YouSaid · the spoken record

Prue Leith

lines on the record: 31
first: 2026-03-31
most recent: 2026-03-31
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“I absolutely agree. I think most people are really nice. And it's infectious. Johnny is an extraordinarily friendly fellow. And he chats to everybody. And they immediately light up whether it's a taxi driver or, you know, Just anybody, guy who sells a newspaper or something.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You sort of sweep everything out of the way of the curler of the stone so that nothing is ever, you're smoothing the path. Parents spend all their time smoothing the path of their children, making sure that they've never heard the word no. I think it's, I really think, perhaps I'm getting to be a grumpy old lady. I think it's wrong. I think children need to take risks. They ought to be trusted. to walk to the shops by themselves. You know, they're honestly not going to get abducted and raped.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Dangerous. And actually, the stats absolutely don't prove them right at all. They're much safer now than they were when they were little. And I think kids are overprotected. I heard them describe recently, I think you might have seen that article. I think it was Mary Wakefield in the Specky saying that modern parents are like curling parents. You know that Scottish thing where you... Yes.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think their parents are much to blame. It's very interesting. In 1974, when my children were born, That was the highest. Crime and violence was at its peak ever since then it's come down. You would never think that if you when my children were little, I would say to them, look, if you ever get lost, just ask a grown-up. When I said that to my daughter, I said, Why don't you just? She said, Mum, you couldn't do that. You can't tell it. And they think all strangers are.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My husband has a really good way of making sure the children come to see us. And he buys these really dangerous machines. You know, you see the little three-year-old driving a motorbike, and it's a proper little motorbike with an engine, and it's just two wheels, not on, no stabilizers. And this little kid goes zipping around. I mean, he does have a helmet on his lawn. And John's theory is that it's better that they learn to ride a motorbike when they're young because they haven't got very far to fall. By the time they're 16, they will be absolutely confident and they won't be showing off.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And if older people could stop doing that, they could just be grateful that somebody's helping them. Just happy and pleased that somebody cares about them.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The time and I watched a woman in the tomb a couple of years ago and somebody stood up for her and said, you know, would you like me to see it? And she said, you know, what are you doing? Why? What do you think I am? Old? I mean, she was very aggressive about it. And my mother used to say, when we were young, she was very hot on good manners. You have to open doors for older people and you have to pick up their case and all the rest of it. We were always actually trained to do this. When she got old and I opened a door to her, she'd say, I can do it. Or if I pick up a case, she'd say, you know, I'm perfectly capable, you know.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Cheerful and optimistic and forward looking and happy. If you are depressed or have good reason to be miserable, you can't talk yourself out of that, but you can make some difference. I think some people are... Quite deliberately, especially old people, are deliberately cross.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And of course, there are a lot of people who would just not recognize my kind of being old. But this is just a very personal take. I'm not saying that it works for everybody. And I'm not saying, you know, my mother used to say her whole thing was, her mantra was put a smile on it. It didn't matter. She would say, you know, if we were feeling grumpy and stuff, she'd say put a smile on it. We were sitting at table and she would do this gesture. She'd take it as if you were grabbing the sides of your mouth and pull it up to the top and tie a buck bow to tie your side. And she would just do this gesture, which meant start smiling. And there is something in that that you can, I don't think you can make your nature.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I do think so. I do think we have two miserable a picture of old age. The very fact that my publishers didn't want me to call the book Just Being Old, whereas if I had written a book called Being Young, They would have thought that was positive being old is negative. But it shouldn't be. I mean, I think... All ages have their difficult bits.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that's probably right. I think that's probably right. I mean, I do think, yeah, Daniel does sound quite old-fashioned, but he really believes that the family is a unit we should support and community we should support communities and families and things should start from the bottom, not be, you know, we shouldn't have It shouldn't be all top down. And he does, and I think he's right that probably Lots of unthinking sex is not good for anybody. It makes illegitimate children, which is not good. And it's ultimately unsatisfying. I think he's probably right.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Actually, neither of us, we both discuss these things so much elsewhere that it's the last thing we want to discuss with each other. But obviously we've had, you know, I mean, I texted him recently and says, you can't be pleased with what the Lords are doing. Anyway, he tried to defend them, but it was a rubbish argument, frankly.