From the archive (season 5): Nadiya Hussain

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:08Hello friends and buckle up Because we have a little treat for you at the end of what has been An absolutely banging season of guests An autumn mini-series of five of my old favourites So, as autumn turns to winter, snuggle up, settle in and wallow in this little selection of the most cocklewarming interviews. Here's my conversation with the queen of all things food and baking, Nadia Hussain. Who joined me back in 2023 to tell me all about her life through food first. Hello friends, you find me yet again in my kitchen, gearing up for a new episode, having a little snack beforehand. And now, when no one's looking, don't tell anyone.

1:00I eat gherkins straight out of the jar. They can't do you for it. Hang on.

1:14And Mrs Ellsworth's sweet and sour gherkins. Sometimes I wrap them in that plastic square cheese. Quite sexy. Now, today, not going to put too fine a point on this. I am welcoming cooking royalty into my house. Nadia Hussain MBE is coming around for a snack and a chat. I can hardly believe I'm saying that. She's a TV chef. She's a presenter. She's a writer. She's a regular on The One Show. And she has written a bunch of the most gorgeous recipe books, including her latest one Nadia's Simple Spices. Nadia's journey in the limelight began in the Bake Off tent in 2015 where we all let's be honest we just fell a bit in love with her didn't we as we watched her confidence grow week on week out of all those Bake Off star bakers it is Nadia's star that has shined the brightest and the longest.

2:21I can't believe she's come in here and I can't wait to discover what this woman, who is the byword for cosy cooking and culinary perfectionism, is actually wolfing down at home on the sofa after another busy day at the helm of Nadia Hussein Inc. when the kids are in bed and no one's looking. I cannot wait to find out.

2:47Very, very sharp these ones.

2:53I'll only eat four or five. Probably have to clean my teeth.

3:06Nadia Hussain, welcome to Comfort Eating. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I hear that you are a fan of the Milton Keynes roundabout system. love it i've been in milton keynes right what eight years now and i love i love order i love systems i love when something works and in milton keynes you are very really sat in traffic you do not sit in traffic because we don't have traffic lights you just keep moving sometimes slowly sometimes faster but you keep moving that's like a metaphor for life right like just see i've failed my driving test seven times you haven't i have and i can't do roundabouts as i'm getting towards them you see you say there's a system i just tend to be in all three or four of those right you just can't decide just going but i don't like to commit okay which is a metaphor for life as well i have a follow-up question can i just ask when you're driving your car over these roundabouts what is your favorite circular snack that you would have in the glove compartment that is circular it has to be circular it has to be minstrels i like a minstrel i love a minstrel i think they divide people i love like sucking it till the inside is soft and then it just kind of breaks under the pressure of the of your tongue and the roof of your mouth i love that squish what if when you're doing the actual the inhaling sucking but It could go down the wrong way and you'd be in the car by yourself.

4:39That's a health and safety hazard. That is. I should maybe rethink my circular snacks. That's the end of the podcast. That's it. We're done. Solved everything in the world. Every week, my guest shares with me their ultimate comfort snack. It is a dish that dulls out warmth and love when the world feels like a grey, soggy sponge, which you've never baked. Ever. Ever? I have. Nadia Hussain what have you brought for me today? I don't know what's under this unveil your snack please there's a lot of certainty about this, you're very certain some people crumble at this point and start making excuses very confident, I like this go on okay, so hang on so, mashed potatoes like smash made with butter, cream and mayonnaise so like lovely and rich and then you put a can of cream of tomato soup on top i'm not joking and then you put grated cheese on top and grill that i'm salivating yeah i said i honestly at the moment i hardly even heard the last few sentences i'm just like get in get involved like mashed potato with with a with a topping of heinz tomato heinz cream of tomato soup that's all you need it's spicy chili flakes on top always with the chili flakes on top it's just magical why don't they serve this in restaurant i'm speechless it's like proper comfort this is the most delicious comfort food that i think that anyone's ever brought how much is that could you eat oh on a really good day yeah the lot i could i mean my husband doesn't even get a look in he does not even get a look in I will just happily sit through that you should not associate guilt and food I don't care about the two for me do not go together food should be comfort and food should be warming and food should be nostalgic and and it can be something out of a packet it could be something that you make it could be anything and for me that is like ultimate comfort and I have zero shame in the fact that it came out of a packet and out of a can.

