Mary Berry has had her say on Nigella Lawson, who has taken over Prue Leith’s role as judge on The Great British Bake Off. Mary originally held the role alongside Paul Hollywood
New Bake Off judge Nigella Lawson alongside Paul Hollywood on the show(Image: Channel 4)
TV cook and former Great British Bake Off judge Mary Berry has backed Nigella Lawson – saying she is a “glamorous” addition to the show who has brought “new life” to the format.
Mary, 91, had clearly been watching the current run of Bake Off and was full of praise for Nigella on the new series, whilst also urging her to take fellow judge Paul Hollywood to task.
Dame Mary said: “Bake Off is a wonderful format. We started it off not knowing what we were doing and then Prue has been doing it and it is a format and you fit into it.
‘I am delighted Nigella is there. She has got to keep control of a certain person. Paul needs handling and he has this handshake which keeps appearing.
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“Nigella has brought some glamour to it, and she really likes tasting doesn’t she? And I know how she feels, I always took a proper mouthful because if you just take a little bit, the person whose food you are tasting, their auntie will say ‘well she didn’t even taste it’. So I was aware of that.
“Nigella is a joy and I think she has brought new life and I think it will do really well. A touch of glamour.”
Speaking on stage at Cheltenham with comedian and former host of Bake Off Mel Giedroyc, the pair recalled how Mary would sometimes arrive for day two of filming in the tent with the same hair and make up, having slept without taking it off to minimise the amount of time she needed to be styled.
Laughing, Dame Mary said: “Why not? I used to put a towel over the pillow, I didn’t want them to think I was grotty. It does take such a long time for someone to do your make up.”
She also said she found the tent cold and would hide hot water bottles under her jackets.
Dame Mary was appearing at Cheltenham to promote her first gardening book, My Gardening Life and a new cook book All In One.
Arguably she was a gardener before she could cook, as she recalled how her father grew practical crops such as potatoes, sweet peas and celery during wartime to feed the family.
“My dad had to take to gardening because he had to dig for Britain and he gave me a little patch and I grew radishes,” she recalled.
Nowadays she has six raised beds in her garden raised to above knee height so she can easily reach them and even perch on the edge if she wants to take a rest.
She said one of her greatest pleasures now in life was ‘deadheading’ in the garden, the process by which you removed faded or spent flowers to tidy up plants.
She explained: “Deadheading is one of my favourite things, you don’t have to dress up for it. I can do it when I get in tonight if its not dark. I can deadhead the roses which are still flowering and it so encourages more things to come on.”
She added: “Gardening is similar to cooking, you follow a formula. But cooking you can follow a recipe and produce it by tonight. Gardening you have got to be much more patient.
“Which do I prefer, gardening or cooking? I think the two go together. We grow vegetables that we eat, things that I like, so there is no kale, lots of herbs and I think they go together.
“I am a fair weather gardener, I would walk a dog in any weather but I don’t garden in any weather. I wait until the sun comes out.”
Dame Mary is of course better known for her baking and cooking. Having studied in France and the UK, she worked for a number of food industry bodies and wrote recipe pages of Housewife magazine.
Her first cookbook, The Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook, was published in 1970 and since then she has gone on to write more than 50 others, which have sold millions of copies around the world.
Already a big name in food, Dame Mary became a household name to a new generation of cake lovers when she landed the role as a judge on The Great British Bake Off, alongside Paul Hollywood, Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins in 2010.
She quit the show in 2016, along with the hosts Mel and Sue, when it moved to Channel 4, staying loyal to the BBC and continuing to make shows there.
* My Gardening Life by Mary Berry is out now, published by DK.
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