s five minutes late in an accent still recognisably from southern Africa despite having lived in the UK for 30 years. His eyes are extraordinary, the palest of blue, and equally unsettling is the freshly dyed mane of red hair. It looks as if an alien object has landed on his head. “Sorry about my hair,” he announces, and explains that he’s about to play Michael Heseltine in the biopic Iron Lady, directed by Mamma Mia!‘s Phyllida Lloyd and starring Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher. He’s been researching by watching clips of Hezza on YouTube, reading Thatcher’s autobiography and touring Cabinet offices for instruction on protocol. “I had no idea that you would never refer to somebody in a cabinet meeting by their name,” he says. “You refer to them by the job they do, like ‘Defence’. It’s like shorthand. You would never say. ‘Mariella, when you’re head of showbiz, tourism and fabulousness….’”

I wonder how he can be so in tune with my secret aspirations. The Thatcher era is one with which he feels affinity. Originally from Swaziland, Grant arrived in the UK at a key moment for the Iron Lady: “It was the day ships sailed from Portsmouth to the Falklands, 29th of April 1982, and the story covers the last 30 years since I’ve been in England so it’s riveting to go back through it all.”

I steer him back from this attack of luvviedom to the menu, as he has barely an hour to spare before an audition with Bryan Singer, the director of The Usual Suspects, who is about to make a blockbuster in the UK. That he still has to tout his wares in a line-up comes as a surprise.

“Unless you are an enormous name, you never stop auditioning,” he says. “I auditioned yesterday in a queue of five others. I knew three of them. They say, ‘We want you but with dark hair, shorter, wider, older, younger.’ You have to go along with it, otherwise you may never work again.”

It does seem a humiliating scenario for the 53-year-old father of a grown daughter (at the University of East Anglia, studying creative writing) and you wonder why he continues to put himself through the agony. I ask him which one of all the characters he’s played, many of grotesques, is his personal favourite?

“They’re all so bloody awful. I suppose the movie that I enjoyed most was with Denholm Elliott and Julie Walters called Killing Dad that came out at the Shaftesbury Avenue Odeon in 1989 for four days and was being given away free with copies of Woman’s Own two months later. Working with Julie Walters was so hilarious that I’ll never forget that, but character and all the rest – that bit fades away. I’m sorry, I’m being absolutely hopeless here…”

He pauses for dramatic effect and bends down to sniff the rather sweaty-looking shavings of parmesan on his newly arrived spaghetti arrostiti, exhaling with ecstasy, as though he’s undergone an olfactory orgasm. It’s quite a performance, and makes me wonder what further lengths he’d go to in order to avoid self-examination. I do the polite British thing and change the subject, asking him what he likes about the restaurant.

“I hate fucked-about food,” he says. “Where the table has to be 42 inches away from the other table, the napkin has to be Michelin star; the waiters have a PhD in upthemselvesness.”

So instead we’re here in this neighbourhood joint, where I’m served burrata in an industrial-sized portion and vongole that’s a little bit gritty but otherwise delicious. He comes here every Saturday for lunch, followed by a wander around the antiques market. “I’ve been going to Golborne Road for the past 30 years so they know my mug round there very well.”

What does he buy?, I ask

“Just stuff. I’m a hoarder. I’d be bored in an environment that was one colour with a pot with a perpendicular lily sticking out in one direction. I’d feel like I was in a mental asylum.”

The urge to hoard is shared with his friend, Withnail writer and director Bruce Robinson, who believes it to be a compulsion born of difficult childhoods. Grant documented his own troubled upbringing in his directorial debut, 2005′s Wah-Wah, which explored his father’s alcoholism and his parents’ unravelling marriage, set against the dramatic backdrop of 1968′s independence celebrations in Swaziland.

The film took many by surprise, confirming that, unlike many of his fellow thespians, Grant has other skills to fall back on. These also include DIY. “I’ve put up shelving, built a doll’s house for my daughter,” he says. “I like fixing things.”

Such domesticity is some way from the Hollywood high life satirised in his 1996 diaries With Nails, feted for their acute observations about life behind the scenes. Grant himself lives a quiet life in Richmond with his partner of 27 years, the casting director Joan Washington, with fame for its own sake holding little allure. That said, he’s an I’m a Celebrity addict and didn’t miss one episode of the last series: “I felt bereft when it ended. You could not make up Gillian McKeith, narcissistic gorgon that she is. I challenge anybody to make up somebody like that – no actor could.”