6:59What I love is there's just a big pool of butter there. That is the happiest sight in the world when there's too much butter in the dish and it's gone into, it's like a rock pool. Seeped. A rock pool of butter. Oh my goodness, we could live our best lives. Let's move away and find a rock pool of butter and just live our best lives, you and me. All we need is some crusty bread just to mop that little corner up.

7:27Nadia you burst onto our screens eight years ago season six of Bake Off you won the trophy and the nation's heart to the 15 million viewers of the Bake Off final we saw this picture of you and your young family three little kids all under 10 yeah that time but they're now teenagers so this is a very different chapter of your life and your parenting what is the house like these days lots of size 10 trainers and size 13 oh god I know there's not even a shoe rack that you can fit them on honestly they're like boats I'm like every time honestly I'm like who has left his boats here and we know who who is um but yeah we've got big shoes big clothes big big big big attitudes and big personalities.

8:15It's very different to eight years ago. But we go with it, you know, like it's a whole other beast raising teenagers. The only thing that's really helped me to kind of move and grow with the children is to remind myself that they are human beings and they are people more than anything. They're not just my children and they're not just children that I birthed, they are humans. and by looking at them like humans makes me want to hate them less is all I'm saying. Everything you're saying, so calm and so zen and you're saying it with your beautiful face, your lovely eyes. In secret, do you have a good shout at them though?

8:58Oh goodness, yeah. Okay, I'm not painting any, I don't want to paint an image that we don't have shouting matches in our house. We say things to each other that we shouldn't say to each other. Like just a couple of weeks ago, my son said to me, I hate you when I said you're an exhibitionist and we both just walked out that was it that was our conversation you're an exhibitionist I hate you fantastic we didn't see each other for the rest of the evening and by the end of it we were laughing and smiling but that is that is what it's like having teenagers is you can go from tsunami to still waters all within half an hour my husband and I have kind of come up with a trick of so we debrief you know we debrief oh we debrief otherwise my bloke is into the debrief I love a debrief so you do this as a family no just just my husband and I we debrief we start off with our scores out of 10 for that day I know it's really sad we do we've done this forever so on an evening um I'll text him and I say it's debrief time and then he'll come upstairs and I'm like so what do you give yours what are you giving yourself today out of 10 and he will give himself a nine and I'm like actually I think you're more of a six today because you did shout a little bit and he's like no and then we come to a compromise as to where we think he was we'll do the same for me and then we'll break it down and we do it in 20 minutes it's like locker room chat you know like we get in we have a strategy we debrief and then we're like right let's get back out there and it's like it's like going to war what's the lowest score you've ever given each other zero we've been to zero we've been to zero we have we we have been to zero there's been points where i wouldn't want to get zero off you that would be really heartbreaking i would because you tend to see the good i can see i do try my best to see the good in things but i there he's given me zeros i've given him zeros i'm like if the neighbors can hear us shouting it's a zero.

10:54Okay so you are a professional chef so does that mean that it's always you on for cooking at home? It's definitely changing now that the kids are a bit older. My husband can't cook to save his life. Awful. He tried I think we've been married 18 years and he's cooked, I'm going to say three times. What did he cook? He did a sticky lime chicken once. I don't know where he got the recipe from, but it was, let's just say it was stuck. It was stuck. He was like, we can eat this out the roasting dish. Of course we can. It was nonstick. I don't know what happened to the nonstick. It was that sticky. Do you think though that men purposefully do the thing badly so that we lose patience and then just do it again for the next seven years?

