Episode 2 - Delia Smith: Ingredients for life

0:00There was rationing of everything. You were only allowed two ounces of this a week or one ounce of that a week. In fact, if we brought that back, we'd be a really healthy nation. People have got addicted to sugar and they can't do without it.

0:15Amol Rajan: Do you worry that the art of cooking, do you think that young people are losing those basics? I'm sure they are, but I don't think that's as important as losing the basics of how to be a human being. What's the secret to a 55 year marriage? We had such a ball together Obviously I've got to learn how to be half a whole That's going to be hard after 55 years Are you aware of how profoundly you've changed this country? No There are so many lives that you have touched and transformed It just gives me a lot of joy Did you know you were being filmed? And I wasn't drunk. You're not allowed to be passionate in England unless you're drunk.

1:02Amol Rajan: I have a theory about English food, which is that everyone actually hates turkey. If you have some old factory produced, then yes, I agree with you. What do you think your legacy will be? When in 1955, a charming young girl from South East London left school with no qualifications, still scarred in her own telling by the trauma of her parents' recent divorce, it seemed inevitable that she'd go on to get the odd job, probably not very well paid. She was indeed a hairdresser and a waitress and a cook. And what was not inevitable back then was that over the next 60 years, she would teach an entire nation how to cook.

1:44Amol Rajan: You know, for much of her life, the late Queen aside, Delia Smith might have been the most famous woman in Britain. She has sold over 20 million books. She's helped countless families with Christmas lunch or tea time for the kids. She's taken the fear out of cooking and she has presented thousands of hours of very useful television. Along the way, she's run Norwich City Football Club for decades. She was married for 55 years. She converted to Catholicism. And boy, did she discover politics too. Her new book is called Us, Nine Ingredients to Change Our World. and it is a clarion call for a new politics, one grounded in community and connection.

2:23Amol Rajan: You know, we recorded this interview just a few days after the death of her late husband, Michael, but she insisted on sticking to it. So strongly does she feel that the world needs to change. Delia Smith, as you once said to the fans of Norwich City Football Club, let's be having you. Before we get into the conversation with Delia Smith, I just want to say a sincere and heartfelt thanks to our launch partners. they make this possible so thank you to google cloud thank you to natwest thank you to waitrose and thank you to amazon we simply could not do this without them hello delia hello this is a very big deal for me and me i got an email what six months ago saying would i possibly take an interest in your book there is a perfect synergy between what you're trying to do with this book and what we're trying to do with this show, which is to talk about the state of the world and help build a better future.

3:20Amol Rajan: Why did you write the book? I wanted, as an ordinary person, to write a book for ordinary people about the state of the world and to try and say or help them to understand why we've got to where we are, what happened, how we've got to this awful stage, and then what we can do about it. And it's a plea for collective action, isn't it? The book is called Us, Nine Ingredients to Change Our World, and it's us, unity and solidarity. One of the central arguments is that if you want to do things and achieve things on the scale that we need to, it requires people to come together and to work in a collective way, in a way that almost sometimes feels like it's going out of fashion.

4:04I mean, to me, it's so obvious. And we've lost it. We've lost community. and people are at their very best when they're community and people with people bring out the best in people.

4:22Amol Rajan: You mentioned Hannah Arendt and you talk about a book she wrote called On Revolution and it says she talked about a lost treasure, an unawakened communal spirit that only surfaces when people unite together with a common purpose. Bang on. Bang on, which is exactly what we're trying to do with this show. What is your sense of what's going wrong at the moment? Here we are, we've been gifted a beautiful planet with all the resources needed for a beautiful life. And we have been gifted such ingenuity, innovation. The human race is fantastic. Human people are amazing. But things went wrong. and I think personally, and I've written about it in the book, that the thing that went wrong was the Nazis and the Holocaust.

5:18And I think that was the beginning of the balance, if you like, of evil coming into the world. And then where we've made our mistake, Amal, is that we think it ended when we won the war. We did win the war by being connected, but it didn't end. And that evil ideology has crept in all around the world. And we now have several Hitlers.

5:51Amol Rajan: There's something about one of the sad things as you, I guess, get older, and I feel like I found this in my early 40s, is this feeling that even when humanity overcomes terrible failures, it doesn't mean that it's learned the lesson forever. Every generation has to learn that lesson again and again and again. And it's very powerful to hear you talk about Hitler because you were born in 1941 during the war. Do you see parallels between then and now? Well, I think what my experience was, was I sort of grew up in those early years in a community and I knew how very close people were together. In the war, people were together.

6:39They were working together. They were acting as one, you know, to beat this terrible thing that was happening. And I think we've got to now get rid of it. We've got to get rid of that in the world now. It's time for it to go.

6:58Amol Rajan: And go completely. When you say you remember something of that community spirit, so you were born in 1941. Do you remember anything of the war? Because you were like three or four. What do you remember? Yeah, I do. I remember my mother going off to work every morning to stitch parachutes. This was Bexley Heath in south-east London, was it? Yeah, and I was with my grandmother looked after me. I can remember crawling under the table with my grandmother when the bombs were going over. Really? Yeah. And I can remember sleeping under the stairs. You're saying all this with a smile. And it's a very effective smile.

7:33Amol Rajan: But this is, I mean, you're talking warfare. How do you think, because your dad came home. Do you remember the day your dad came home? Not the day he came home, but I woke up in the morning and there he was in bed with my mother. You'd never seen him before? No. And you thought, who's this man? Okay. Yeah, but I had a grandfather, so I had, you know, the next best thing. Well, no, as good as. Nostalgia is a very big part of politics in this country at the moment. People often say about Andy Burnham that he's nostalgic for the 1970s. One thing that I've noticed is that a lot of people in this country are very nostalgic about that post-war moment.

8:09Amol Rajan: What is the thing that we have to stand up to? Fascism? Evil? You can call it any way you like. I mean, in the book I've said, I just call it power wielding. We've got to stand up to power wielding. I think in all honesty, but we just got the wrong politics. The whole world has the wrong politics because the politics we have, party politics, allows all these people who are evil to infiltrate. Do you know, as I've gotten older, I've spent 20 years so obsessed with and close to British party politics. And I've sort of come round to your view. Why do you say that party politics is a problem? It's a big theme of the book.

