Prue Leith on free school meals – and why she’ll be serving toast at Christmas

She may have turned 82 this year, but Prue Leith’s career is still rising like a perfectly baked soufflé. She has been judging the beloved Great British Bake Off for the past six series; has just released her 13th cookbook; is currently across the pond making a documentary about assisted dying alongside her son, Tory MP Danny Kruger; is hosting a handful of one-woman stage shows; and is soon to judge The Great American Baking Show.

It’s exhausting just thinking about it – but how does she feel?

“I definitely feel my age sometimes,” admits Leith, who recently moved into a new Cotswolds home with her husband of six years, John Playfair, 74. “I’m much more inclined to take the lift than the stairs, and I really like to nap if I can get one in. That’s one of the great things about Bake Off, because if there’s a three-hour bake and the judges don’t have to be in the tent, I’ll go for a kip.

“But apart from that, I think I’m very lucky, because I’m healthy and I’m pretty energetic. I’m an optimist by nature, so I enjoy myself. I feel sorry for people who are depressed or unhappy because it’s not their fault, it’s all to do with the amount of chemicals and serotonin levels. I obviously have very good spirits and my attitude is that if something goes wrong, then it was still a damn good idea and I’ll either try something else or have another go. I’m more focused on the future than dwelling on past mistakes.”

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Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Leith moved to London in 1960 to attend the Cordon Bleu Cookery School. Alongside starting a business supplying high-quality business lunches, she also opened a Michelin-starred restaurant in Notting Hill, became a food columnist for numerous national newspapers, and published a dozen cookbooks.

While her first foray into television was a daytime cookery show in the 70s on Tyne Tees, and she went on to judge the BBC’s Great British Menu for just over a decade, it is The Great British Bake Off that she is best known for.

“I’d always been sort of slightly famous, and when my children were little, they would get embarrassed when someone spotted me or saw me on TV,” admits Leith, who has two children – the aforementioned Danny Kruger and adopted daughter Li-Da Kruger. “Then they grew up a bit and were rather proud of me. I had a bit of street cred. But oddly enough, I wasn’t prepared for the level of fame Bake Off would bring,” she admits.

Public reaction

Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood on the Great British Bake Off (Photo: Mark Bourdillon)

“People do notice me more now, but it’s not the sort of fame that would hold me back. I’d hate to be as famous as Madonna or someone who isn’t able to walk down the street. I often don’t notice that people recognise me, but my husband does. To be honest, I quite like it. I like the attention and I feel very flattered. Everyone is always very nice, although one woman came up to me when I was on Great British Menu and said, ‘Are you that woman off the telly.’ And I said yes, and she said, ‘Well, you were quite wrong about that lemon cake, it was perfectly delicious.’

“So I said, ‘Well, no, there wasn’t enough lemon and it was rather sludgy.’ She wasn’t particularly happy, but I was the one who had to taste it, not her.”

Baking is not Leith’s only passion. When her mother, the actress Margaret Inglis, fell ill with dementia and became deaf, nearly blind and immobile, she battled the NHS’s attempts to keep her alive with antibiotics. The experience, along with having to endure her elder brother David’s agonising death from bone cancer in 2012, inspired her to join Dignity in Dying and campaign to legalise assisted dying.

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“I’ve always been an interfering woman,” explains Leith. “My brother was in agony before his death, and the hospital seemed determined to keep him alive no matter how much he suffered. I remember asking one of his nurses whether they could give him more morphine, and they couldn’t because of hospital rules. But she said I’d be surprised by how many patients and families plead for more drugs because they’re in so much pain. It is a horrible and unnecessary way to die and I still believe palliative care isn’t good enough.

“I’d like to see medically assisted dying, with the drug being self-administered so that the patient is in control and can change their mind right up to the last minute. In Oregon, they have doctor-assisted suicide already, which I think is a very reasonable option.

“My son doesn’t agree with my views, but young people don’t need to think about death and lots of people don’t want to think about it. However, it’s so important to have an idea of how you’d like your life to end instead of going into it blindly.”

Campaigning force

Baking is not Leith’s only passion (Photo: Bloomsbury)

Leith has also been involved in many campaigns surrounding food for school children. She founded and chaired the charity Focus on Food, which promotes cooking in the curriculum, and from 2007-10, chaired the School Food Trust – a quango set up by the Labour government to improve school food after Jamie Oliver’s television exposé of the poor quality of school dinners.

“The trust did really well, until the Tories got in and had a bonfire of the quangos and dismissed us,” says Leith. “As a nation, I really believe we need to widen the eligibility for free school meals. There’s just so much child poverty and kids going to school with nothing in their bellies. How can you expect them to learn when they’re hungry? It’s true that you could get free school meals if you qualify, but the fact is many families are often not able to afford more than a couple of slices of white bread. It simply can’t go on like this, especially in the current climate.”

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With so many plates spinning, it is a wonder Leith has made time to put together her latest cookbook, Bliss on Toast. A novel idea, the book features a range of recipes based on toast, from bubble and squeak with hollandaise on fried bread, to falafel, edamame and red-pepper houmous on flatbread, and even desserts such as toast with fried bananas, brandy and ice cream.

Her inspiration behind the bread-based book? Cooking at home with her husband.

“As a chef or a caterer or a cook, making meals for two people is just not what you do,” says Leith. “So I’d be at home making a chicken casserole or a beef stew, and there was always something left over. I hate to waste food, so I’d often eat the leftovers on toast. I realised that actually everything tastes better on toast, and if you set it up a bit by adding a grilled tomato or some crispy bacon or a little pickled fennel, then it looks and tastes a bit different. I made it for John one night and he said it was so lovely I should think about serving it for dinner – and I rolled with it.”

Will she be serving toast at her Christmas dinner parties? “Absolutely,” she laughs. “People often think you have to go all out when you host, but most of the time guests love to eat simple things. If you can do something which is more or less assembled quickly with delicious ingredients and looks fabulous, then why not?”

Bliss on Toast, by Prue Leith, is published by Bloomsbury at £14.99