There is usually only one person who has cooked thousands of times for each of today’s leading chefs and that is their respective mothers. Few people play a more influential role in the development of a child’s palate and its relationship with food than mum.
Most of us can recall a comforting family favourite cooked by mum or at some time or other have exhorted the supremacy of mum’s roast dinner, her fish pie or cheesecake. Top chefs are no exception.
But many chefs showed a precocious talent in the kitchen and were eager, from an early age, to usurp mum’s role and wear the apron rather than hang off its strings.
In interviews published in December’s olive magazine, Celia Blumenthal reveals that “by the time he was 14, Heston was cooking our Christmas dinner”. In fact, Mrs Blumenthal couldn’t cook anything much without her son sneaking by and dipping his finger in the pate or pie to taste it. A habit that his own kitchen staff today are well used to.
“I used to do a very good chicken liver pât? and there would always be a finger mark in it because he’d come in, open the fridge and try it,” says Celia. “He’d try to cover it up sometimes, but I’d always know. Once he left a dustpan and brush in the fridge because he’d had them in his hand, put them down to get at the pât? and then completely forgot about them.”
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Heston confesses that he was “a terrible picker” with a penchant for his mum’s Bolognese sauce sandwiched between two slices of Mother’s Pride.
According to Celia: “When he really got into cooking he became very obsessive about it. He used to do ratatouille, but it was cut far too small for me – life’s too short to cut tomatoes any smaller than a fingernail.”
Jamie Oliver’s mum, Sally, seemed quite happy to pander to her son’s foodie pretensions. “When Jamie’s school dinners got bad, he started taking a packed lunch. I used to give him a bag of celery sticks and peppers, a sandwich, and juice. I even used to get an orange and peel it, then put it back together and wrap it in Clingfilm. He was such a mummy’s boy. I’d also pack bananas and write things on them, like ‘love from Mum’. He liked that.”
For his part Jamie admits that his mum’s cooking has always informed his own culinary endeavours. “We were very lucky and Mum was famous for her cooking among my friends. Six young boys tearing around the house and then begging for her Bolognese was quite usual. She was a good mum, a really good mum.”
Read more interviews from December’s olive magazine on sale now priced £3.40, below.
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Helen Cosgrove and Gordon Ramsay
HELEN COSGROVE
‘When Gordon was growing up I used to bake a lot. Gordon used to lick the bowl, of course. When I made pastry, if I had some left over, I’d let the kids roll it out and play with it, mainly to keep them occupied. Apple pie was always a favourite of Gordon’s – my grandson Jack says I make a better pie than his dad. ‘Gordon was a good eater, but he hated tripe. I think that’s because I didn’t much like it either – I used to cook it for his father. If anything went wrong with my puddings, I’d put a lot of custard over them and call them a surprise pudding – sometimes he asked if I could make them again. ‘And no matter what he ate, he always liked a piece of bread and butter with it. ‘The first meal Gordon cooked for me after leaving college was chicken in a white sauce with salad and new potatoes, and a pineapple dessert. It was lovely. The only thing was, at the end of the meal he decided to go off to the disco and I was left with the washing up. He’d used every saucepan and dish I had. I vowed I’d never let him in my kitchen again. ‘Our Christmas was always quite traditional and I’d make my own stuffings and puddings. When he was small, Gordon used to put the silver sixpence in the pudding – it was always his favourite part of the meal, I think, because he was anxious to find his sixpence.’
GORDON RAMSAY
‘Mum was a nurse, and had four of us by the time she was 20, so our upbringing was very disciplined – we weren’t allowed to be fussy at the table. But she was a very good cook and she always instilled in us the importance of eating veg. ‘The thing that always struck me was her total calmness, whether there were 10 for Christmas Day, or two. Even when she had to work on Christmas Eve, the dinner would be on the table on time and she’d be as cool as a cucumber. ‘In the early days, I’d come home to ham hock barley soup, or steak and kidney pudding. But everywhere we lived, she’d tap into something local, so when we were in Birmingham she learnt how to make fantastic curry. ‘Her bread and butter pudding is absolutely amazing, although it did come back to bite me when she made it on The F Word and beat me. These days when she comes to look after the kids, I ask her if she can make it.’
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Tanya, Rob and Tom Aikens
TANYA AIKENS
‘The twins were fussy eaters. When they were five or six, I’d serve them a proper meal and end up giving them sausages and beans, just to get something down them. Rob didn’t eat fish until he was in his 20s. He still doesn’t like shellfish. Tom doesn’t like smoked salmon or oily fish. ‘I remember the turning point came when they were about 12 and we went on a skiing trip to France. We’d been driving for a long time and stopped at a two-Michelin-starred hotel and restaurant. We were in our dirty old ski stuff and the car was full of orange peel and two whitegloved members of staff came to take our cases. The twins said, “Oh my god, Mum, do you see what’s coming?” ‘When we got to our rooms we asked if something could be done just for them. They had a lovely tomato salad presented on a beautiful plate with baby carrots dotted all the way round, then a little fillet steak with chips and ice cream. ‘We went to France a lot because we had a house in the Auvergne. One Christmas we went over and had to smuggle in our turkey, hidden in the boot of the car. It snowed on Christmas Eve and we went out in the forest and chopped down a Christmas tree. ‘I used to teach the boys basic stuff like cakes and biscuits, but I don’t think I really inspired them with my own cooking. What I did do was allow them to mess about in the kitchen. Their real inspiration was because they were allowed to experiment. I don’t follow recipes. I get so far and then want to add something else. They probably get that from me.’
