Prue Leith: "I think we need colour more when we get older"

Prue Leith has revealed she doesn’t want to still be on The Great British Bake Off in her 90s.

"Oh God no!" said the presenter, chef and restaurateur, who turns 85 this February.

Due to the filming schedule of the popular Channel 4 programme, she said she "hadn’t had a summer holiday for seven years, so I actually suggested to them that I stopped". Instead, she was persuaded to drop the Celebrity Bake Off edition and stick with the regular show a little longer, as a judge alongside Paul Hollywood.

"They’ve also really kindly rearranged the schedule. We all get more weekends off now and we all get a chunk of the summer off," she revealed.

Leith, who opened her first Michelin-star restaurant in London in 1969 and founded Leiths School of Food and Wine in 1975, said of the show: "One of these fine days I’ll have to give it up and I will really miss it.

"Paul [Hollywood] and I don’t see each other when we’re not on Bake Off because he lives wildly the other side of London, it’s just too difficult. But we do see each other a lot obviously during Bake Off, we will do things together, he’ll come to my house, I’ll come to his house. But I know that when I leave Bake Off – if I leave before him – we probably won’t see each other."

Unlike the contestants, she revealed she has quite a lot of downtime during Bake Off filming. "I’m mostly sitting around waiting for the bakers. So I usually do something else, I’ve written a lot of books during my time on Bake Off."

Still, Leith is in the prime of her television career at the age of 84, also having spent 11 years on BBC’s Great British Menu and the more recent ITV series Prue Leith’s Cotswold Kitchen, renewed for a second season – for which they incorporated one very important thing for Leith.

"During lockdown I started having kips in the afternoon because there wasn’t much to do. I liked it so much I’ve been doing it ever since," she said. Now it’s built into her schedule, even when filming for TV.

"We filmed [Cotswold Kitchen] for three weeks and every day ‘Prue’s nap’ would turn up on those call sheets and everyone would have to stop work while I had a sleep. And you know what? Everyone loved it because it forced them to sit down and talk to each other or read a book.

"I like an hour [to nap]," said Leith, who has just released her 15th cookbook, Life’s Too Short To Stuff A Mushroom.

"I do know that if I get overtired, I get ratty and bad-tempered. So I know that’s time to go to sleep," she said. "I think one of the reasons that I am happy and successful and busy and all the rest of it is because I sleep really well and I eat really well."

Her latest cookery book is a collection of simple, wholesome, and most importantly, realistic recipes – think zero-waste whole banana smoothie (including the skin) and homemade hummus ("It’s so much cheaper to make yourself"), to crispy pork belly and traditional coq au vin. Littered throughout are handy hacks, time-saving shortcuts and basic kitchen skills – many with QR codes for video instructions.

"I just realised that so many people learn to cook these days on YouTube or by watching Instagram, and it seems silly to have half a page of written instruction when you can just show them," she said. Think, how to chop an pineapple, how to peel garlic and spatchcocking a bird.

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And there’s nothing wrong with not making everything from scratch. "I think anything is worth cutting corners as long as it doesn’t compromise on the food. What I don’t think is recipes that are about shortcuts [but] it means using nothing but pre-made, not very good, products.

"I have no objection to some pre-made products. These days you can get very good custards in a packet. And some things have always been accepted as good convenience food, like chopped tomatoes in a tin."

After all, life is too short – and Leith is busy enjoying hers. In September, she walked the London Fashion Week catwalk for designers Vin + Omi, in a sustainable black latex dress.

"I did it because it sounded like good fun and they’re friends of mine and I thought, why not? My nature is to think, why not? Rather than, oh I couldn’t do that.

"I enjoyed it but it was quite funny – I was not expecting to be dressed up in black latex, goth make-up and no glasses!"

As women get older "some definitely feel that they’re invisible", said Leith. "I remember the shock [I felt] when I was about 45 and I was sitting next to somebody at a dinner party, and he didn’t speak to me for one second the whole way through dinner. He was talking to the very pretty girl on the right, who was about 20.

"And I realised, yes, I’ve hit the age now where people don’t want to talk to you. But people who are intelligent or nice or a pleasure to be with, they don’t not notice you."

No one could miss Leith, in her signature colourful fashion, anyway. "I think that we need colour more when we get older. When you were 18, you could wear the most boring beige, and you’d look absolutely divine. When you get a bit older, you need a bit of help. So I think we should own it.

"But it’s nobody’s bloody business – if you like colour just wear it!

"I think you’re born with energy and a ‘can-do’ attitude, and I feel really sorry for people who are unhappy and not optimistic, because it isn’t really their fault.

"I’m just lucky that I’m energetic and I like doing things and that I’m healthy enough to do it."

Life's Too Short To Stuff A Mushroom by Prue Leith is published in hardback by Carnival. Photography Ant Duncan. Available now