11:45There could be an element of that when it comes to cooking. Yeah. Because my husband always says, well, I can't compete with you. And I'll say, I'm not asking for competition. I'm not, because we know who would win in a competition. I was like, it would be me, my friend. But he, he, he, he's, but when it comes to everything else, he's amazing. Like he'll do laundry, he'll hoover, he'll mop the floors. Like he knows the kids' schedules. so he's great with everything else so I don't care if he doesn't cook I sometimes think in all relationships there is one person that can open a fridge and see four ingredients and think okay that's what I'm gonna do it might just be the same dish dishes again and again but they can go right I can make that into a pasta sauce I could serve that with rice and then there's the other person in the relationship that just unless there is the meal sitting there they'll just go and sit back down on the sofa yes well that's that we haven't got any food my husband is um very much the kind of i don't we don't have anything to eat um and because i cook for a living often i've got things in the house that i've tested or need setting or in the fridge or need for the next day somehow he manages to always eat that and i don't i'm like you because we i don't know how it happens but i have sticky notes so anything with a sticky note is not to be eaten not to be touched even the thought of that sticky note you would know that some underneath that is something really delicious that's just like red rag to a bowl isn't it do not eat this because i've made it specially for something professional if you ever hear that i've been arrested for some kind of assault it is because my partner has sent me a text while i'm at masterchef working and asked me what we're having for dinner.

13:35Really? Yeah. And I'm like What is your response to that? I haven't got a response I can say into the microphone. I'm literally on set working testing food and he is clearly opening the fridge and seeing some spinach some eggs, some onions some veg and thinking I'm like omelette! Frittata! Okay thank you I feel lighter now.

14:13so let's go back to 1984 then you were born on christmas day in luton band-aid is at number one with do they know it's christmas that song is for a lot of people one of their earliest memories what's your earliest memory oh my dad ran Indian restaurants and he always kept the restaurant open on Christmas day and dad had the Christmas menu and he said it's the best night because everyone will pay through the nose for a Christmas dinner he sounds amazing he is he is he's um he would make the most amazing Christmas dinner so his turkey I remember he used to cover it in turmeric and garlic and ginger under the skin and he would make bombay potatoes with carrots and tamarind lots of onions but on an evening making turkey actually edible yeah yeah it's like my dad cooks the best turkey for sure 100 cooks makes the best turkey but you're making paxos sound very like boring now you know like that chip that sage and onion stuffing i have seen that stuff like so i quite like paxos myself because it's my birthday on christmas day my dad would come home and he would wake us up in the middle of the night and say come on I've got turkey for you and we'd sit there and we'd eat this cold turkey and it was it just became a tradition to just sit there in the middle of the night on boxing day early in the morning and just have turkey and and and cold bombay potatoes and that's downstairs around the table downstairs on the floor we'd put we in your pajamas in your pajamas just sat there like a bit disheveled half awake pillow creases yeah I love it yeah disheveled half awake half naked sat there eating this turkey and then my mum would say why do you do this every single year I don't want them to break their sleep I want them to have a full night's sleep and dad would just like ignore my mum as he does and then we just sit there and eat it and and then we just go up to bed and mum would say brush your teeth and we'd never brush our teeth and we just go straight to bed they were some of the happiest moments.

16:27You grew up as a first generation British Bangladeshi in Luton. You're one of six kids. And I've heard you talk about how the roles in your community, very traditional, the women staying at home, doing the cooking, raising the kids, and the men went out to work. Tell me about your own parents, your mum, Asma, and your dad, Jamia Ali. Yeah, he's, my dad's like, he spent his whole life being called Jay because he felt like that's the British version of him. So he's like an alter ego is Jay. Like everyone calls him Jay. You know, I grew up in a very conservative family. You know, we were very, my family, they're very traditional, not religious, very very traditional in terms of how we ate in our etiquette in the way we behaved in the way we were raised so I wasn't allowed to call my dad dad up until I got much older he's like because we call him baba which is which is another word for dad and we weren't allowed to call mom mom we had to call her amma we had to speak Bengali in the house we were not allowed to speak um English in the house and if we did we got told off you know like really really told off my dad was never happy.

