Feedback with Stephen Fry: September 2024

Photo by Elliott Spencer

Feedback wtih Stephen Fry

If there was ever a guest that needed no introduction this is the one.

The term 'national treasure' is often bandied around indiscriminately, but when the King thanks you for 'enhancing our lives and becoming a national treasure' (as he did in 2010), it must be true! So it's a huge honour for us to welcome Stephen Fry as our Feedback guest this month, and that he took time out to answer our food and cooking questions.

You can win one of 5 copies of his latest book Odyssey, the final part of his Greek Myths series, see our competition below

Do you cook, and if so, what do you like to cook?
I do cook. I love trying new things, but have special passion for making things like mayonnaise and hummus. I find it so relaxing. Sometimes if I can’t sleep, I’ll go down to the kitchen and make a mayonnaise. That blend of concentration, rhythm and relaxation is just what’s needed. I have been slowly learning to use a knife properly over the years so anything that involves diced onions, finely chopped herbs … let me at it.

What food always reminds you of your childhood?
Treacle tart, chicken pie … all those good English things. Plus, more exotically the liptauer that my mother always made, and still makes. Polish gherkins.

Do you have a current favourite restaurant or type of restaurant?
Nothing too fantastically Michelin except once in a while. I like seasonality in British cuisine. Suddenly a Spring menu with asparagus, gulls’ eggs (you’d be lucky these days), elvers (ditto), but then a few months later, mushrooms, game, white truffle season and so on.

What food or ingredient could you not do without?
Cucumbers. Mayonnaise. Pork pies. Mustard.

What was the most memorable meal you can remember eating?
Michel Roux cooked a meal for me at the Waterside Inn - it was for a magazine article years ago. He included something rarely, if ever found in Britain. Salzburger Nockerl, a fabulous puffed soufflé.

Is there something particular you always keep in the fridge?
Cucumber and mayonnaise.

You lost an incredible amount of weight in 2009 by changing your diet and exercising, is there anything you still treat yourself to that you can’t give up completely?
Oh, woe is me. I put it all back on again over the pandemic lockdown. So I’m currently trying again. I am suited best to a high protein low carb kind of diet (hence cucumber and mayonnaise!)

Where did you enjoy your food most - boarding school or prison?
Haha! At school I only really noticed it if it was horrible or made me nauseous (any milk pudding like tapioca, semolina, custard) at prison it was a question of making sure no one came up behind you and tipped it on the floor as a “joke” or pinched the best bits off it.

What would be your last supper if literally anything was available to you?
Like so many Britons I would probably disgrace myself by asking for plates that included pork pie, pickle, mustard, mayonnaise, ham, boiled eggs … kind of luxury Ploughman’s would suit me, I reckon.

The final part of Stephen Fry’s Greek Myths series, Odyssey (Penguin Michael Joseph £25), is published on September 26th 2024. Pre-order here.

Win one of 5 copies of Stephen's book Odyssey