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the states, and came back saying they found no evidence of coercion, no evidence. And why don't we just look at what other people are doing and follow them. And now in the end, it'll get through, but at the moment it's being held up by a bunch of lords who are filibustering. They have seven lords have tabled over a thousand amendments in the House of Lords just so that there won't be time for the bill to be debated. And if it runs out of time, it falls. And then you have to start right again in a year's time.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Be doing away with the frail and the weed. They're very worried about two things one is the idea of coercion that people will be bullied into it. And the other is that the slippy slope argument that once you get a law through for, let's say, people who are dying of a terminal in incurable, painful disease, the next second we'll want to allow it for people with mental problems or with people or for children. We'll expand it. But all I can tell you in all the countries, and there are now dozens and dozens of countries where it is legal, there is no evidence of any slippery slope or coercion. There was a parliamentary all-party and committee who went to study how it works in other countries like Canada.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Don't agree with each other at all. But I do understand that some people, especially religious people, feel very strongly that it's actually wrong to assist a death because God giveth and therefore God should take away or something.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In an NHS hospital because doctors are very nervous to give people too much morphine, which would still the pain, but it might also push them over the edge. And so they're frightened of being accused of being of murder. And so they restrict the amount of morphine they can have. And that means that in my brother's case, that in every four hours he would be in screaming agony and I mean the screaming agony for an hour before the next jab immorphine or file of morphine. So that's why I got into it. But the argument is very interesting. My son, who's an MP, actually leads the opposition to assisted dying, and I'm very active in the promotion of it.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“About dying, assisted dying. Well, most of the real, the supporters of Sister dying. If you scratch the surface, they've all seen some relative or friend have a horrible death. I mean, that's what makes, turns them into a campaigner. And that certainly happened with me.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They'll grow up and they'll teach their children. You know, we could save the NHS. We could save, we could have a much healthier nation in a single generation. We just have to start now. But I've been saying this for 50 years, 60 years, and it's always been the government saying we can't afford it or we haven't got the school time. There are other, you know, children have got to learn maths and other stuff. So this new thing is not going to cost the government anything and it won't cost all it'll cost the schools is the ingredients and if they've got any gumption they'll get their local supermarket to sponsor the ingredients.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The trouble is that this LEAS program came out of despair that the government would never do anything because, I mean, I've been trying for 50 years to get the government to realize that you have to teach children to cook if you want them to be healthy. And it would save a fortune. And if you just think about it, if you get one generation of children who like healthy food actually prefer it and who are prepared to eat it, vegetables and all the rest of it,”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For lunches and things And how do you expect children to eat healthily if they have never been, the way to make kids like healthy food is for them to learn to cook it. If they do stuff themselves, if they've made something, they will taste it. And if you catch them young enough, they love it. And these kids were all, we've been testing this in 50 schools for 5,000 children, so we really know what we're doing now. And every one of those children were enthusiastic about what they were thinking. And of course, they all eat it.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They chop their grapes in half, and they've got six grapes and they chopped them in. And how many grapes have you now got? And if you chopped it, so they build in all sorts of arithmetic and stuff into the class. And then they learn how to peel a tangerine and take the pith off and all this. And they stack up these little things. all absolutely love it. I have never in my entire life and I've taught thousands of children to cook. I have never met a child who didn't enjoy cooking. They love it. They absolutely love it. And so every state school, non-fee paying school, can get this whole program for free. For the whole from key stage one, which is four years old, when they leave primary school. And then we are already in senior schools, but they have to pay.