Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S7 Ep18: Bookshelfie: Rukmini Iyer

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

Food writer and bestselling author Rukmini Iyer shares how her recipes bring families together, the importance of flavours and the joy of finding a delicious, easy solution to dinner. Rukmini is the bestselling author of The Roasting Tin series, which in five years has sold over 1.75 million copies worldwide. They’ve transformed the cookery space in the UK, leading the one-tin, one-pot, and one-pan revolution, and remain firm favourites among cookbook buyers who love Rukmini’s minimum fuss, maximum flavour recipes. Rukmini makes regular appearances cooking live on morning television and is the newest weekly columnist for The Guardian’s ‘Feast’ magazine.  Her newest book, The Green Cookbook, a collection of delicious and simple planted-based recipes, is out now. When she’s not cooking for work, she loves gardening, reading, wandering around food markets with her border collie and toddler in tow, renovating the house with her husband and entertaining friends and family. Rukmini’s book choices are: ** Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë ** Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons  ** The Secret History by Donna Tartt ** The Power by Naomi Alderman ** The Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season seven of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast. Every week, Vick will be joined by another inspirational woman to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and they continue to champion the very best books written by women. Don’t want to miss the rest of season seven? Listen and subscribe now! This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

At Harrison Healthcare, we know that lasting health starts with personalized care. We're not just a clinic. We're your partner in prevention, helping you achieve your health and longevity goals. Our expert team combines evidence-based medicine with the compassionate, unhurried care you and your family deserve today and for many years to come. When it comes to your health, you shouldn't settle for anything less than exceptional. Visit harrisonhealthcare.ca.ca.com.com.com. My problem is dinner and I want a solution to dinner. And I feel like mine definitely fall into the like, I've got a problem,

what I want to eat for dinner, and here's my solution. I can make this like delicious 30-minute meal. With thanks to Bailey's, this is the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast, celebrating women's writing, sharing our creativity, our voices and our perspectives, all while championing the very best fiction written by women around the world. I'm Vic Hope and I am your host for season's of Bookshelfy, the podcast that asks women with lives as inspiring as any fiction to share the five books by women that have shaped them. Join me and my incredible guests as we talk about the

books you'll be adding to your 2024 reading list. Today I am joined by food writer and best-selling author, Rukmni Ayah. Rukmni is the best-selling author of the Roasting Tin series, which in five years has sold over 1.75 million coffees worldwide. They've transformed the cookery space. in the UK leading the one tin, one pot and one pan revolution, and remain firm favourites among cookbook buyers who love Rookmanee's minimum fuss, maximum flavour recipes. Rookmanee makes regular appearances cooking live on morning television and is the newest weekly columnist for The Guardian's Feast magazine. Her newest book, The Green Cookbook, a collection of delicious and simple plant-based recipes

is out now. When she's not cooking for work, she loves gardening, reading, wandering around food markets with her board a collie and toddler in tow, renovating the house with a husband and entertaining friends and family. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me on. I have heard, Rickmanee, that your biggest collection is books. Yes. When did you start collecting?

Has reading always been a sort of lifelong love affair or something that you reached maybe at a later age? No, I've always loved books. I've always loved reading. My mum always says that her biggest memory of me as a child is she, I'd left something at home when I was at primary school. She'd come in to drop it off and I must have been about four or five. And I was reading, bang in the middle of the playground by myself, standing up. And all the children were running around, playing.

And I wasn't paying attention to anyone. I was just reading my book. And she thought that sort of summed up my like, everyone else can go and hang. I just want to read a book. That paints such a picture. Yeah. But I know it so well because I used to walk reading my book. Yeah.

Not looking. No. I mean, very dangerous. But somehow, it was spatial awareness. That's so engrossed. Yes, in another world. Yeah, I always loved it. I think my primary school teachers were a bit.

You know, you have that bit. We have to read your books aloud when you're sort of 10. I always hated it because I was always reading something inappropriate like Agatha Christie. And it would always be a bit that was just a little bit too adult to be read out loud in front of the class. And they'd be like, oh gosh, you know, Eric Christie or. You read War and Peace yet, Rook, many. It's like, well, no. Still haven't.

Can you remember how it felt way back then when you were a child and you had your face, burrowed in that book, where it was taking you, why you wanted that escape? I don't know. I mean, I had a very nice childhood, not like Janeair, which I'm sure we'll come to. But I think it's just that feeling of being completely transported somewhere else. And I don't think I was particularly, I mean, when I was smaller, I would have read things like Judy Blume, but, you know, you always, for me, I always wanted to read fiction about people who are a bit older than me, you know, adults, teenagers, like people who had a lot,

life that was different and exciting and I don't know I just it feels all-encompassing when you're reading it and it's so different I'm always trying to work out what the difference is between reading a book and watching television and I guess it's that sort of passive consumption against the your world building in your head you're doing it yourself Minecraft in your own head yeah and do you like to read around do you like to take yourself out of your reading comfort zone yeah I love nonfiction as well as fiction I I love a bit of both um and history if it's well well well written. There's a great Nancy Mitford about Madame de Pompadour, which is so interesting, because obviously you think of Nancy Mifford, you know, writing brilliant fiction. But actually,

her voice is so acerbic writing about Madame de Pompadour, and she has opinions about her. And, yeah, anything really. Now that you are a little older and, you know, you're not in the middle of the playground anymore. When do you make the time to read? When my children are in the playground? No, I'm trying to. to set aside more time to read. I think it's a little bit different. Once you've got kids in there busy, I mean, when I was feeding my children, that's quite

a good time to read. I'm not a big fan of Kindles, but it is easier to read a Kindle with one hand. Yeah, that's so true. Yeah, rather than trying to read a book and breastfeed at the same time, that's quite difficult. So that was great to read a lot and train journeys as well. I think it's nice. If you can just put your phone in your bag, get on the tube, read a book.

