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Memories on a plate with James Martin
The comforting Yorkshire tones of celebrity chef James Martin have come to define the start of the weekend for millions of food-loving viewers of BBC1's Saturday Kitchen. Melody Rousseau finds out what foods warm the cockles of James's heart
MR: If you could bring back one great neglected dish that's fallen out of favour, what would it be?
JM: Chicken Chasseur from the 1970s.
MR: You were a child of the '70s, of course. What dish conjures up childhood more than any other?
JM: Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. My mother's Yorkshire pudding is legendary, with proper gravy, you know what I mean, with Bisto, Marmite, Bovril, in your gravy. Even now I still travel all the way back home to Yorkshire for my mother's Sunday roast, it's great.
MR: What's your earliest food memory?
JM: My gran used to have an old enamelled gas grill, you know, one with the little red knobs on it, and she used to make a bacon sandwich with bacon from Scott's the butchers of York, which has shut down now, bread from Marks and Spencers, and it was just the best bacon sandwich I've ever eaten. So if I could have another one of those again, that'd be great.
But there are other things as well, daft things like rhubarb and custard sweets. I remember queueing up at Rosie's sweet shop in Malton for a quarter of rhubarb and custard. It was that kind of stuff, Sherbet Dib Dabs.
There are certain tastes and certain flavours, that the minute you taste them just bring back so many memories. That's what's great about food really. It's not just about the ingredients, it's about the memories.
MR: So with that in mind, we've all heard of Desert Island Discs, what would your top five desert island foods be?
JM: Definitely that bacon sandwich. Another one would be my mother's roast potatoes, cold with butter, Anchor butter - we had Anchor butter when I was a kid. Then beef and croquettes with mustard cress, which I used to eat when I was a pot washer, when I was about nine years old. Fish and chips from Whitby, that would be another, and blackened cod from Nobu - fantastic.
MR: When you've been abroad, what's the first thing you want to eat when you get home?
JM: Probably fish and chips, ha ha, or a nice bacon sandwich. One of those two.
MR: When you were 11, you cooked for the Queen Mother, what did you make her?
JM: I did a crown of lamb, mint sauce from my gran's garden, veg and vacherin, which is like a meringue swan.
James Martin's latest book, My Kitchen (Collins, £20), is out now with hundreds of seasonal recipes. Buy this book from Saga Books
Would you like to share a much-loved recipe with us? Email your recipe to web.editor@saga.co.uk.
Recipes by James Martin
Reader comments
My husband and I each have a favourite comforting childhood dish - mine is roast chicken with white onion sauce, his is leek and potato soup, the secret ingredient in each case is childhood memories and the love of the people who made them.
Posted by: Genevieve | 30/11/2009 09:25:38
I have watched and read a lot of chef's output. James Martin is my favourite of them all. So down to earth and also cheffie? when needed.
Posted by: alan walker | 28/11/2009 12:52:28