8:56Amol Rajan: Why is party politics holding us back? Because it's built on division. You know, what I'm trying to say in my book, there is only one chance for us now, Amor. We have only one chance now. And that is unity. That is to unite. That is for humanity to learn how to be community again and to unite. And party politics is all about division. And so power wielders love division. One of the reasons, honestly, I called this show, what I'm doing, my business, the Amal Rajan connection. Yeah. Is because I feel very strongly that connection is one of the supreme goals of life and of politics. and I think we've lost sight of it a little bit.

9:42Not a little bit.

9:43Amol Rajan: You think completely? I think, you know, I think there's a lot to be said, obviously, for technology, but we've lost how to relate to one another in everyday life. You know, everything is, you know, on a device, you know, you can't speak to anybody. You know, we've been separated and we have to learn how to relate to one another again. So there's a wonderful human being called Kira, who I work with, who's got this great line where she says, we've traded connection for convenience. Yes. In other words, and this will get us into your extraordinary career and life story, where if you think about something like cooking, you know, cooking, which takes time, you know, you don't need to do it if you can just get stuff on an app delivered to you.

10:38Amol Rajan: and cooking, you know, you could argue cooking is quite inconvenient. You've got to go to effort, you've got to plan, you've got to put aside time. And it just, I mean, this all sort of helps to set up the problem, which I think your book tries to answer. There is just something about modern life where everything is so frictionless. It's so easy. It's all through a device. You can get whatever you want, whenever you want, and someone's going to bring you that thing. Do you think we've basically given too much kind of importance to convenience to doing the easy thing and we've forgotten what really matters in life.

11:11I think we have. I think you're spot on. And our lives are diminished, you know. If you go into the kitchen and you cook something, which can be inconvenient but it can also be creative, then you're going to have the best you can have. But if you accept diminished food, then that's all you know.

11:32Amol Rajan: Do you worry that the art of cooking, knowing the basics, how to do a bechamel or a roux or pastry or the basics which you taught so many people across so many years. Do you think that young people are losing those basics? I'm sure they are, yes. I'm sure they are. But I don't think that's as important as losing the basics of how to be a human being and how to live in a safe world. Do you think they're losing that as well? I think yes and I what I didn't mention when we talked about you know the power wielders ruling the world not thinking about climate change which is a grave situation that we're in.

12:16Amol Rajan: It's an emergency. But they're also they're also in charge of AI. They're in charge of AI. We haven't got a cat in hell's chance if we don't do something. But was there a time in your life If you go back to these happy 1950s or 60s, was there a time in your life where you felt that we were getting it right? Is there an element of almost nostalgia? And I don't say there's a criticism, but is there an element of almost nostalgia about your book? Because there was a time, maybe in your childhood, maybe in 1950s or 60s England, where politics was working, it was delivering for the people. Well, yes, I do think it has worked in the past.

12:54and obviously we've had some wonderful political achievements in our country like the National Health Service. It was, but we have to move with the times now and because we've got this horrible threat hanging over us the whole time, we have to change our politics. It's not working for now. And there are lots of wonderful politicians who really want to do the best they can, but the systems don't work for now.

13:24Amol Rajan: You know, one of the things about looking over your career is you've always faced a huge amount of criticism. I didn't quite realise how much, frankly, quite snobbish criticism you came across. Yeah. It was always the same tone. It was always, oh, she's oversimplifying it, the Volvo of cooking and all that sort of thing. What would you say to some people who have tuned in to this wonderful show and they're sort of thinking, didn't realise that Delia Smith now is someone who sets about not just trying to teach people how to cook, and we'll get into that, but is actually very alarmed about the state of the world.

13:52Amol Rajan: There might be some people who are surprised that this is the subject of your book. Yes, they might be surprised and I've got my tin hat ready. I expect I'll get a lot of flack. There is this interesting reference where you say, I've got this, I think the way you phrase it, you say, I've got this dyslexia thing. What were you actually saying there? Well, when I was writing, I wrote all my cookery books by hand. Right. and because I can't spell. Okay. I really can't spell, like the words don't, you know, and so, and I can't punctuate very well either. I don't have that sort of background. But my husband typed all my books, so he put all the right commas in the right places.

14:39So I think now I don't, I'm not aware of it because I've learned how to use a computer and it's not a problem.

14:46Amol Rajan: So your husband was kind of your editor as well as your husband? Very much so, yes. This is, since you mentioned him, I think this is probably the first conversation you've had outside of your family since the death of your husband last week. I'm so, so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. Was it? I'm very sorry. Was it expected? Well, he was ill, very ill for the last six weeks of his life. He was very, very ill, yeah. And did you manage to have the conversations with him? Was he sort of around enough that you could have the conversations with him? Yeah, I was with him the whole time, you know, night and day, all the time.

15:19Yeah.

15:19Amol Rajan: How are you doing? Well, I have to say, first of all, I'm filled with gratitude. I mean, 55 years of a marriage that was so incredible. I mean, we had such a ball together. We did so many things. We had a lovely life together. and we're 85 and you're sort of thinking well you know where our lives are coming to an end anyway but um obviously i've got to learn how to be half a whole that's going to be hard after 55 years yeah the most extraordinary tributes poured in for him and i i don't hope you don't mind if i read one please everyone at norwich city is deeply saddened by the passing of our honorary life president michael win jones michael died peacefully at home aged 85 he'll be greatly missed his family are grateful for the wonderful care provided by the community nursing team at saint elizabeth hospice in ipswich our deepest condolences are with delia and tom and with all of michael's family friends and loved ones tom i think is your nephew yes it does sound like michael had the most wonderful carers didn't he yes towards the end tell us about them well it's just that that's what I mean, all you read about in the newspapers in the National Health is queues in corridors, beds in corridors.

16:39That's what you hear about. But my God, you know, if you've got somebody who's very extremely ill and coming to the end of their life, the help that you get is incredible. and the national health are wonderful, the carers, the district nurses, but also the hospice, just, I mean, they can only exist on funds that they raise.

17:05Amol Rajan: People don't realise that hospices are often not funded by the NHS. Hospices who look after dying people, they've got to raise their own money. Yeah, so we had everything. We had everything we needed, night and day. Darren Huckabee, who's a club ambassador, said, such sad news. He stayed out of the limelight, but all at Norwich City FC owe him so much. I've got to ask you, what's the secret to a 55-year marriage? I think if you both like football, it helps. And food. Cricket and football were his life. AI is changing the world, but the dilemma we face in business is making AI work for us and not everyone else.

