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Page 1 of 2 Sophie Grigson was raised on a farm by a mother famous for her cookery books and her poet-critic father, and good food featured in her life from an early age. Today she, too, is a food writer and is the newly appointed President of the Herb Society. She invited Sheila Purcell into her Oxfordshire home.
It's a classic, homely farmhouse kitchen: a scrubbed pine table, rows of homemade preserves lined up along the windowsill and delicious smells wafting from the Aga."My one regret is that there's no room for a sofa," sighs food writer and TV cook Sophie Grigson, as she brews coffee at her country home just outside Oxford. Sophie, 47, was raised on a farm in Wiltshire. She remembers the cosy, stone-flagged kitchen as "a good, welcoming place - which is how I like mine to be - as well the warmest place in the house in the winter." Her father was the poet and critic Geoffrey Grigson, her mother the renowned food writer Jane Grigson. "I don't remember her teaching me in any structured way - she was in the kitchen a lot and mostly I just helped. I've been told my first proper bit of cooking was jam tarts, which I mauled so enthusiastically that the pastry was grey." But she had no plans to follow in her famous mother's footsteps and studied maths at university before working in pop videos. Her culinary career began by accident, when a chance meeting at the Glenfiddich food awards led to a commission from the Sunday Express. Since then, she has produced 15 books, continues to write regular cookery columns for national newspapers and magazines, and proved a hit with small-screen audiences who warmed to her friendly, informal approach in series such as the award-winning Grow Your Greens, Eat Your Greens. Head startSophie's simple, delicious recipes and imaginative use of ingredients inspire the most novice of cooks. Yet she had no formal training. "Of course I realise now that I learned a huge amount from my mother," she says. "Growing up in a house where you see your parents working at their professions and know that it's important gives you a head start. But for the first two years I would never talk to my mother about my work, although once I was established we did bounce ideas off each other. Mum was so pleased and supportive - she was a very generous, warm woman who encouraged young writers she thought had something to offer."Sophie's latest book Vegetables (Collins £25) is her favourite to date. "I find working with a theme so much more interesting and engaging than just a collection of recipes for different occasions, which can be a bit tedious and contrived," she explains. "You can focus when you have a limited palette and that makes you more imaginative." Herbs, the subject of one of her earlier books and TV series are a long-standing passion, which is why she was delighted to become the first president of The Herb Society last year (see below). "Most growing things that we eat have very powerful connections and herbs have a kind of magic," she enthuses. "They're such an important and easy way to improve food and add flavour with very little effort on the part of the cook. "They identify the cuisines of different countries and it's interesting now we're so much more multicultural in Britain, that a herb like coriander has become enormously popular. The history and mythology of herbs, the way they've been used in the past and their migratory patterns is fascinating. For instance, we always associate basil with Italy. But it originated in India and there's an Asian variety, which gives a different flavour." Herbs in potsWhen Sophie moved to her stone farmhouse, she had great plans for a herb garden outside the kitchen widow. "But they didn't thrive there, except the lemon verbena, which is happy as Larry," she says with a rueful smile. "So now they're growing in pots and around the garden in places that suit them. I'm not at all technical when it comes to growing things. My kind of gardening is to put things into the ground and keep my fingers crossed." |