17:42So it's like no only Bengali, which I really appreciate that now. I can speak it fluently and really well and I can communicate with my elders. So I think it was a wonderful thing that they did. You know, my parents, as immigrants, they worked really hard to maintain as much of their Bangladeshi culture within a British setting. You are a celebrity baker. So did your mom bake? no my mom no no no no I'm okay so no so you you didn't grow up at your mother's knee as she was doing the things no totally different to the complete opposite to the kind of I suppose the ideal English home that you might see on television or in the storybooks you know my My parents didn't read a book to me at night.

18:35They said, brush your teeth, don't brush your teeth, get to bed. I don't care. You know, like six kids, extended family, grandparents. It was hard. It was really hard. So I'm not surprised. But my mum didn't bake. No, the oven was used for storage. So my mum, my mum, I said, I asked my mum, why do you have an oven? And she said, because it comes with the hob. Because it was like a standard, you know, the standalones. It's perfect logic. you can't argue with that hang on she used it storage so you open the oven what's inside the oven usually just frying pans so anything that can fit in that width so like in that height whatever can fit and it was always my mum's pans for the pans that she used to make paratas in the pans that she used to make all of her like sweet fritters in and the pan that she deep fried in she never ever turned her oven on to the point where the knob had got sticky and and i had to like scrape the grease off the knob and say this is this is it so she never used it still doesn't went to Cholney high school all girls comp in low 10 secondary school is just a really intense time in uh all of our lives I firmly believe did you enjoy it for anyone who's never been to an all girls school that is a wholly different experience because girls can be mean like boys really really can yeah I was not popular I was definitely the teacher's pet like I was the kind of kid that didn't revise but got all A's you know I was senior prefect I was on the school council I was a teaching assistant I was like I was a reading assistant I did all of that like I did everything I just what did they say about that I do when you're when you're a part of I just became a part of a group of girls who did those things and so I was quite comfortable um in that space because we were all just very we're just like we were all just high achievers and um I'm sure they looked at us the way we looked at them do you know like we looked at them I mean I was a teenager too I wasn't always level-headed or rounded you know like as a teenager I looked at them and thought I was better than they were and they thought they were better than me there was one teacher who was particularly important to you tell me about Mrs Marshall the best human ever ever ever to ever grace this earth and I've met her a few times since and she's absolutely amazing she still lives in Luton and she was my home ec teacher so she's my food studies teacher I remember being in food studies and she said you are really good at this and I didn't think anything of it and when I when I'd done it as a GCSE she was like you're gonna ace this and I did I got top grades for it the only time I was able to practice was at school I would make up recipes and I'd ask Mrs.

21:21Marshall, Mrs. Marshall, if I bring in my ingredients on my lunch break, can I please practice this recipe? Like what? Cakes. So like, because for my GCSEs, I had to make a cake that was tailored to a five-year-old. So I did a cake that was like a red marble cake, I remember, with fondant and a Pokemon ball on top. And it was like, and I had to do the packaging and all of that. But I couldn't practice making the cake. So I said, please, miss, can I practice? And she said, okay, but as long as you don't disturb my lunch. And I said, absolutely, you can make it. And she goes, you have to do all the washing.

21:51And I said, no problem. And as a deal with her, I said that I'd do all the washing and drying. And so the class previous to her left it all. And I did it all for her. And I cleaned up. And we'd have these lovely conversations. And she'd give me little tips. What does the Pokemon cake look like? Is it good? I have still got my coursework from when I was in high school. Did you shove it out as a book? I'd need another 99 recipes.