That’s high praise indeed from someone who’s played so many unpleasant narcissists, the latest of which is the nasty Doctor Curlew in the BBC’s adaptation of the Victorian melodrama The Crimson Petal and the White. If neither the fame nor the lifestyle appeal, his career does at least keep him young.

“I once went to a university reunion, and was like a teenage delinquent compared to the majority of people there,” he says. “I think you fast become middle aged in more regular professions.”

I ask if maturity has had a positive impact on the roles he’s offered.

“I’m a veteran now, apparently,” he says with relish. “A young actor came up to me and said, ‘I’ve just been up for an audition and they said they were after a young Richard E Grant.’ That was an awful moment of realisation, but there’s no answer other than just be grateful that they’re asking for any version at all!”

As he gets up to leave I ask what his feelings are for the character he remains synonymous with after all these years.

“The guy Withnail was based on ended up unsuccessful, dying of alcoholism at the age of 49. So it was a grim end for him. But people still say, ‘I loved your film’. I used to ask them which one but now I don’t bother. It’s always ‘that’ film.”

Then he’s gone, whisked into a waiting car, off to show Bryan Singer who else he’s got locked up in there.

The Crimson Petal and the White is on BBC2 from 23 March

guardian.co.uk food-and-drink

There’s two approaches – you can become an authority in your field or eat from a large knife pretending you’re a culinary Yoda

So you want to be a TV cookery show judge. That makes sense; few things are as fun as trying a mouthful of food and then breaking the heart of whoever cooked it. The good news is that you’re already perfectly qualified for the job – television has been secretly teaching you the necessary skills all along. Here’s a quick refresher course.

Intimidate

To be a respected cookery show judge, it’s important to be feared. How you make this happen is down to you. One method could be to build up decades of expertise and become one of the most authoritative voices in your field, such as The Great British Menu’s Prue Leith. Another would be to just tie a manky old scarf around your head, eyeball people furiously, eat everything from the end of a needlessly large knife and speak in a series of faux-profound Yodaesque riddles that only succeed in making you sound like a badly concussed Jimmy Savile impersonator. It never did Marco Pierre White any harm, anyway.

Remember The Wizard Of Oz

A surprising number of cookery show judges have achieved greatness by pretending that there’s an even harsher judge just around the corner. MasterChef’s Monica Galetti is perfectly capable of terrifying contestants on her own, what with her constant air of barely contained outrage, but her secret weapon is her boss. Galetti constantly implies that Michel Roux Jr is a furious, fire-breathing monster with a palette so uniquely perfect that even one errant grain of salt would kill him. And then, when the contestants finally meet him and discover that he’s actually quite a nice chap, Roux repeats exactly the same trick by using restaurant critics and other chefs as the unseen Big Bad. The moral here is to exploit the fear of the unknown whenever possible. And also that people are quite stupid.

Exaggerate wildly

A good cookery show judge never thinks that a dish is simply OK – it’s either so amazing that they want to impregnate it behind their wife’s back, or it’s literally inedible. There’s no inbetween. If one of Gordon Ramsay’s American contestants serves up something slightly less than perfect, Ramsay spits it out in front of them like an awful wrinkly toddler. So why not invent a similar insulting reaction of your own? Perhaps nondescript food could make you burst into tears, or cause you to throw down your cutlery in disgust. Maybe you could even wish violent death upon the contestant’s entire family. It’s up to you.

Use all of your senses

Remember: eating isn’t just restricted to the tastebuds. You can judge a dish just as well by looking at it, smelling it and touching it. Give Paul Hollywood from The Great British Bake Off a loaf of bread and he can run a full diagnostic on it – how much salt it contains, how long the dough was left to prove, the temperature of the water used – before it goes anywhere near his mouth. He’s not alone, of course: Gregg Wallace can also expertly critique a dish on sight: a dish has what it takes if it’s a) a pudding of some sort and b) has been cooked by a pretty girl in a low-cut top.

Enjoy your work

In theory, being a cookery show judge should be hellish. You spend all day shut in a room, being fed a never-ending stream of soggy dross served up by a procession of idiots who are there only to be on telly. In fact the judges are actually having a ball. When I dropped in on a Great British Bake Off audition in London last week, Hollywood seemed honestly overjoyed by the quality of food on offer, and Mary Berry kept insisting that she always wakes up in a good mood on audition day. Perhaps that’s the most important quality when it comes to being a cookery show judge: you must love eating as much cake as you possibly can. Who knew? Life sometimes is really tough.

guardian.co.uk food-and-drink