That's quite like, well, this is my private book. time although I have been left behind it a station before doing that. Me too. It's really embarrassing. Or missed my stop on the tube. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because you're reading. It doesn't, yeah. Because how can you just pull yourself out of it?

You can't. You're not aware. I was the last person on the DLR and then the conductor came is like, you have to get off here. And I was like, oh God, there's no one on this carriage except me. DLR's a dangerous one because I swear there's no one even on there. There's no conductor. No, I don't, yeah, they must be like we're literally going to put it back into the box, train box.

I know you've recently been on enforced rest Yes As you described it I just want to say I hope everything's okay I hope you're feeling okay after your breast cancer diagnosis and your consequent surgery

Lots of love to you from all of us Oh thank you It's been very strange Yeah the enforced rest has been good for the reading Actually that has helped a lot Has it? Considering there's nothing on Netflix It's not in a great place at the moment is it? It's really not no

And there's only so many times you can rewatch series so it's been nice to think like oh no this is my this is my time i'm gonna you know my mum's been helping out a lot at home and my dad's well and they're like gonna go up so we've got the girls go upstairs and rest leave my phone downstairs and i'll just take a book and i've been yeah rinsing through sort of old favorites and then new ones luckily from work i can sort of raid the vintage library and ask them for new fiction and that's been really nice so you've had more time to put aside to escape into books yeah i love this idea as well of re-referral reading. I think that especially I mean for me a lot of my friends were finding that when the

world feels quite tumultuous there's a real comfort in something we know a story we know and going back to it returning to ever found that. Definitely definitely although sometimes you know if it's a story and I mean most of my favorite stories aren't um nothing terrible happens in them but um you know you always read something oh well actually I quite you know everyone loves Tudor history and I quite often read sort of different Anne Boleyn biographies. And you read it every single time. Like, maybe it won't happen. Maybe they won't execute it this time.

It's like, you know they're going to do it. But there's always that possibility when you're reading a story like something might happen that's different. And you're like, I know on a rational level it's not. No spoilers there on family history. That's so funny. You and Jerry Halliwell both obsessed with Anne Boleyn novels. Oh, really?

Remember, she came on the podcast and every answer she related back to Anne Boleyn. Well, she has great taste. Great minds think alike. Let's get into your first book, Shelby book. You mentioned it very briefly and we would be coming to it. Here we are, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. This was Bronte's first published novel and was immediately recognized as a work of genius when it appeared in 1847.

Often Jane Eyre grows up in the home of her heartless ant, enduring loneliness and cruelty. I realize when I say aunt, you might think I'm saying ant is in the, the insect. It's ant, as they say, auntie down south. This episode especially because I'm saying kootbook a lot. That's when my accent comes out. This trouble childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit, which proved necessary when she finds employment as a governess to the young ward of Byronic brooding Mr. Rochester. As her feelings for Rochester to develop, Jane gradually uncovers Thornfield Hall's terrible secret, forcing her to make a choice. Should she stay with Rochester and live with the consequences or follow her convictions,

even if it means leaving the man she loves? Tell us why you chose this book. Well, it's just, it's everything in this book. It's got so much in it, and I feel as something for a precocious child to read, it works so well because it starts out and it's about a child. It's about a precocious child who, you know, her family. She's awful. She just wants to read by herself. Like I felt a lot of sympathy for her. She's like, just want to be left alone on my window seat with a nice book. And these other kids want to play with me or, well, torment me. And I want, you know, I don't want any of it. And she's so brave. You know, she's this little girl and she's an orphan and, you know, the best children's stories tend to be about about, about orphans being plucky. And she's, um, I just, I just love how she's written as sort of she's awkward as she grows up. She's told she's not beautiful. but she knows she's smart and she knows she's resilient.

And I think it's one of those novels we were talking about rereading where you come to it with something else every time you read it. And I think my most recent rereading of it, I thought, is this one of the earliest examples of negging in written culture? It's just, so you know when she, Jane, Mr. Rochester, like, finally declares that, you know, he loves her, he wants to marry her, they're engaged. And then suddenly she feels a relationship. shift and he's being all sappy with her and she she has this sort of realization like if i turn into a sort

of simpering easy to get on with woman like his sort of flighty mistresses he's going to lose interest in me and she quite deliberately engages in this campaign of like needling him and being irritating and annoying him and it and it peaks it keeps its interest and he's furious with her and instead of you know saying like sort of nice things and he starts calling her like a witch or an import or whatever it is but you can see that it it's it's working for her and i was just like she's a green girl she what is she like 16 18 she's she's young and he's much older he's much more experience and she plays him it's amazing for anyone who isn't familiar with negging it's a book called the game which is a handbook uh it's awful for men to learn to get women by being mean to them by treat him mean keep him

The worst saying. It's so lame. But a bit of time travelling there. Yes, I, yeah. Well, I was just wondering, like, maybe Jane, if she, you know, if she time travelled, maybe she read it and went back. But I just think it's so smart of her to use that sort of, is the sort of thing you think maybe Rochester would have done, but she does it to him. Looking back, you said that you find different things, you notice different things, you read it in different ways, each rereading. Talk to me about a character like Berford.