22:23you've said that you were a good student straight a kind of pupil and you did well in fact you were the first person in your family to get a place at uni can you remember that moment when you received the letter I am yeah first girl to get into university also first person to ever get a place at university and I just thought it was a given I thought my friends are going to university it won't be I didn't even think that it would ever be a problem um because a lot of my friends come from immigrant homes so they they are also first generation problem with your family Brits yeah so I then kind of said to my parents I've I've these are the universities and I've got places and I was I was going to go and study psychology in the hope to become a social worker um and so I said to my parents look I've got it all set like you know I've got the loan I've got you know I've got I've got the bank I've got everything sorted I knew where I was going to live all done uh and my mom said nope absolutely you are not going to university and uh that was like a massive blow at 18 because at that point I I knew the direction in which my life was going and it was education and I knew where I wanted to be at the end of that education and my mom just said nope not going to happen you are not going to university what's her biggest fear I think they tried they've worked so hard to keep us closeted and and and in this box where we followed all the traditions of Bangladeshi culture and I think her fear was that I would become westernized and I would be living away from home girls didn't live away from home if they were not married if you were married you lived away from home but not while you were single did you just take it the moment she said no or did you think about just packing and going I was crushed like I can't explain it any other way apart from like internally I felt like she'd crushed me from the inside and I couldn't show it on my face and I and in the moment I remember being very quiet but I argued and in the end my mom said um I'll change the locks on the doors if you leave I will change the locks on the door and I at 18 when you've got very little money and when the only only only security financially that you have is your family, that's a tough one because I was really scared at that point that if I disobeyed them that I would never be able to, I'd never be allowed back in my home and that really scared me and I said fine, fine I won't go.

24:55In the end I just decided that I'm just going to get two jobs and never really see them anyway and so I got two jobs. I worked at a out of hours doctors at a call center at night and during the day I worked in a office where we hired out executive cars, neither of which I enjoyed, but I did them to stay away.

25:22Two years later, 20, you're age 20, you marry Abdel Hussain, the man who would eventually encourage you to put in the application to Bake Off. How did you two meet? I got to 19 and my parents were like, Luke, you should really think about getting married. And they, you know, it was very much. Did they show you a few people before Abdul or was Abdul the first person? No, he was, there were a few suitors. So I am, because I'm dark skinned. So in my family, in our culture, when you've got dark skin, there's a element of, are you gonna get her married off like if you've got if you get if you've got dark skin then there's a there's a worry that nobody will marry you i said i want to marry somebody from this country if you can find somebody from this country that matches what i want i'm happy to marry them if they're right for me hang on had you grown up feeling like that though had you heard whispers of that when you when you don't whisper enough no whispering no whispering no whispering it's straight so you're a child yeah teenager and even saying how are we gonna get her married off she's got dark skin she's got dark skin um yeah like it's a real thing and I think right okay there are lots of people who will listen to this and be like I get it I totally get where she's coming from but I know there are loads of people who listen and say that is horrific but it is not a it's not a secret it's not like it's not a big secret in our culture um and even to this day colorism is rife I'm one of six and um we're all different shades of brown my eldest sister is really pale to the point where she goes blue with your elder sister were they oh find somebody they were lining up they were lining up they were like we'll have no problem marrying her off but my second sister and myself I'm number my sister's number two I'm number three my parents were like oh my goodness like how are we gonna get them married off the only thing my second sister had going for her was that she was also very slim I'm not naturally like super super slim they're like oh god she's fat and she's black like that's like double whammy so where did where did your husbands appear from yeah well because so we my husband uh my dad and my father-in-law were mutual friends my father-in-law said oh I've got this son that I want to get married and my and my husband is number three in his family and I'm number three and my dad kind of stayed really quiet because he can't it's like flogging a dead horse he was like she's dark I can't really like I can't how can I even suggest my daughter my dad's like look I'm just gonna put you straight I do have daughters but they are black so you then you see the son well we speak we actually exchange numbers and somehow manage to get each other's numbers through the mutual friend and then we actually talk to each other and I realized through his conversations that I said can I get a month in I said can I see a picture of you and he was lovely really really like charm really see the photo I see the photo and he's very tall and very fair and I thought this is gonna really piss my dad off because if I marry somebody this is going to properly vex him because if I marry somebody who he thinks I can't marry he will think oh my goodness like how has she done that so for me it was like yes yes I'm gonna marry him so you get together you move to Leeds together you have three children and then you apply to bake off and you're accepted yeah and you turn up ready to take part right okay take us into that tent day one day two around that time mary berry paul hollywood circling as he's starting to bake a cake and nothing can quite describe the feeling of being in the tent because at the very beginning it's very um busy so you've got cameraman story producer you've got your directors and week on week it gets quieter and quieter you're more and more exposed and that's quite scary but the more exposed you become weirdly you become more comfortable and see the cameras less but it's it's scary because the judges don't talk to you so they're not there's no bias there's no relationship so it doesn't they are just still very much the judges where's the best place to cry in the tent so people can't see you into your hands but there is no really real good place because there's always a camera always a camera They will catch every quiver of a lip, every teary eye.