ROB AND TOM AIKENS
Rob ‘Mum’s best meal was roast lamb with roasted parsnips and potatoes, and veg. Then rhubarb or apple crumble and custard. We always wanted Bird’s Custard. I loved Bird’s Custard, still do. None of that crappy crème anglaise! ‘Visiting a Michelin-star hotel in France when we were about 12 was a defining moment for Tom and me. We thought Dad must have made a mistake in booking us into such an amazing hotel where the staff wore white gloves. The appeal was the simplicity of the food, cooked just right – steak larded with beef fat and homemade vanilla and chocolate ice cream. Going on holiday in France helped make us want to become chefs.’ Tom ‘We used to make a lot of cakes with Mum when we were little. Victoria sponges, chocolate cakes, birthday cakes with Smarties and as much coloured stuff as we could get on them. The bigger the better. My treat was eating raw cake mix. ‘Mum always did Christmas with turkey, sprouts, parsnips, carrots, bread sauce, pudding and mince pies. We’d never do anything different – that would be unthinkable. As we got older we’d help, but we wouldn’t tell her what to do in the kitchen. We know our place! ‘Going on holiday to France as a child showed me how creative and artistic cooking could be. At home we had casseroles and stews. In France I tried frogs’ legs, duck gizzards and hearts – I didn’t necessarily like them, but I tried them.’ scarper and say, “the French has got his cheese out!” ‘Christmas has always been over two days: Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We always had smoked salmon and a roast bird of some kind – turkey, a French capon, sometimes a goose. And dessert in the early days was a bûche de No?l, but that quickly became a Christmas pud – and we always had a Stilton on the table.
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Monique Vittet and Michel Roux Jnr
MONIQUE VITTET
‘I’m not sure if I have influenced Michel’s cooking, although I always made fresh food and we were lucky to always have great produce in the house. ‘I came to England when I was 18 and English dishes, so I learned how to make steak and kidney and shepherd’s pie. I always made it with fresh tomatoes and leftover meat from a leg of lamb, so it was really delicious. I also made English puddings like treacle and summer pudding. Michel loved English custard, but I always made it myself. ‘Michel would come home from school and be very excited by food and what we were having. He would come in and ask questions about what I was doing in the kitchen – when he wasn’t watching television, that is. ‘We had two Christmases in our house. On Christmas Eve we had onion soup, boudin blanc and pheasant (and we put our shoes, not stockings, near the chimney), then the next day we’d have an English Christmas. I think Michel preferred the English Christmas day.’
MICHEL ROUX JNR
‘My mum has been a huge influence on me – she’s a perfectionist, her own biggest critic. She’s got one of the best natural palates of anyone I know – mine’s nowhere near as refined. ‘Once my father opened Le Gavroche, Mum took charge of the nest and she was always cooking. One of her specialities is veal sweetbreads, braised with a little bit of saffron and cream. I loved the offal she cooked – brains, kidney and black pudding – but I hated tongue: it’s the texture. And I can’t stand cooked carrots or French beans, but she’d just put them on the plate and say, “eat your beans”. ‘At one stage I took a packed lunch to school. The other kids would all pull out white bread with Marmite, but mine would have a slice of garlic sausage and stinky camembert: everyone would scarper and say, “the French has got his cheese out!” ‘Christmas has always been over two days: Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We always had smoked salmon and a roast bird of some kind – turkey, a French capon, sometimes a goose. And dessert in the early days was a bûche de No?l, but that quickly became a Christmas pud – and we always had a Stilton on the table.
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Lady Simone and Valentine Warner
LADY SIMONE WARNER
‘Curiosity is Val’s greatest gift. Even as a baby if you said to him, “try this”, he would. We lived in Japan when he was really small and he’d eat sashimi without a blink. I only ever remember him refusing to eat one thing, and that was when he was about 14. I tried to make a mousse of cabbage and it was a disaster. ‘If he was around when I was cooking he’d ask, “can I help?” I remember the first time he really took me by surprise with his cooking was when he was still at school. He raided the larder – we had two quails and some bread and anchovies – and just cooked. And I suddenly thought, yes, you’ve got a special talent. ‘Val still cooks for me now – it’s all very spontaneous. He lives nearby, so will ring up and ask if I’d like to come round for lunch. He’s always experimenting. I’ve never eaten the same thing twice at Val’s. ‘When I look at him now, on television, I can see all his past experiences coming out. There’s something about the memory of food – if you have a pleasurable experience as a child it will always translate into adulthood.’
VALENTINE WARNER
‘Watching my mother cook is amazing – it’s second nature to her. When I was at school I missed her cooking. She used to make amazing things on toast, like soft roe. She’s the queen of salads, too. They always have tons of herbs and cheeky little surprises like meat and croutons hiding in there. And she makes a killer tarte Tatin. ‘Growing up, I watched her in the kitchen a lot. I remember standing on a chair, pulled-up backwards, and flicking through those cookery books with weird Technicolor photographs of strange recipes with blobs of piped mayonnaise. ‘The first thing I made was a disaster. It was pancakes and I completely messed up. I tried to make them into the shape of boats and then I put Mikado biscuit sticks into them – they were meant to represent ships docked in a harbour. I put them on a blue plate and for some reason called them Australian Bundles. Everybody was very polite, but they were disgusting. ‘At Christmas I often think about going away, but the closer it gets, the more incapable I seem of carrying out my plan. Christmas is very traditional: Brussels sprouts and chestnuts, sometimes carrot pur?e, but always goose, always ham, and always Cumberland sauce.’