Did you notice different things? Did you see her in a different way? Yeah. Well, so, I mean, with with that, the way, the way Bertha, she's sort of this shadowy character, you know, she's locked up in the attic. You see her in fragments. You don't see anything from her perspective. She's just this big, crazy woman in the attic who Rochester talks about quite demeaningly. And I think Jane does pick him up on it at points, you know, she was your wife.

And, you know, you must have loved her. and Rochester has nothing nice to say about her. And then, you know, there's other things like, other novels like Gene Reese's Wide Sargass OC, which I read at university, and then you get the whole story from, you know, I love these like retellings from another perspective,

a lot of them out now. But that was one of the first ones I read where you've got a character who's like a minor, but important character who suddenly has their own story. And Antoinette, rather than Bertha, like she's person of color, she's in, there's, you know, there's so many,

the themes like the post-colonial themes and the way that Rochester does not come out well. I mean, he doesn't come out well, I think, from Janeair. Like, he's an anti-hero. But he comes out so badly from Whitehawk, SOTC. And it's just nice to, I love that fleshing out of a person who needs a story and gets the story somewhere else. I imagine you is this, this Charlie, like you said, sitting in your window. So I'm just wanting to be engrossed in this novel immersed in it and realizing that there is so much more flesh to the characters

that we don't initially see that way and realizing that even the most introverted child has this huge world. Yes. Jane was also one of your earliest depictions of food that you remember. That's right. There are some good food bits in there. There are many, but they're good. So when Jane first gets taken to the,

the girl's school, there's a very kind head teacher who's very inspirational for her. And, you know, she treats Jane and Helen to these slices of like very, very thinly cut, but very delicious buttered toast and slices of seed cake that she keeps. And I didn't realize a seed cake. I think it's just a kind of cake which has got a few caraway seeds in it. It's not made of seeds. It's not a bird cake. but the description of that always sort of made me hungry

and I actually quite enjoy now having sort of plain Madeira cake on toast which people think is really weird. Cake on toast? Cake on buttered toast, yeah. It's really nice. Like you cut the cake quite thin and put it on a piece of buttered toast. It's got to be plain cake, not chocolate cake. I will never turn my nose up at anything.

I will give anything a go. I'll admit, yes, it sounds weird. Yeah, but I'm going to try it. Yeah, if you've got a bit of victorious punch left over. Yeah. Cake on toast. Have books been important to your food journey? Like, do you ever take inspiration from fictional meals?

Like, I mean, you know, hearing about this, this seeded cake in Jane Eyre and then this has become one of your treats. After I wrote the roasting tin book, obviously you were thinking about like, what should I do for that difficult second album? And I definitely thought at one point, like, oh, could I do? Because, you know, if you mentioned any novel, I would probably remember what the food I'm like, could I do like fictional feasts as a book? It's been done beautifully by Kate Young,

who's written a series of books called like The Little Library Kitchen, the Little Library Cookbook. And in that, she does that. So she's got Turkish delight from Narnia. She's probably got the seed cake from Jane Eyre and like a recipe to do, you know, to do with each one. Damn it, that corner of the market is. I'll just stick with my roasting tins.

But it was a great idea for a book. Your second book, Shelby book, is Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. When sensible, sophisticated Flora Post is orphaned at 19, you did say, often the best books they have an orphan at the centre of them. She decides her only choice is to descend upon relatives in deepest Sussex. At the aptly named Cold Comfort Farm, she meets the doomed Starcadders, cousin Judith, heaving with remorse for unspoken wickedness, Amos, preaching fire and damnation, their sons, lustful Seth and despairing Rubin, child of nature elfin and crazed old aunt ada doom who has kept to her bedroom for the last 20 years but flora loves nothing better than to organise other people armed with common sense and a strong will she resolves to take each of the family in hand cold comfort farm is one of the best loved comic novels of all time i know this is your ultimate comfort reads yes how many times do you think you've read it oh i don't know i think this is almost a sort of yearly if not every couple of years really really

I've read it so many times and you get more out of it. Again, I mean, okay, it's not that deeper novel that you're going to get tons out of it, but it's very enjoyable every time you read it. Does it retain its magic every time? It really does. Flora is so sensible and she's so clear-headed about what she wants. And she's incredibly manipulative and funny. Yeah, I love everything about it.

And I think the novel is just, it's supposed to be poking fun at a genre, I think quite long forgotten. Like there's a bit of D.H. Lawrence in it. But apparently this sort of like English pastoral novel was quite the thing when Gibbons wrote this and she wrote this as a send-up. But you can still enjoy it even though you know, we're not familiar necessarily with the kind.

Oh, there's a bit of Thomas Hardy in there, I think, as well. Like with these stock characters, like before Flora goes to the farm, she says to her very sophisticated friend, oh, you know, I've been invited to this farm. I mean, I bet there's going to be, you know, a Seth and a Ruben, and I bet they're going to be dreadful. And then she gets there, and the first thing she writes on a postcard, Seth and Rubin, exclamation mark, sends it off by telegram.