17:42Amol Rajan: That's where Google Cloud is delivering results for big UK customers and why I am so pleased that they are launch partners of the Amol Rajan Connection. Their work is based on 20 years of research and development. And as part of that, Google Cloud's AI assistant, Gemini, helps each company design a unique platform, bringing together fragmented data and workflows. Discover more about making AI work for your business, cloud.google.com forward slash AI. You've been through grief before. You lost your father many, many years ago. You lost your mum. I think she got to 102, did she? One. 101, you're an amazing one.

18:19Amol Rajan: You've been through grief before. Has faith been a comfort for you with the passing of Michael? It's not a comfort. It's just normal life for me. Because it's part of how you are, who you are. Absolutely. And I know that something I actually want to do maybe towards the end of this is that I was fascinated to learn about the importance of silence in your life. and I think I'm right in saying you spend about an hour being silent in the morning? Every day. Why do you do that? Because I think it's a human need. I think it's a human need and I think it's just, I don't know, to have space, to have time, to have silence.

19:05And when I say still, I don't mean, you know, rigid still. I just mean, you know, relaxing. But it's something now that I've done for so many years. I just couldn't do without it. I need it. And I think if everybody had that kind of space, maybe not an hour, but if they had half an hour or 20 minutes...

19:28Amol Rajan: Or just a minute. Or just, yeah, I think there'd be a lot less mental illness. Why? I've never given this any thought. I'd really love to know why. Well, I just think you have time to reflect, and reflection takes you into a different sort of world, really. People talk about mindfulness and all that, and if you want to do mindfulness, you've got to pay. Whereas if you sit in silence, you can just do it for free? It's absolutely free. You don't need a, you don't need whatever you call it, a psychiatrist or you can just get a grip with everything. Perhaps afterwards we could have a, at the end of this, we could do a minute silence together.

20:20Amol Rajan: I'd really like to do that. It's everything because my life is so full of input and noise. You know, there's news, there's technology. I don't know how you do what you do. It's relentless and actually just having a moment, even just a minute of stillness would be a wonderful blessing. We talked about Michael. The way in which you came to meet Michael, I think you met him at the Daily Mirror. Yeah. And you had an incredible path to there. You left school with no qualifications. No. And you went to work. I went to work in a hairdresser. The hairdressers first. Okay, so how old were you when young Delia?

20:53Amol Rajan: No qualifications. Why the hairdresser? Well, because I was such a failure academically, my family thought I might be good with my hands. And I just loved every minute of it. How did you go from that to waitressing and cooking? Well, in the end, you know, I wasn't that good at hairdressing either. So there you go. But you were good with your hands, evidently. But then, in those days, what was good is you just went into the Times and looked at a job. You just looked at jobs. You could ring up and get an interview and get a job doing anything, anything. I started to go to eat in that restaurant called The Singing Chef.

21:36And the chef came out and served the main course. And I used to say to him, well, could you tell me how to make something? Or could you tell me what that is? And he said, why don't you come up? Why don't you come on Saturday night and wash up? We need a washer up. So that's what I did. and that's what started my interest.

21:56Amol Rajan: And then you graduated chopping vegetables? Yeah, and then I just suddenly found something I really loved. I did a bit of waitressing and I think when I did the waitressing I learnt that people didn't feel comfortable with menus. They didn't know their way around. So that's where it all sort of started. But then it was, I think you had some friends, because I love the idea of these sliding doors moments, these chance encounters that take you on a particular path. I think you had some friends that worked in fashion. Yeah. And then you went round the corner to this fashion house where there was a photographer was there.

22:27Amol Rajan: Yeah, a food photographer. A food photographer. And he was like a home economist. What is a home economist? Well, it's a lot of things. But one of the things is you prepare food for photography, for advertising. Okay. And you met this home economist. How did that meeting change your life? Well, it was actually the photographer himself. and I went to watch what she did and one day she was ill and he said, do you want to come and have a go? So I did, I went and I had a go and the client liked what I did and so I just started doing it. And suddenly you found you're quite good at it? Yeah. But did your parents, I know your parents split up when you were young, but did your parents, was food a very big part of growing up?

23:15Amol Rajan: Was it something that you just imbibe because everyone was learning to cook, you know, knowing the basics was something that was expected of women back then. Yes, I think I was just brought up on home cooking. So when I was young, we didn't have holidays and things like that, but we did have butter and we did have good food at home. And you had rationing, and I think rationing is so interesting because how old were you when... So there was rationing of sugar, there was rationing of butter. No, there was rationing of everything. You were only allowed two ounces of this a week or one ounce of that a week and you had books and they marked it off, you know.

23:54And in fact, if we brought that back, we'd be a really healthy nation.

24:01Amol Rajan: Do you think there's a case for bringing it back? It's been proved that at the wartime, people were more healthy than they've ever been before. Why was that, do you think? Because, you know, they were Russian. They weren't eating rubbish. So food at that time, which is associated with difficulty, not the cooking of it, but trying to get hold of it, with rationing, with, you know, a kind of post-war rebuilding. Food at that time, what were you eating? Were you actually eating good quality grub cooked at home? To a point, yes, but I still remember dried eggs, you know, being whipped up with milk.

24:42I still remember, no, there was poverty. There was poverty. And I had a pet rabbit. I lived next door to my grandparents, and in their garden I had a pet rabbit that disappeared one Christmas.

24:59Yeah.

25:00Amol Rajan: So maybe we should bring back rationing. Do you partly say that because you're worried about what people are eating today? Oh. Tell me about it. Ultra-processed foods and all the rest of it. I think the biggest problem, I do remember in rationing that we're allowed two ounces of sweets a week. It's hard for people to imagine that now. It is hard to imagine, but what people don't understand, I believe, is that sugar, sweetness, is an addiction. just like smoking is and i think um that people have got addicted to sugar and they can't do without it what should we do i say this as a parent of four kids what should we do about the ready availability of high sugar high salt fatty addictive often called ultra processed foods well i don't know what to do about it but um if i go back to my campaign that i i want a people's politics i think together we could work that out before you came in today i was talking to some of the team including some of the younger members of the team saying what would you like to ask delia and one of them aphelia had such an interesting thought she said what was it like being on the one hand a very public very famous woman who is known for kind of what you did in the kitchen in the domestic environment but at the same time being an entrepreneur I wasn't an entrepreneur you were an entrepreneur no I wasn't I was a cookery person trying to teach people cooking that had the good fortune to be able to teach them on the television so people learned to cook on the television and they went out and bought the book what was your mission

26:51to take away the fear just to take away the fear people I can't cook I don't know how to cook why should they why why should you just send a child off into the world and say right you're now going to cook for yourself without them knowing without having any knowledge it's like giving people the keys to a car with no driving lessons so people are afraid to cook so I just all I wanted to do was just take that fear away.