29:48Well, they know when you've messed up before you do. Exactly. So they know something's burning. Yeah. And they're just waiting for you to work it out. Yeah. And sometimes you can hear them on their little intercom saying, just go to Nadia. She's panicking. Go get it.

30:10you win and you give this incredible speech yeah you say and i quote i'm never gonna put boundaries on myself ever again never gonna say i can't do it i'm never gonna say maybe I'm never gonna say I don't think I can I can and I will yeah now unlike most Bake Off winners your celebrity chef career has bloomed long term has anything since then tested that pledge has your resolve ever wavered absolutely I would be lying if I said that it hasn't but life is not meant to be easy it's not plain sailing it never was going to be um and I I when I said those words someone said to me like did you really think about it did you have a speech written I was like absolutely no way if you watched me during bake-off anyone who watched me will know that I did not think I was going to win and the thing is I never expected my career to take off the way it did so that for me was a pleasant surprise and serendipitous if anything but absolutely you know I am a daughter of an immigrant I'm British Muslim Bangladeshi brown woman you know I'm a woman of color who um covers you know who has a has a hijab on so proudly I'm very proud I'm a proud Muslim and I've suddenly stepped into this male dominated arena uh full of middle-aged caucasian men um some with egos uh and and so there have been moments where i have felt like i don't fit in and that's not just my lack of belief in myself but that's also the industry itself uh the industry there are there are people there are people around people who will remind you that this isn't your space and that you don't belong here and that that your space is temporary and so yeah it has tested my resolve it has tested my confidence and it has tested those words that I said at the very end but it's actually those very words I go back to I can and I will I can and I will um and I tell my children I tell my children that all the time and my affirmation has changed quite a lot since then and I tell my children now like especially over the last eight years there's so many moments where I was like do I belong here do I get to call myself a chef am I just a cook and like I question every time a book is released I'm like oh my goodness nobody's gonna like it everyone's gonna everyone hates me or I feel like my career is just gonna get taken away from me the way it was handed to me but reality is my career wasn't handed to me I worked for it you know I didn't just get lucky I worked and I grafted but the affirmation that I tell my children now and I tell myself in those moments is elbows out I tell them create space for yourself so you can create space for others i am i like that affirmation there's another affirmation that i've heard you say that i like just as much i use foods people think of as snacks as ingredients such as bombay mix yep pretzels chocolate mini rolls some of the happiest words yes cheese puffs and crisps yeah a chocolate tart with a base made out of crisps is one of my family's favorite recipes have you experimented with any other interest in snacks lately no but like you name them all you name loads of them like i use when i make a mac and cheese i blitz up what's its and i put them on top of my mac and cheese so you get that really intense cheesy flavor oh god I love hang on though base of crisps a chocolate tart with a base of crisps so good ready salted crisps yes ready salt and vinegar sometimes too if you if you want a tang it's so so good and it shouldn't work but I think that's what I love about cooking it's that element of people saying to me that that's never going to work and then they eat it and they're like she did it again it worked you know like that doubt I love a little bit of doubt I love to see a little bit of doubt but I grew up with that I grew up in a household where everyone doubted you they never believed you could do it and it's like then you do it and you're like see in your face I did it Nadia is saying you are an absolute force of nature thank you for comfort eating thank you

34:40this episode of comfort eating was produced by Ruth Abrahams the executive producer is Lucy Greenwell The music was written by Axel Cucutier Mixing and sound design was by Solomon King If you love comfort eating then please go and leave us a review and a rating It is so helpful to us and you can follow or subscribe so you never miss a single episode See you next week

35:17This is The Guardian.