And I think I, we talked about how, you know, well, we haven't talked about television adaptations, but I only really recently, like, in the last few months, realized there are quite a few of them, but there's a film version of Cold Comfort Farm with Kate Beckinsale playing Flora Joanna Lumley playing her sophisticated friend Ian McKellan playing Amos What's his face? Rufus Sewell playing Seth

Like the casting is superb Like every single character is a star Stephen Fry's in it It's just and they're all sort of It's maybe like 25 years old So they're all babies But it's a perfect depiction of the novel and I was so happy to find

there as a film of it. It is really about this big cast. It's an ensemble piece. It's an ensemble piece. As a novel, this family in this book, to any of the family members remind you of anyone you know, any of your own family members? Luckily, no.

But, I mean, even the names of the cows, feckless, graceless, aimless, pointless. So brilliant. And even the cows have got names. Yeah, they're wonderful. Do you think that your family would make a good book, would be a good ensemble cast for a novel? I don't think so. I don't think we've got anyone quite as mad as in Cold Comfort Farm, which is a good thing. No, I think it would be all quite, it might be one of those sort of girl goes off to university novels, but nothing that's exciting.

Alas. Your recent book, India Express, is your most personal, inspired by a conversation with your parents about the 20, for our train journeys that they used to take when they were courting in India, which I just found so beautiful, so fascinating. So your parents are Bengali and South Indian. That's right, yes. How has your family inspired the trajectory of your life, and in particular, you're cooking?

Ah, well, I think the interesting thing is when you come from a kind of multi, even within your family, sort of multicultural, like Bengali cooking is so different from South. Indian cooking, languages are different, but my mum is a really sort of inventive and adaptive and an interested cook. Like I would say she remembers, if I could remember what books I read and what the food is in them, every event in her life, she will remember what she ate. Like, she's got this amazing sort of memory for that. And I guess I grew up with this amazing sort of combination of these different food cultures

here, but as well, you know, mom would cook out of the Sunday supplements like Jamie and Delia. So I had like the best of sort of three cultures, you know, like really amazing British food, really amazing Bengali food, really amazing South Indian food. And because we cook vegetarian at home and this latest book is vegetarian and vegan as well, I never felt like I missed out on having an interesting, colourful flavour packed plate because all the vegetarian food I grew up with was just amazing and delicious. and it doesn't feel difficult. I don't feel like there's ever a hole on my plate if there's not meat. You've said that the transition from law to cooking

was only possible because you had this amazing support network around you. And you've mentioned it as well that your mum was vital to your change in career and to your first experiences of cooking. Tell me about that. So I did sort of the standard thing after university. I didn't know what to do. I did an English degree.

and you know some of these law firms in London they'll offer you these amazing training contracts you get a job you you get to do a conversion course you get a living allowance so I just did it because I didn't know know what else to do but I was I was terribly unhappy when I did law and I just cooked the whole time I'd leave the office go home via the shops I have the French laundry cookbook at home like make something ridiculously complicated and I finally said to my I just I just can't do this I just I want to go to cookery school I don't want to I don't want to I don't want to be be a lawyer anymore and she she was so supportive she said just just qualify just get to qualification like don't quit in the middle of your training contract don't quit before you done your training contract I'll help you once you qualify and then she paid my cookery school fees which is helpful because it's really expensive to go and it all just sort of went from there but if I hadn't had her kind of like emotional and practical support I wouldn't have it was very very very hard to change careers people are so brave changing careers it's like I was brave I had like a nice safety net, you know, I don't think I would have been as brave thinking like, well, what's going to happen to me?

So I'm really lucky in that respect and I'm so grateful to mum for helping. But then, you know, within a couple of years, I just worked my ass off it. And I was a food stylist assistant because what I wanted to do was going to that. And soon I was like, oh no, do you know what? I'm doing all right. I'm like at least making as much as the baby lawyer that I was. So we're doing okay. looking now at the relationship that you are building and growing with your own daughters

and I would love to know about the books that you'll pass on and you know the reading that you do to them with them that you're hoping they'll do for themselves and will you pass on cold comfort farm you have they real bad well at the moment we're big julia don't whistle fans obviously um love the gruffalo it's a classic and snail in the whale um but actually one of alba's favorites is india express so i have loads of translation copies of it, like in German and Dutch. And she pulls them off the shelf and she doesn't care what language the book's in. And she's so excited because there's photos of her grandparents in it.

So she points to them and herself. And I tell her that she's actually in the picture too because I was pregnant when they took the pictures of me for that book. And now she loves flicking through it with me. And the other day I was like, well, maybe she can help me do some meal planning. And we went through the whole book and she pointed at the recipes that she wanted to make, which was so cute. And she's never done that before. curated the edit. Yeah, I was like, oh, this is the Alba edit,

which is largely the fried things and the rice. And that's okay. Which is fine. Do you want to make this vegetable dish album? No. Not so much. But yeah, she said, I want to make this with you, which was so nice because, like, well, that's great

because it's your grandmother's reference for you. Yeah, it was really sweet. Bailey's is proudly supporting the women's prize for fiction by helping showcase incredible writing by remarkable women, celebrating their accomplishments and getting more of their books into the hands of more people. Bailey's is the perfect adult treat, whether shaken in a cocktail, over ice cream, or paired with your favourite book. Check out bailey's.com for our favourite bailey's recipes. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb.

Join me on a journey through time with a Step Into the Past podcast. Brought to you by Family History website and sponsor of the Women's Prize for Nonfiction, Find My Past, Each episode sees us walk in the footsteps of our forebears, exploring stories from historic places and bridging the gap between the past and the present. If you love delving into two stories from years gone by, this is the podcast for you. Listen now to step into the past wherever you get your podcasts. Let's talk about your third book, Shelfy Book now, which is The Secret History by Donna Tart. The secret history was a cult bestseller, considered by many to be a modern classic.

under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality, their lives are changed profoundly and forever. Tell us a bit about this book and why you chose it.

