My father was often away with the army, or in London, but mum did a lot of the cooking. She never liked cakes - not baking. Meat. Fish. That's what she did.

You get lots of people, especially where I live, who go in to a butcher and insist on organic beef - even when the butcher has better-tasting stuff from a farm that's been producing wonderful meat for 100 years but hasn't jumped through the hoops to get organic certification.

London was a spice mecca. The first recipe for curry in English was actually published in 1747.

Tom Parker Bowles Quotes