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

I'm Lariprendergast.

And I'm Olivia Potts.

And we're delighted today to be joined by Mark Diakano, the food writer, grower and photographer, who is the founder of Otter Farm in East Devon.

The author of seven books, his latest, Sour, The Magical Element

That Will Transform Your Cooking, is out now.

Mark, welcome to our podcast.

Very happy to be here, thank you.

So we always start at the beginning with childhood.

What are your earliest memories of food and cooking?

It was mixed, I think, is fair.

From when I was about 10, I was with my dad, just my dad.

He had more of a sort of short rotor rather than a repertoire when it came to the kitchen.

But even by that age, I was very drawn to confectionery.

And it's really difficult for me to sort of try and encourage my daughter to eat well

when she can really happily just say, but you spent all your dinner money on sweets.

And I did, and a lot of them were, looking back at it, were the sours.

You know, the acid drops and the sherbet lemons and all of that.

Apart from that, I guess, I remember my mum's cheese and onion pie for some reason.

But apart from that, very hazy.

You know, I certainly wasn't one of those kids who was kind of brought up on someone's knee

endlessly stirring the cake and fell in love with all things food.

...