I think I must have read the secret history. I can't remember when it came out now, but it must have been around the time I left school, or at university. And again, I love it's about misfits. It's about total nerds. And they, that sort of, like, the learning they have. Like, they're all really, really smart.

And they're all really badly adjusted. And it makes them wonderful to read about. And it has got that sort of Brideshead Revisited type feel to it with, you know, a country house, like creepy goings on. And not, not that's in Brideshead, of course. and I you know did you see saltburn recently yeah but yeah yeah I was really surprised that no one as far as I could see said has made the connection yeah I was like this feels so much like the secret history like particularly they're the creepy house or murder um sorry spoilers if anyone hasn't seen it um but they seemed so similar in in tone that kind of

there's a sort of foreboding over the novel and the way that no one's really a decent person at all. They're all just a bit rubbish, but you enjoy reading about them anyway. And I particularly thought that Bunny, the character who's this sort of blonde, eccentric, how can we describe Bunny? He reminds me of Boris Johnson.

I was going to say, who could that be like in this context? He's humbling but manipulative, and he seemed, yeah, I can't read it now without, without thinking of him as being like baby Boris Thompson. It's yeah I think I just so much of it sort of resonated because I think I was I really wanted to do classics myself when I was in sixth form and then reading about them being really good at it. I was like well I wasn't really good at it but I can read about you guys being good at it. You did study Latin A level. I did such an nerd.

No, I mean it's not something that anyone I knew did because we didn't we didn't have the option of doing it. But I am always so interested in anyone who did study Latin and why, what was the sort of propulsion to want to learn this dead language. But is at the cornerstone of all the languages. I think I found it really beautiful. I mean, it's such a lovely language. You know, it's, you know, if you like sort of doing Spanish and Italian now, there's so much poetry in it. And I was never particularly good or interested in straight translation. I found it boring.

But when you were reading things like Virgil or if you read in Catullus, you would read it aloud and get so much from how the word sounded as well as the meaning. And I just always found it like really, really moving. And I was much more interested in the literature than I was in sort of like the leg donkey work of translating. And I also really loved, because I'm such a geek, I loved comparing translations. Like I loved reading different passages by different translators and sort of. of seeing the way compared, and then you can come up with your own as well

with the original text. And that kind of, I think there's a prize, isn't there for like translated novels? Yeah, so the Penn Translation Prize actually is an annual award for book length prose translations from any language into English and then the International Booker Prize is awarded annually for the finest single work of fiction from around the world which has been translated into English and published in the UK and or Ireland.

Got it. The most recent one I suppose would be butter. I don't know if it won an award or not. You know, it's that big yellow book with a picture of a cow on the front. And it's translated from the Japanese. And it's obviously its own thing when it's a translation

because if you make it too literal, it's not worth reading in English. And so different translators can take very different meanings from things. And it's really interesting. to see the way that they have have not only shaped it but also read it. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think, like, you know, some of the nicest translations of the Odyssey and the Iliad are the

recent Emily Wilson ones. I feel like she might be, I don't want to say the wrong thing, but I don't, I think she might be the first woman to have translated both of them. And they're great. They're so much better than the other versions that I've read. Like, yeah, she just makes it come alive. We talk a lot on this podcast about reimagininges of history. or seeing historical events from perspectives that have been lost or haven't been given voice before. And I think translation is actually a really great prism through which to do that. Because if someone else, say Emily Wilson, for example, translate something that has been translated numerous times by the male gaze.

Yeah. You know, by the male voice, by the male perspective. It takes on a whole new life and shows you a different way of looking at the past because of the past. and in history, it's not objective. Does the secret history remind you of your own university experience in any way? I suppose none of my friends were murderous. That probably helps. Not to give away the plot of the secret history.

No, no, but I think it's important to say that not any friends are murderous. Yeah. I think, you know, that having a sort of very charismatic professor, having like a little, a little clique. Like I liked the idea of some of those bits, but I don't know. We weren't cleaky and we didn't have, we had, we had, if you're, you know,

if you're lucky at university, you'll have one or two professors who you're just like, you are amazing, like, and you go into class and you feel like your mind is just expanding. And they remind you why you did this, why you're here. Yes, and then others you sit there and you're like, mate, I could have just slept in. Yeah. So, so yes, I suppose parts, parts of the university

experience were like that but um but no mostly mostly was it was normal and and not a bacchanal you do say that you um could talk about the tudas for an insane amount of time and with a great enthusiasm about amber lynn do you relate to the character's intense academic obsession that passion that love i don't i don't know i think i mean i'm going to say this is not i i mean i have read some pretty decent amblin biographies um as i'm sure jerry hallowell has um But I'm going to admit that a lot of my maternity reading was Philippa Gregory because I don't really discriminate when I read. Like I enjoy a bit of light reading and Philipa Gregory's a whole Wars of the Roses series

and I must have reread them quite a lot as well. So I'm not terribly highbrow. But I love historical fiction that just takes you into this different time when people are so different but they're also the same. Like they're usually terrible people, but doing really interesting things and interesting clothes. Just quickly, you said obviously that Bunny sort of strikes you as this proto Boris Johnson figure. Yes, yes. And you're surprised that there's never been that connection made with Saltburn.