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Videos with a young chef who's very charismatic and little children absolutely adore him is like a hero to them. And he teaches, he's the expert. So if they buy into the program, the teachers don't have to be cooks to teach the program because he's going to do the teaching. Everything is done for them like the shopping lists and they just press how many children in the class it tells you exactly how much to buy and it tells you what equipment you need and so on and he takes the children and I was watching it last week in five classrooms all at a different stages and he with the little ones for example he says they're making yogurt pots so they put a bit of yogurt in and then they chop the fruit up and they get an arithmetic lesson while they're chopping up the”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so on. It isn't a class thing at all, but we have a class divide about food. And it's a tragedy because however, I just want to tell you something which will sound like a bit of a commercial, but I promise you I have no financial interest in this at all anymore. What was Leith's Leith School of Food and Wine now belongs. I sold it, but I've still been involved with it. And the woman who now owns it is very rich and she decided that she would put all the profits of the school into children at school learning to cook. So last week we launched an online, well, it's not online, it's a”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think what's happened is there's the divide between what used to be just called the rich and the poor, but is now more to do with people. Cooking and gastronomy, if you like, is almost this kind of hobby for rich people. There is a genuinely enormously larger gap between what even today in France the poor eat the same food or at least desire to eat the same food as the rich, everybody likes a steak frit. Everybody likes a green salad with French dressing on it. Everybody likes...”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I do. I mean, I do. I really fear for them. And not just because of AI. I think, I mean, this is the first, you all know this, so I don't need to tell you, but isn't it appalling that we now have wars in Europe? I mean, we've had our whole lives living through peace. I was born in 1940, so I was born in the war. But from then on, once the Second World War was over, there were no wars in Europe. And now we have... It's terrifying. And so I look at my grandchildren and think one day they might get called up and have to go to war. So, yes, I do worry about them. And then the sort of... I end up thinking, you know what, you're not going to be here to see it. And there's a sort of selfish satisfaction in that, just that I won't be there.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You've single-handedly popularized a genius for finding it. But people often say to me, but isn't it awful that it's all full of Americans and rich people and so on? No, it's great. All these people spend money and they spend money. And these small companies, people making cheese and people making just terrific.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Near Chipping Norton, and it's fantastic. You could go there and pick your own flowers or they deliver and stuff. And people making honey or preserves or little businesses. And fortunately, because the Cotswolds is now full of posh people with lots of money, which of course it wasn't at all when I first went there.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not I definitely think so. I mean, now you look at how many young women have small businesses and young men too, but there's a much more culture now among the entrepreneurship. A lot of it, I think, will be driven by the fact that they can't get jobs because it's really hard now to get a job as a young person. There are all sorts of things. John and I have this television program which I hope you will all go watch called Prulea's Cotswold Kitchen. And it happens on a Saturday morning and it's on ITV. So that's the commercial for that. But it's not just about cooking. We go to see little businesses in the Cotswolds or roundabout people who have started, there's a woman who started a flower farm.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A profit and loss sheet can give you exactly the same buzz of satisfaction if it's got the right number in the bottom In the right colour. As having done a wonderful buffet table that has got, let's say, a wedding cake and chandeliers and flowers and beautiful food. And when you look at it, you think, we did that. And that gives you a buzz. And when you look at P&L account and it's got good numbers on it, we did that. So I love business. And I want kids at school to realize that business is great”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so on No, I love business. I've always liked business and think it's really interesting. And I hated when children are fed with the idea that to be in an office is boring. I thought being in an office was boring, and that's why I became a cook. One of the reasons I thought, well, I don't want to be in an office, it'll be boring because I had this, my mother was an actress and that made me think that I would be an actress and that didn't work. And so on. And I ran around London with some tools and ingredients and cooked your dinner, a cook for hire was what I was. And then that began to expand and I got assistant and so on. And suddenly I was in an office and other people were in the kitchen and I was doing. And I found that just as fascinating. I mean, this sounds a rather silly thing to say, but”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Welcome to Intelligence Squared where Greek minds meet. I'm producer Mia Sorenti. In this episode we return for part two of our recent live event with Bake Off Judge, Michelin-style restaurateur and author Prue Leith. Leith joined us recently at the Royal Geographical Society to discuss how to live fully and age well. She was in conversation with broadcaster, journalist and author Mariella Frostrop. If you haven't heard part one, we recommend jumping back an episode to get up to speed. But now let's return to the conversation live at the Royal Geographical Society in London.”
2026-03-31 · Intelligence Squared · Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT