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Hello and welcome to Table Talk, the Spectator's Food and Drink Podcast.

I'm Lara Prendergast.

And I'm Olivia Potts. And today we're delighted to be

joined by the actor James Dreyfus, best known for his roles in TV sitcoms, The Thin Blue Line and

Gimmy, Gimmy, Gimmy. James has also appeared in the film Notting Hill and has a long and

distinguished stage career. James, welcome to Table Talk. Thank you for having me.

James, we're going to start where we always do at the beginning and ask you, what are your

earliest memories of food? Well, I spent a lot of my early years in France and America.

So my early memories, we're talking during the 70s. So they're very much grape, grape juice and McDonald's, a lot of that in America and

those biscuits, those little McDonald's biscuits.

And in France, a lot of cheese, the whole house smelt of cheese.

So those are my earliest memories.

My mother wasn't really a cook.

And she lived freely a bit bad, you know, it just wasn't her thing.

And she had other children.

So my memory is much more of smells.

Whenever I smell grape or whether when I smell brie, it takes me right back.

And then, of course, in the later years, school food.

And are those brie, those cheese memories, are they fond ones or was it something,

I mean, sophisticated for a small child? Well, it was. I mean, yeah, I mean, to me, it smelled

disgusting as a child. I mean, really disgusting. But when I grew up and then started eating

...