But you did find out that the rights to this book were acquired by Warner Brothers in 1992, although we don't know if there's been a film or TV series made. No, there hasn't. Which is really odd. Yeah. It would have led itself well, wouldn't it? It would have made an amazing thing. Like you could get a great ensemble casting.

Who would you have in it? Oh, and I'm going to just give you the saltburn cast. It would have to be that. It would have the guy who's the... Barry. Barry. Barry. It would have to be Barry.

It would have to be the lead again. Yeah, just recast all the films with him. He would be perfect. He would lead in this. Well, watch this space. I would watch that film. Yes. Right.

Your fourth book, Shelby book, is The Power by Naomi Alderman. Winner of the 2017, Women's Prize for Fiction. The Power is. is a feminist speculative fiction novel. So imagine a world where teenage girls awake one morning with extraordinary physical strength and power that outstrips their male counterparts in the form of electricity. This brave new world is far from a utopia, however,

as uprisings and revolts spread through the world and after the initial delight in female empowerment subsides, a darker side to the New World Order emerges. Tell us about why this book is, is important to you? I think for, well for anyone, any woman listening, and I'm sure you've felt this as well. You know, you've left, you've left to party late.

You know, maybe you're getting the last bus or you're gonna do your last little walk home from the tube to your house and there's just that feeling of you just don't feel safe. Like it may be the streets are a bit empty and you're just like sort of clutching your keys in your hand. I'm gonna get to my front door. And it's, you know, if you're a student or you can't afford a taxi home.

And it's that uncomfortable feeling of not having personal safety. And reading this book before it all unfolds as it does, just that idea that, oh my God, you know, you wouldn't, you could walk home from a party at two in the morning and not worry because you would just be able to zap anyone with electricity who might bother you. It's an amazing thought. And I don't, I don't, I don't, I think you could have a really long chat about whether it's just sort of physical strength that has, you know, makes such a difference between sexes. But, um, I just love that idea that it wouldn't just, well, it would just sort of equalize this sort of power imbalance. And that, that feeling of insecurity would become a feeling of like, no, I can, I can hold my own. And I think that's what's so interesting in the, in the book. It doesn't just stop at like, oh, well, I can walk home at one in the morning.

It's in that classic sort of dynamic of, you know, there's a news show where there's a young attractive woman and there's the man and she's the pretty face and he's the serious news anchor. But then the electricity happens and suddenly she's the more powerful one and he diminishes to the point where he's not really required on the show. And then she gets a younger pretty male anchor because she's the powerful one. It's really interesting. You've described this book as reminding us that both men and women are capable of infinite cruelty. Certainly conflicts, man-made disasters around the world, they seem to live up to this evaluation. Tell me a little bit more about that. Well, it's not, you know, the book starts and you're like, it's a utopian novel and it's like, oh wait, it's not.

So in various parts of the world, there are wars and conflicts arising. and you think, you know, we've got such an idea of women are, you know, we're nurturing, we're caring, all the rest of it. And then, you know, there's a horrible war zone scene where a bunch of women who, you know, pretty powerful with their electricity, they just go through sort of dragging men out of tents where they're trying to be protected by their wives or daughters and just killing them for fun and killing children for fun. And it's just grim. Like there's a scene I actually can't read when I reread the power. because I'm just like, this is just so upsetting. And but it's women doing it.

And you're just like, this is just such a subversion. But it's, you know, I guess the idea is just that because they can be cruel and powerful, they are. And they're no better than men being in charge who can be cruel and powerful as well. It's just very, very clever the way that she does it. That dystopian twist on the current patriarchal. society in which we live it feels like it's becoming more and more prevalent as women's rights are being eroded across the world how does fiction help us understand our reality and navigate it i i don't i suppose um i'm sure lots of people have come on to talk about the

handmaid's tale um but i i'm sure i've read margaret would say that nothing she put in that was fiction in terms of everything is something that's happened to women at some point in terms of reproductive rights or the whole actual handmade thing and it sort of holds up a mirror doesn't it for what the world is? Yeah, I guess the power is a sort of inverted mirror.

The thing is about dystopian fiction, about Margaret Atwood or about the power about, say, Mallory Blackman's Nauts and Crosses, they can also give us hope. also encourage empathy. They can help us escape reality, but equally they can ground us and make us see things from different

perspectives. And in term, they can make us kinder. Do you ever find that when you're reading? I think it depends sometimes how they've been left at the end of the novel. As a teenager, I read a lot of J.G. Ballard. Like, a lot. I'm surprised I'm not a prepper now, the amount that I read.

And none of those ended in a way that left you particularly feeling. positive or kind, you're just, oh, it's going to be the end of the world. There's going to be a drought or a flood or everyone in the tower block's going to murder each other. So I think some of these, I mean, the power ends in a really interesting way where it feels like they've reached a point in their society, which is kind of analogous to where we are now, except the other way around. So women are no longer going around murdering men just because they can. Instead, they're just being really patronising, but I suppose you call it matronising. Towards sort of, you know, up and coming.