27:21Amol Rajan: You did it with extraordinary success because I think you sold over 21 million copies of your books. You've many, many, many programs. Why do you think people are scared to cook? Because they don't have any training. Nobody tells them how. I mean, it was removed from schools by the Thatcher government. Was that a mistake? I remember reading about it, yeah. Yeah, I think it was. Because those life skills should be in school, you think? Well, I think they should, but what happened was afterwards I went to try and lobby a bit about there not being any education. Oh, did you? I did, I tried. And they said the problem was, and I understood absolutely, that when they took cooking out of schools, they took all the equipment, all the kitchens and all the equipment, and there was no way the government could ever afford to put all that back again.

28:16Amol Rajan: Would you like them to do that now?

28:21Maybe I would, but I think now anybody can learn to cook if they want to.

28:29Amol Rajan: There is this astonishing website, which I really recommend people go to, Delia Online. Yes. And it is this universe of friendly, clear, concise recipes, often with accompanying videos from you. And you've always got, if you know about Delia Online, or there is, you know, other chefs who've got brilliant YouTube channels, there's almost no excuse for not doing it. Well, there's a recipe collection and all the recipes are good and they really are. They've been worked on and they work and they're good. But I've also done something I'm really proud of that nobody knows about or cares about. And that is an online cookery school.

29:09Amol Rajan: Tell me about it. Well, I just did cookery lessons, not like I did on television, but in close up. So you only see what's going on and you just see hands doing it and a voice telling you. So it's all in close up. So you can actually see, you know. yes how to chop an onion yes where can people find that dealer online it's all there yeah cookery school the cookery school so in actual fact you could if you wanted to i mean i don't recommend looking at it on a phone but a child could go on the bus to school and learn how to make an omelette because this is the thing you also some people may not realize it's particularly younger members of our audience that you taught kids too because there was swap shop with noel Edmonds.

30:00Amol Rajan: Tell us about Swap Shop. I just loved it. It was three hours of live television. Three hours of live television in the studio in London. And so there were guests coming in and out. There were pop groups. I mean, gosh, I was so lucky. I mean, I just did the odd recipe. You know, I wasn't on it all the time. NatWest partners the Amol Rajan Connection. It's the bank that I've used for 25 years since that first day I walked into a South London branch with my dear dad. What sets NatWest apart is its mission to help people turn ambition into action, from taking a first financial step to building a business or planning what comes next.

30:44Amol Rajan: It is next level banking with practical support, ideas and expertise behind it. I'm very grateful to them for their support. As they say, let's do this. What was the moment by which you became someone who would go on TV and do this stuff? What was your big break? I was on the Evening Standard. The Evening Standard was one of the best newspapers that ever existed. Charles Winter was the editor, was he? There's five editions a day. Yeah. And he was brilliant. The whole newspaper had the highest quality journalism. It was a brilliant newspaper. and of course it was in the capital so it was like the capital's local paper and I did a recipe every day for six years.

31:27Amol Rajan: Right. So when the BBC were looking for a new cookery presenter there was me doing recipes on the in the evening standard being seen by everybody commuters going home and so they asked me to come and do a trial. But did it take guts to keep it simple because I think there's a danger. I mean, I wouldn't know about that era necessarily, but there's a danger with television, certainly with the internet now, that people want to complicate things. It's about finding tactics and techniques. And I've watched a huge amount of you growing up, and I watched a huge amount of you in preparation for this interview.

32:04Amol Rajan: And I'm struck by the seductive simplicity. And I mean that as a compliment. I don't mean that as an insight at all. It's just, it's really clear. It's kind of slow. It's quite straightforward. forward and I noticed that you got a lot of stick for that you know people calling you the volvo this that and the other but but it worked because it meant that you could actually follow what you were doing people could learn people could learn so one of the things I'd say about you and this comes across in your books we're going to get into is you're remarkably humble about your achievements it's almost quite strange how humble you are because you've had such an extraordinary impact and it's nice to see you smile as I say that if you're honest are you aware of how profoundly you've changed this country?

32:47No.

32:48Amol Rajan: Are you really not, Delia? Are you really not aware that generations, when we ask people for questions, they all come flooding in. When I say to my mother-in-law or to my wife or to my daughter, Delia Smith's coming on, there are so many lives that you have touched and transformed. And I just wonder if that gives you some sort of pride. It just gives me a lot of joy. It gives me a lot of joy. I still get a lot of letters and I do still get people, you know, coming up and thanking me. You know, after a football match, you know, all the young kids will come up. Can I have a selfie for my mum? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

33:28Amol Rajan: And it's nice because you can make people really, really happy. You also, I think you saved quite a lot of marriages because I think what you did at Christmas was a kind of an amazing, Christmas is so stressful for so many people and you became this almost kind of therapist this kind of guide to making sure Christmas was quite fun Well it was hard, it's very hard to do Do you know, they were saying to me that you're meant to have got your Christmas pudding ready in the middle of the year, is that right? You're meant to get Christmas pudding? No, November See, I told you guys, November's fine Why is November fine?

34:03Amol Rajan: Because they were saying you've got to soak it in alcohol from way back when No, you just soak it over overnight but um i do think it's it's the most amazing recipe and i learned it from my mother and my grandmother pudding yeah yeah yeah can i ask you the big burning question i have a theory about english food which is that everyone actually hates turkey do you actually like turkey yes really yes isn't it just gotta have the right turkey and you've got to cook it right but isn't It's just a dry, big chicken. Yeah. If you have some old factory produced, you know, mass produced, what I call sliced white turkey, then yes, I agree with you.

34:46But if you have, you know, another grade, if you have a bronze turkey and you cook it properly, and a lot of people would look at me now and say, oh, that's really old-fashioned, don't do that anymore. but the way I do it, it does taste well, good, and it's not dry.

