Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1990, and the presenter was Sue Lawley. My castaway this week is a professional cook. She started her first catering company nearly 30 years ago in a bed sitter in

Earl's Court where she washed the lettuce or kept the lobsters in the bath. In 1969 she opened

her restaurant which remains one of the most successful in London.

Six years later came a school for chefs both professional and amateur.

And most recently she's expanded further into mass catering catering a brasserie in Hyde Park and

cream teas at Hampton Court. Her philosophy of food is unpretentious. Keep it fresh

and keep it simple be it a banquet or a snack. She's the woman they credit with uncurling

the British rail sandwich. She is Prew Leith. All of which is quite an achievement proof

for someone who was a young woman had never quite literally I think boiled an egg. quite And my mother couldn't cook and she was an actress and she never cooked and of course

black hands laid wonderful food in front of us privileged whites and we ate it and

it never occurred to me to go into the kitchen.

But presumably you liked your food because people who don't like food can't cook.

No. I'm always saying to young cooks are you greedy because I do believe that the first requirement of successful cooks is greed.

You have to love your grub.

And you've got to keep tasting as you go.

That's right. That's right.

What's your favorite food? I mean, what you order for your your last supper before you depart for your desert island?

Well, I think I'm going to disappoint you with this but I think it might be bangers and mash with onion gravy and lots of butter and nutmeg in the mash. and are fundamentally traditional, aren't they? Yes, they are. I think really, although there's been a lot of exciting development in food, you have to be very careful.

The reason that fennel has been eaten with fish for years and years is because it tastes so good.

I mean the reason things last is because they're good and to just chuck them out for the

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