You know, the framing of the books, clever. It's supposed to be a chap writing to a fictional writer called Naomi asking for advice about a novel that he's writing. And it's so funny the way he writes because I recognise that. oh I'm so sorry to bother you when I know you're so terribly busy it's so lovely of you to give me the time you know I'd be so grateful if you could read this blah blah blah blah blah it's that sort of apologetic way that you can tend to write when you're no worries if not no worries if not no worries if not and and that coming from a chap towards a woman in a position of power rather than the other way round and you know

you sometimes see those memes which are like the different ways that sort of people write work emails to the point or the, yeah, the other way. I know you're a supporter of many charities, including women's aids, Afghan aid, refuge. Why is it important for you to stand up for these causes? And just in light of, you know, you use the word grim, in light of the grimness in the world, what gives you hope? Just the way, I mean, I think the Obama said that, you know, change isn't linear. And you seem to go a few steps forward and then sort of five steps backwards in terms of the way society

progresses but just the idea that you know young people seem to be you know kinder and more tolerant of difference if I think of the way I'm not terribly old but the way I grew up being different as a kid and I'm sure children will always pick on different kids but there's certain things that I think are not a big deal anymore for teenagers sort of things like trans rights being gay you would hope that that sort of thing is more accepted and it feels like Like it is just anecdotally from people who are parents saying that, like, my kids don't care. Like they don't care about that kind of stuff. And I was like, well, that's progress.

Yeah. And obviously you've got your fringe elements who don't feel that way. But if by the time my kids are that age and things are still tolerant and I would feel like that's hope. Like just maybe children growing up, like seeing difference as something that's interesting or just know, all right, fine. Yeah. It's that. And then my little brother's saying to me about a friend, I said, oh, did he come out? Why would he need to come out?

You don't come out straight. Oh, yeah. You're right. And he was like, oh, shrugged his shoulders like, oh, you're a dinosaur. Yeah, yeah. And you know what? Hats often because the kids have got it. They know.

Yeah. Yeah. Even if they do roll their socks up, which we were just talking about. Someone of my age says, no. Sox go down. It's time to talk about your fifth and final bookshelfy book, which is The Flavor Thesaurus by Nikki Segnit. The Flavor Thesaurus was the first book to examine what goes with what,

pair by pair and is divided into flavor themes, including meaty, cheesy, woodland, and floral fruity. Within these sections, it follows the form of Roger's Thesaurus, listing 99 popular ingredients alphabetically, and for each one suggests unique flavor pairings that range from the classic to the bizarre. I absolutely love this, and I love that you included it on your list today.

Why is it here? It's here because I would not have a career without this book. I mean, out of all the other books were fun, but this one was essential. I read it when I was a food stylist, so I did a lot of cooking, but not much creating. And this book is a springboard, not just for me, like really every single cookbook

published should list her as a credit because her work is so influential if any food writer is given a deadline by a magazine. Like, all right, we want five, five obegene recipes. Can you do it by next Tuesday? You will turn to the Flavitstores just to remind you, what the hell goes with obegene? And she'll tell you.

And you're not, and she does it in a way where you're not like, well, I'm not just like stealing, but she's a springboard. You know, she tells you, you know, Obesine goes so well with nutmeg. It goes so well with mozzarella. It goes so well. with chili and she tells you why and this is one of those irritating books where if you read it

on the tube you will laugh out loud yes because it's a mixture between she'll look into something on a molecular level which is really interesting or she's just incredibly witty and funny and she'll tell you about she had two things on holiday and they were great and you're like it's a brilliant blend of both and there must be so much research and she's she's done another one the flavor thesaurus more flavors which is a plant like my book she calls it plant lead it's not vegan but it's got plants as the basis of it but with you know sort of yogurt and um cheese and such and both of them they're just so incredibly well researched but then that and it's my favorite way to read nonfiction when that level of research is presented in an incredibly readable way when you it wears its learning

very lightly it's so clever yeah she uses personal anecdotes. The fact that a cookbook can be funny is often overlooked. The fact that it can be so personal that this is a storybook is often overlooked, right? I mean, food is stories. Yeah. Yeah, some of the situation she writes about are just, they're very funny. And some of them are quite personal.

She writes about one of them and it's an entry for artichokes and, is it artichokes and bacon or, it's a baking pasta recipe and she gives this recipe for this amazing I don't have panchetta anymore but you know it's a delicious pasta bake and she says she has it she was on holiday with a boyfriend who she was about to break up with

they just had a fight they roll up at a cafe and they know it's the end big sigh and then a woman comes out of whatever cafe and she just puts this beautiful pasta dish in front of them with like panchetta artichokes

cream and very cold white wine and they have this dish and it's the end of their relationship but they're okay with it but a beautiful end over this dish and I think

I think I met Nikki at the Waterstone's Christmas events and we were both doing them and I literally just had a breakup and I just read that bit in her book and I was such a fan I was such a fan I went up to her

and I burst into tears talking about that dish and that bit in the book and that I just had a breakup she thought she said should we have lunch she was strange one she was very kind

Did you serve that dish at the breakup? I'm sure we must have had it at some point during the breakup. Here's my homage to her breakup in my own. Do you see cooking as experimental? Is it a fine science or is it a creative process or is it a bit of both? I think it's a bit of both. And I think actually Nikki's got another book, Lateral Cooking, that brings that together.

You know, people talk about baking being very, very precise. You know, if you want to make a cake, if you want to make a biscuit, you know, you have a very precise amount you need to weigh up, or you can bring it very carefully, or it's not going to work, but I love that within that you can play around. You know, if a recipe says you need 100 grams of flour, but what if you make it 50-50, ground almonds and flour? What if you make it 50-50? Cocoa powder and flour, you'll have to adjust other things, but there's so much leeway

in a template for a baking recipe. And obviously sometimes it doesn't work. So I did a sweet baking book, the sweet roasting tin. And when I was testing that, I was trying to make it as inclusive as possible. So how can I veganize this recipe? Can I make this one gluten-free? And often it worked, often it worked even better than the previous version. So all the brownies in that are incidentally gluten-free because they are so nice if you do them with ground almonds.