35:10Amol Rajan: It's not dry. Do you do it with a cranberry sauce? I do cranberry sauce and English bread sauce. And a proper English bread sauce, not one out of the packet. No, no. Just terrible. You're going to make a proper... Bread sauce is one of the best English sauces. Why is it one of the best sauces? So bread sauce is... We've got clove, bread, milk. What else have you got in there? Butter? It's brilliant. It's brilliant. Can I just ask you about the art of cooking? You said that it was interrupted. how healthy that process by which the art of cooking is learnt and then passed on through the generations in the home through youtube through delia online through your cookery school with those close-ups of hands how's the art of cooking doing at the moment i i have to be totally honest with you i'm not keeping a very close eye on it i don't watch it on the television or anything and from what I see, it's a bit sad, I think.

36:05I do think there was a very famous French, English cookery writer called Elizabeth David. Of course. And she talked about French cooking and she also talked about cooking that was theatre on a plate and I just love that expression.

36:23Amol Rajan: I love it. Don't you know it? Everywhere you go, theatre on a plate. I want to talk about Norwich. Quite a lot of the themes in your book, which are about the influence of money or the importance of community, can actually be seen through your remarkable time in charge of Norwich City. And I promise I'm not going to ask you to say Lesby Avenue, which I'm sure every single interviewee has ever done. Oh, I'll talk about that if you want to. Lesby Avenue. Okay, let's talk about that. So did you know you were being filmed? No. You've got to set the context here One of my biggest faults is I'm not sort of aware of things And I didn't, I wasn't aware that Sky were there that night You're so self-deprecating, do you?

37:11No, no

37:11Amol Rajan: And I think you, I can tell when people are faking it You genuinely are Do you mind me asking? I am genuinely an idiot some of the time Are you quite low on self-confidence? No So why are you so? Now I was. Gosh, yeah. How long were you low on self-confidence? Most of the time. For most of your life, even adult life? Yeah. Were you an anxious person? No, but I think it develops as you get older. And was that partly because of your school record? Was that partly because you felt that academically you'd failed? Yeah, yeah. Did that haunt you, do you think? No, not now, but for a while, yeah. Because I think you are very genuinely humble when you've really got nothing to be humble about.

37:56Amol Rajan: You've had this extraordinary life, you know, which you've got a long way ahead of you. But it's quite a striking thing, if you don't mind me saying, how kind of your kind of approach to a lot of these things is to start off with this kind of, you put yourself down. So when we're talking about Norwich, this extraordinary moment, which people can watch on YouTube. By the way, if you Google Delia Smith, as I have to repeat it, first thing that comes up in Lesby Avenue. And yet you start off that story by saying, I'm not really aware of things. It's a very striking thing. I think, yes, I just didn't, I just forgot Sky was there.

38:28And, OK, I can make a big excuse. There's always cameras. Whenever you're at football, you know, whether it's on television or not, there's always cameras. So maybe that was it.

38:39Amol Rajan: So what was happening? They were playing Man City. The week before, we played Middlesbrough, and we were losing, and the crowd really got behind the match. And I thought, how amazing that the crowd suddenly got behind us, and we were suddenly we had a draw instead of losing and so that was fresh in my mind and then we were losing and they were like little church mice you know they weren't saying anything or you know they weren't cheering and so what I wanted to do I ran down to the to the um to the tunnel where the football cup and I I just said get it up on the screen You know, come on, cheer on, come on.

39:24Just get it up there. And the guy said to me, no, he can't. It's too late. You won't do it. You won't do it in the time. And he gave me the microphone. He handed me the microphone. Right.

39:38Amol Rajan: Have you practised it at all? Have you thought about what you... No, no, no, no, no, no. But, and I wasn't drunk. You know, you're not allowed to be passionate in England unless you're drunk. Well, I think a woman in particular. Yeah. If you're passionate, my God, you must be drunk. You know, it's not really how English people are. Have you seen the TV programme Ted Lasso? No. So Ted Lasso, you are immortalised. By the way, this is one of the most viral moments of all time. You are immortalised. There's a brilliant, brilliant TV programme called Ted Lasso, in which a female kind of football owner, I think, or manager is played by Hannah Waddingham.

40:16Amol Rajan: and she has a very similar moment to you. But what was very, what is mesmerising about that moment is that your voice goes and you really get into it. So you go, a message for the best football supporters in the world. We need a 12th man here. Where are you? Yeah. Where are you? And then you say. Let's be having you. Come on. I mean, you sort of, you kind of grew into it sort of thing. The thing is, though, that, and it's where I am now with this book, I can't bear to sit still and look at things going wrong and not want to leap up and do something. That is why you're... Does that make sense to you?

41:00Where does that come from, this sort of burning desire? I think we're all given, you know, something about us. You know, we're all different, we're all unique and special. And I think that my own what's in me is I want to do something to help if there's something wrong.

41:21Amol Rajan: Well, there's a perfect, perfect illustration of the issues that you're talking about in the book in the state of the modern game of football. Let me just ask you boldly and openly, someone who's given decades driving up and down Carrow Road, owning a club, as you did with your wonderful late husband. What does football mean to you? The most important thing I think it's given me is an appreciation of community, a real appreciation of what happens when people join together. And I said in the book, and I mean it, it doesn't matter where I go around the world, I'll always meet football supporters and all football supporters are kind of connected, which is what you're trying to do.

42:17Amol Rajan: I couldn't put it better myself. You write in the book, class doesn't enter into it. Neither does whatever country you come from or your gender, colour, race, religion or belief. Age is absolutely no barrier. You can be two or 102 and equally love going to football. You can be a lord, a prime minister, a famous film star and absolutely love being with other supporters. In which context? I've got to ask you about the state of football today I mean we are talking a couple of months after the boss of football Gianni Infantino who is in charge of I'm glad that got you laughing who's in charge of FIFA came up with a proposal which he later stood down to essentially sell a stake in the game of football now what did you make of that?

43:02Well you know absolutely abhorrent Why?

43:07Amol Rajan: He would say he was trying to raise money for the game. He's just another one of the power wielders, you know? He's just another one who's... It's unbelievable. But I do think that in spite of all the things that are wrong, it's like you can't blame ordinary people for what's happening at the top table of the world. It's the wrong people in charge. This is one of your themes, isn't it? Yeah, because I think, and there's a lot of good people in football. I've loved meeting other board directors, other owners. There is something which you know more than anyone about being connected. The future of food is an issue very close to my heart.

