The Spectator magazine combines incisive political analysis with books and arts reviews of unrivaled authority. Absolutely free. Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash voucher.

Hello and welcome to Table Talk, the Spectator's Food and Drink podcast. I'm Laura Prendergast.

And I'm Olivia Pot. And today we're delighted to be joined by Dee Ritali.

Dee is an artisan baker who has been at the forefront of the organic food movement, having founded

Petissary Organic in 1998. She grew up in rural Ireland and is known for her belief in preserving

traditional crafts. Her new book, Baking with Fortitude, Sourdough Cakes and Bakes, is available now.

Dee, welcome to Table Talk.

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

memories of food?

My earliest memories of food would probably be connected to baking because my grandmother baked.

So we would make bread every day, but we made Irish soda breads.

I can remember the curdling of the milk, and she used to put the milk on the window sill in the hot weather,

which was obviously incredibly dangerous.

But we all survived, and that's probably my earliest memory of food.

And what were meal times like in your family?

Very important. We all sat down. I'm one of eight children, and we were fed wonderfully.

And my parents, both of them them were really good cooks but were really

interested in the provenance of the food so we would sit and discuss what we were eating probably

every day so we went to school obviously and in the middle of the day we would be allowed out for lunch

so the meals were kind of very important for everybody to sit down and have a conversation

or just to be together as a family.

And what sorts of dishes were your parents cooking to feed all eight of you?

...