But when I pushed it too far, and I was like, if I take this template and I'm going to try and make it vegan as well as gluten-free. And I'm just like, no, mate, this is just chocolate larva. this is not working you you will need a fresh template that's the cut so in in nicky's lateral cooking the whole book is templates not just for baking pasta bread sauces she gives you a sort of mother recipe and then tells you how you can vary it and not just it's sort of from around the world it's very it's very clever and really helpful in the kitchen well i'm sitting next to the green cookbook right now um the recipes are as it says here on the front easy vegan and vegetarian dinners.

So the focus is on easy, quick cooking. It's on convenience, accessibility, which is so important to you. And also I get the impression that you see vegan and vegetarian and gluten-free cooking as an opportunity rather than as a barrier. Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, it's just sort of, you know, I mean, I love entertaining. I love having people around in the house. You know, we just had a load of friends around at the weekend,

and I knew one friend coming around. she's both dairy-free and gluten-free. Loads of the others eat meat. Most of the others are pescatarian. I love that challenge. Like, what can I make that everyone's going to enjoy or are there small tweaks to what I'm going to make so that everyone, you know, can feel catered for?

And I feel it's kind of the same with my book. So many people write in saying like, oh, you know, this has been so helpful because, you know, I can cook for my vegan daughter or I'm gluten-free, but, you know, I'm so glad I can make half the dishes in your book. it's nice to be as inclusive as possible. And the ease, the speed, the quickness of being able to cook,

that accessibility and convenience, do you worry that the busyness of modern life can take away from the joys of cooking for many people? Is that something you want to be able to instill? Yeah, I think dinner time, you know, it might be the only time you see your whole family. It's certainly the only time I see my husband because he's at work and I'm with the kids or vice versa.

And if you spend all day apart, it's just nice to come together and eat something that's like really tasty and not a rush, but ideally not something that's stressed you out as well. So if you could make something like as delicious as possible in as little time or with as little hands-on effort as possible, I think that's a win. So I think all of these recipes were sort of like, well, look, can I knock it together without feeling stressed? And is it going to taste great?

And that was my benchmark. And even though it's your job, Does cooking still relax slash excite you? Does reading cookbooks relax slash excite you? Yeah, I really enjoy doing both. I'm lucky I get sent a lot of cookbooks. It's really fun to sit with one and start tabbing it up. It's escapism as well.

Even sometimes when it's recipes where we're like, you know what, mate's got like 20 ingredients. I'm never going to make that. I still like the idea that I might. You know, I read recently that, you know, cookbooks sort of fall into different categories. you've got you've got the sort of dreamy escapist ones where you're like oh i want to live in this beautiful farmhouse cottage and cook like this or you've got the like well i want to improve

myself so i'm going to you know get a flat stomach in 15 days by following this recipe or you have the ones where you're you're kind of like well i want to i want a solution my problem is dinner and i want a solution to dinner and i feel like mine definitely fall into the like i've got a problem what i want to eat for dinner and here's my solution i can make a solution i can make a this like delicious 30-minute meal maybe with a little bit of dream because the pictures are quite pretty in my books but i'm i love reading about the sort of dreamy cottage farmy chickens everywhere books but i know the one i'm going to use is the like the one that's going to fix my problem they really do serve different purposes i've definitely got recipe books that i read like a story

it's just a lovely experience and nursing myself in that world i am never cooking that day but actually the green cookbook that I have here is tabbed up. It's tabbed right up. And ease is what I'm all about. I really like that you mentioned that so many people get in touch with you that write to you to say thank you for these recipes. I also know we touched very briefly before about when you shared your diagnosis on social media,

you had this outpouring of support. So just finally I want to ask you about that interaction. We talked about what gives you hope and it's children, it's the future. But talk to me about the connection that you experience. I think that there are plenty of things people would say about social media that aren't positive, but the really lovely thing about it that I've found is when you have connections and conversations with people who you don't know, they've got completely different lives, but the food that I've made seems to have brought them together with people they know.

for example during lockdown one of the nicest emails I got old school was an email not a social media message was from someone who was a granddad and he was locked down away from his grandchildren away from his children and he had I think he'd lost his wife but he'd

got one of my books and he'd got a copy of my book for each of his grandchildren around the country and every Friday night they were making a roasting tin dinner together on Zoom so that they could be together and have a meal together and a lot of a lot of old people who said they've become widowers and have not cooked have I've said we've you know I've been cooking from your books and it's really humbling to think that

something you've made has helped someone in such a material where like we have to eat to live and it's help people who don't maybe want to eat that's the the messages that mean the most when we started our chat we talked about you being a little girl head buried in the book it's a very solitary individual pursuit reading and as we've gone through it's become something that we share yes these books these stories these recipes and this food is something to share that creates community and I guess the truth is it can be both and it has been for you throughout your life Jane would be proud thank you so much for sharing with me I do have to ask you if you had to choose one book from your list as a favourite to share with our

audience right now, everyone listening, which one would it be and why? It'll be flavour thesaurus because it's got a bit of everything. I think it's, I think that's for everyone. Everyone needs to read it. I'll recommend you, thank you so, so much for sharing with us today. And yeah, you've left me really, really hungry. So I'm going to go off in air, I'm going to match some flavors and have something to eat. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Nick.

I'm Vic Hope and you've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time.