43:59Amol Rajan: If we get it right, it could unlock so many benefits for us as a society. that is one of the reasons why I wanted Waitrose to be a launch partner. Waitrose was the first UK supermarket to commit to regenerative practices. Since then, they've been working to support over 1 ,500 of their UK farms to transition to nature-friendly farming. They're also the only UK supermarket with their own farm, the Leckford Estate, where they've been farming regeneratively since 2020. More in the link below and keep an eye out in store for their new label on products that champion these practices. Gareth Southgate was sat in that very chair this time last week.

44:38Amol Rajan: And I was talking to him about what's gone wrong with football. And we were talking not long after the revelations in a report by the Premier League about Manchester City. Allegations which they deny. They deny all the charges put against them, even though they've been found guilty of those charges. Now, it is quite extraordinary, we don't have to get into the detail of it, but the range of financial mismanagement that Manchester City have been found guilty of. I've never been in a football boardroom. I've never owned a football club. You know, I love football, but I'm not as close to it as maybe you or Cara Southgate are.

45:12Amol Rajan: Did that surprise you? I mean, were you shocked by that, what happened at Man City? I mean, you're reading this Premier League report and it goes on and on and on and on, describing dodgy deals and sham this, that and the other, allegations they deny. What was your reaction when you saw that story? Well, I've always thought that money, you know, is the ruination of football. Really? Well, it tries to be. It attempts to be. But I still have faith in the ordinary football supporter. Michael and I didn't describe ourselves as owners. We described ourselves as caretakers. Because the football club will be there.

45:47You know, when we're not there, when the next owner's not there, the football club will still be there. I still believe in football supporters. I believe in them.

45:58Amol Rajan: And you saw yourself as kind of stewards almost who would pass it on from one generation to another. It's so interesting you say that about the money because Gareth Southgate said, I don't love the industry. You know, I don't love the commercial industry. He said about football, he said, I think the fans are saying, you know, we need better leadership of the game. And in a sense there, Gareth Southgate was picking up on your theme, which is actually, it's not the ordinary punters. It's not the fans. It's not the people with jumpers for goalposts on a Saturday morning. it's the power wielders, as you call them.

46:31Amol Rajan: Is that what's gone wrong with football? Yes, and I think that... I think it's very, very sad. It's very sad because it isn't fair. It isn't fair. But then, Amor, it's not fair that, like... I don't know the exact figures, that 10 % of the world have all the money and the 90 % don't. you know it's not fair but that's the world we live in but that's the world you're trying to fix with the book and i want to come directly to some of the arguments you make in um this plea for unity and solidarity i'm very very very taken by your point that we have the wrong politics for our age that's right it's amazing really if you think about it in in political history we talk about left and right left and right emerged as divisions in response to the french revolution which is quite a long time ago now and it does feel like we haven't got a politics you know an industrial revolution created the current politics we're living through another industrial revolution and our politics hasn't changed do you think that brexit specifically caused some of the divisions that you're looking to overcome well if you're talking about as we are talking about you and i being connected and unity what's the point of splitting up people say about brexit the argument would be that Brexit would make this country richer and more free.

47:57Amol Rajan: Has that happened? No, it hasn't because it's an untruth. And I would say the one word, the one safe word we have in our language, and if we stick to it all the time, is truth. What is the truth? We should all be every day of our lives thinking that. What is the truth? And what is the truth about Brexit? The truth about Brexit is, you know, you're breaking up a connection. And also that if you want to change it, you can't change it outside. You can only change it from within. And if you think the EU isn't doing right and it could do better, get in there. Change it. Have a voice. So this is an emerging theme because Andy Burnham, the Prime Minister, has said in his recent conference speech, he's moved the Labour Party towards the idea that after the next election, there'd be possibly a move to rejoining in some form.

48:59Amol Rajan: It might be the customs union, it might be the single market, it might be the EU. Do you think that we should have this kind of rapprochement with Europe, that we should rejoin? I think we should. But I think we should not mess about. Get on with it. Do it soon and do the whole hog. Because look, Europe, my goodness me, if ever Europe needed to be together, it's now. we're not long from french presidential elections which marine le pen could well win yeah and in germany the alternative for deutschland which says it's not a nazi party but it has um that means alternative for germany has um connections to and roots in the far right of german politics these guys people always use the phrase on the march for the right the fact is these guys are in the ascendant they're rising in the polls and that's not a politics that you particularly want to see is it?

49:48Well of course it isn't because that's what's bringing us down that is what is you know we have to learn as a species we have to learn how to connect together we have to learn how to become united and with with diversity you know not without diversity I think countries should be together without losing one jot of their identity. You know, every country should keep its identity because you can share your identity with other countries and it's enriching.

50:24Amol Rajan: Is there any evidence from history that humans can overcome their deep divisions? I mean, some people might have a different reading of history to you and say, actually, the truth is that the lesson of centuries of history is that we can't overcome divisions, that human differences are, you know, immutable and in the end those differences will drive us apart and the point is to manage those differences rather than try to overcome them or pretend that they don't exist. No, my answer to that is go for it. Go for it. Do it. Go for what? Unity. Unity is, I mean, we should have learnt as a species that the one thing, we've got everything right, we're so brilliant, but the one thing we haven't been able to do is unite.

51:10You're saying, you know, we haven't been able to unite. Well, now is the time when we're on the brink of extinction, which we are, to get to grips with unity, to really, really try it out. You know, it's never been tried.

51:27Amol Rajan: So you have this unusual gift for communication and clarity and connecting with people. is part of what you're trying to do now as you in fact enter a new chapter in your life to kind of use those to create a new politics yes absolutely spot on what does success look like that people understand that we start from scratch and we start to become community again we start but in very small ways every day. I think there's a wonderful, wonderful writer called Timothy Snyder, have you? Wonderful man, historian of Ukraine, yeah. Great man. Well, you see, Timothy Snyder in his book, Tyranny. On Tyranny, yes, yes.

52:17Amol Rajan: Yes, brilliant book, yeah. Now, this is what he says. He's got the recipe. He says, every day, make eye contact with people you see. Make small talk. Invite strangers. He has this whole list. Well, if everybody took that list and said, right, I'm going to do that today. I'm going to do all that today. What would happen is not they would think, oh, aren't I good? Look, they would understand that they were on the receiving end. because the thing that really gets human beings becoming who they truly are is other people. I couldn't agree with that more strongly. And, you know, a very big influence on me and one of the reasons I set all this up is a book from 25 years ago called Bowling Alone.

53:12Amol Rajan: Yes, I've got it. It's an amazing book. It's an American professor called Robert Putnam. Yes. And he noticed that basically it was called Bowling Alone, the decline, the collapse and revival of American community life. And he showed all these amazing studies about how basically social connection, the bonds of neighborhood and local associations were collapsing in America. Mothers unions, friendly societies, trade unions, local sports clubs. The reason he called it Bowling Alone is because Americans used to bowl in leagues, but now people are going to bowl literally alone. and he mentioned two radical technologies that had made Americans much more isolated.

53:52Amol Rajan: One was the car, which gave rise to the suburbs and people were spending a lot of time commuting and so they lived further away and that took away time from being at home. And the other was the television, funny enough, because before the television, people used to watch screens and it was a cinema, but with the television, they were kind of in their family unit at home. And, you know, since then we've had smartphones. and smartphones are probably one of the biggest killers of social connection, the social capital ever invented. And Robert Putnam now says, he's still alive. I wrote to him a few weeks ago, actually.

54:22Amol Rajan: Did you? He emailed back. How? Are you going to get him on your program? I'm going to try. I think he's, how can I put this? He's an elderly gentleman who's, I think he doesn't move around that much at the moment. He got it right. But he got it right. And what was amazing, I emailed him because I'd been speaking to Gordon Brown. Gordon Brown has just written a book called The Future Starts With Us. It's brilliant. And your chapter, I don't know if Gordon knew this, your last chapter, chapter nine of your book is basically Gordon Brown's The Future Is Us. And I think you, Gordon Brown, and Robert Putnam would have a very jolly dinner.

54:58Amol Rajan: Please could I come if we managed to pull it off? But it was basically... I'll cook it. You could cook it. Do you know what? I'll try and make that happen and we'll film it. That would be heaven if we could do it. Yeah. But it was about how we have got this crisis of connection and it's a real thing that in the modern world partly because of digital technology partly because maybe the decline of religious faith as well there just aren't that many places where people could come together and i know that you argue in the book that one of the lessons of your life is that sport is one of those places which still prizes community almost more than any other domain or any other field right but it's in our genes it's in us to be community and, you know, it's been lost.

55:41And, you know, I'm coming along now, I'm the cookery writer who's trying to say this, but when you've got people like Putnam and Hannah Arendt and all these people, they're all saying the same thing. Why don't we just sit down, listen to it and get on with it?

55:58Amol Rajan: And do it. Simple. Can I ask you about the role of food and bringing people together? Well, it's absolutely... What it's for, isn't it? It is, it's wonderful. Do you still eat out lots in restaurants? No. You don't? No. Oh no, why? Do you know any good ones? I know some fantastic restaurants. Can I have a list? Yeah, I'll take you to, I know you're not always in London, I'll send you a list of a couple, I'll take you out for an amazing lunch. There's a few, there's one or two that I like, but most of them are theatre on a plate now. What do you mean? Well, they're very poncy. I'm so glad you said that.

56:38Amol Rajan: I, I hate. Truth, truth. I hate, give me some ammunition here because I hate poncy food. So do I. I don't want all these little bits. I want a proper meal. So what is it about, so what modern restaurants are more interested in looking good or having a nice picture than actually giving you. Yeah, they're trying to be, you know, and when it gets out into the suburbs and they're trying to do it as well and the pubs, the pubs are all trying to do it, then you're really in trouble. That's because the poor pubs. Give me a plowman's. Somebody give me a plough. A lovely thick cheddar, extra mature. But that's because the pubs are in trouble because, well, the pubs are in big, big trouble.

57:14We need community.

57:16Amol Rajan: Well, one of the single biggest measures, I think, of the loss of community life is, so there's this wonderful phrase by the philosopher Roger Scruton where he said, pubs added to the moral savings of the community. Yes. If you lose a pub, you lose your moral savings. And I've got to ask you about the state of the hospitality industry. Pubs are closing at an extraordinary rate. I know. restaurants are closing at an extraordinary rate. It's really, really hard. I mean, that must worry you as someone who wants people to eat together. Well, what I'm trying to do in my book, I need to join forces with you.

57:48Amol Rajan: Yeah, let's do it. But what I'm trying to do in my book is, at the end, I say that please come to a Substack account and sign up and let's try and get as many people as we can to adopt the idea of creating a people's politics. Okay, the campaign starts now, right here. What does that look like? I don't know because it's a very big step and I've got nothing, nothing, empty hands. But I'm talking about people. So come and join us, whoever you are, whether you're you know an electrician or whether you're a lord or a politician or anybody come and join in and let's crack this thing what's the substat called the us project gordon brown's book basically makes the argument that he takes on putnam and says it's got much much worse future starts with us literally the title almost of your book and he says that it's very very clear that we have a crisis of social connection in this country and people who are isolated are much more likely to be attracted to populist and extreme politics and parties and also they're much less likely to believe that international cooperation can fix things like AI and climate change.

59:13Amol Rajan: And he's saying that, I interviewed him on the Today programme on Radio 4 and he had this wonderful line where he said, if there was a problem with utility companies, everyone would be upset. If there was a problem with the financial infrastructure, the banks, everyone would panic. but we have this social breakdown and we've got nobody's taking any note and we've got to turn our attention we've got to turn our attention to it a word about amazon one of the proud partners of this show you know around a million young people in britain are not in work or education and solving that is a real passion of mine amazon do a lot here but there is one program that really inspires me supported internships training for young people with learning disabilities and autism where 95 are unemployed despite most wanting to work amazon give them real jobs with a coach beside them the whole way and more than eight in ten go on to find permanent work search online for more i've got some quick fire questions which i want to i want to end by asking you then you're very kindly going to stick around answer answer some of our listeners questions but i do actually want to end in a way where we began this is obviously an extraordinary moment in your life um you just lost your late husband michael as you look forward to the future you know this is a show with the slogan win the future what do you want your future to look like i know it's i haven't got very much if i may say i almost feel like there's a sort of urgency about everything you're doing Delia you know there's an urgency about how you speak there's an urgency about the book there's an urgency about what you've said in this conversation are you trying to sort of are you is this coming from a place where you feel like because you haven't got that much time you've got to make as much change and do as much good as possible no I just feel that um all these people can't be wrong they can't be wrong all these people who are much more gifted than I am in a way I mean Hannah Arendt like 600 pages she wrote on totalitarianism.

1:01:22I mean.

1:01:23Amol Rajan: And the banality of evil. She's understood it. She's understood it. All these people are telling us this is where we're going wrong and we are now on the brink of climate disaster and AI disaster. And you know I'm sure AI is a wonderful invention and it can serve, but it's got to serve humanity and not the other way round. And our best hope is to come together. It's the only hope. It's the only hope. It's in nature. I mean, you know, if you watch David Attenborough telling you about how the lions go out and get a giraffe for supper, off they go in a pack, a pride they're called, and he shows you how they go.

1:02:12So it's like a football match, like two there, two there, one at the top, one at the back. The giraffe is in the middle and they're getting their supper. They can only do it together.

1:02:22Amol Rajan: We are the most cooperative species. I've got some quickfire questions for you and then I've got some questions from listeners. Are you a cook or a chef? A cook. Why? Because I never did any training. I'm not a chef. I never learnt. I can't do things chefs do. What's a better profession to have, cook or chef? Cook. Why? Well, because it's about real food. It's about flavour. It's about... Well, there's some wonderful chefs. No, I mustn't degrade chefs. But cooks are better. Did you ever have a disaster in front of TV cameras? Yeah, all the time. Worst one? One that you remember? One of my assistants who was working with me said, don't make caramel in a saucepan, make it in a frying pan because it spreads out and it will come quicker.

1:03:09and I was just about to do it. So I said, okay, right, give me a frying pan. Mm-mm. So the whole lot was like one big black sticky mess.

1:03:20Amol Rajan: Sounds quite nice. And it was all being filmed. What little thing in life frustrates or really annoys you? Politics. It's not that little. What makes you smile? Any humour. I love humour. What do you fear most?

1:03:38Amol Rajan: the world collapsing do you eat meat yes how much tea or coffee do you drink two teas two coffees a day what do you think about people working from home um i think it's good but i do think they need people as well you've got to have if you're working from home alone, I think you've got to have a good social life. Favourite main course?

1:04:12It's like notes on the piano, you know.

1:04:14Amol Rajan: Too many. If you could relive just one moment from your life, what would it be? Any moment with my husband. What do you think your legacy will be? I'm not interested in it. I don't need a legacy, no. I think Dealey Online is quite a legacy, if you don't mind me saying. I think Dealey Online is a universe of recipes. And I think 21 million copies and I think generations of people being able to cook the basics who are too scared to ask other people. That's quite a good legacy, isn't it? I'm not sure whether people going forward will want that or want to cook. I mean, it's not... Won't people always want to cook?

1:04:51I hope so. I hope so, yeah.

1:04:54Amol Rajan: This is the strange bit, which I promise I've only decided to ask since we were sat together. But you made such a persuasive case for the power of silence. And I don't have much silence in my life. I've got four young kids, a lot of technology and a lot of information. Do you mind just making the case for silence? And then maybe we could just together just sit in silence for a minute in honour of your late husband, Michael. Okay. If you understand the power of silence, and it's not a big sort of wonderful, amazing experience. It's nothing like that. It's very ordinary. It's not anything sort of holy and, you know, wonderful, but it is just very therapeutic.

1:05:38And I think that if we want to really understand who we are, we need to get up one day, see where the dawn is, wherever you are in a flat, just look at the dawn coming and understand the whole universe is there. We need to be more universally aware.

1:05:58Amol Rajan: So shall we have a minute's silence? Indeed. And would you like, just before we start, to invite us to think about anything in particular? How much we value human life. Okay, here we go. Thank you.

1:06:29Thank you.

1:07:03Thank you.

1:07:28Amol Rajan: Thank you so much for coming on the Amol Rising Connection. Oh, it was lovely for me too. I loved it too. Wow. So the first thing that I take from that conversation with Delia Smith is that that is what stoicism looks like in human form. Her husband, who she was married to for 55 years, so extraordinarily close to, died just a few days ago. And the fact that she stuck to this interview and the fact that she was so brave and so dignified and so composed and didn't want to let us down, didn't want to let you down, I just think is absolutely remarkable. And that is, yeah, that's stoic. And I'm hugely grateful to her because I can only begin to imagine what she's actually going through beneath that brave exterior.

1:08:08Amol Rajan: The second thing is Delia Smith is an autodidact and she proves it is never too late to learn. I've just had a conversation with someone who left school 70 years ago with no qualifications whatsoever. And here she is in a wonderful studio in North London talking to me about Hannah Arendt and totalitarianism, talking about all the books that she is reading voraciously and absolutely loving. And I think that point that as you get older, you can actually learn more rather than less. It's just utterly inspirational. And the third thing is, you know, for decades, Delia Smith embodied and personified our food culture in this country.

1:08:46Amol Rajan: And Delia Smith today thinks that something is going really badly wrong with our food culture. Fast food, ultra processed food, ponce restaurants. I love that. I love that she hates ponce food and restaurants. Above all, the basic skills of cooking, how to master those basic skills, is being lost. And it's being lost amid the memes and trends of this age of algorithms. And I think she might be onto something. And really, her point is, why would young people know how to cook if nobody's out there teaching them as she once taught not one, but two generations? I think that's a completely brilliant insight.

1:09:19Amol Rajan: And I think the truth is, we need Delia and Delia Smith and Delia Online now more than ever. Thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate it so, so much. I really do. And by the way, Delia is back on Monday. She's answering some of your questions that you've sent in about all sorts of things, including some very, very useful cooking advice. You want to hear that. And I've got one request, which is please subscribe to the Amal Rajan Connection. That way we can stay in touch. Having you here means the world to us. It really, really does. And if you subscribe, which is completely free, by the way, it allows us to grow, to work out what's working, what's not working, and also to bring you fantastic guests.

1:09:54Amol Rajan: So please do hit that subscribe button. And before we leave you, just to say a huge and heartfelt thank you again to our launch partners. So thank you to Google Cloud. Thank you to NatWest. Thank you to Waitrose. And thank you to Amazon. They are our launch partners and they make all of this possible.