Domestic goddess: Nigella Lawson revealed some marital secrets during this appearance at the Hay Literary Festival today
Her indulgent recipes are certainly delicious.
But for Nigella Lawson, the sugary snacks and creamy cakes are about much more than flour and eggs.
The television chef says her cookbook, How to Be a Domestic Goddess, should be read as a ‘feminist tract’ because cooking is seen as a female pastime.
Speaking at the Hay Festival, Miss Lawson said the book, which became a best-seller in 2000, celebrated the role of women in cooking.
She said: ‘I think it’s a very important feminist tract in its own right, and I’m not being entirely ironic.
‘Baking is the less applauded of the cooking arts, whereas restaurants are a male province to be celebrated. There’s something intrinsically misogynistic about decrying a tradition because it has always been female.
‘I’m not being entirely facetious when I say it’s a feminist tract.’
The 51-year-old also joked that the worst thing to happen to cooking was the rise of Simon Cowell and his ruthless judging style.
But for Nigella Lawson, the sugary snacks and creamy cakes are about much more than flour and eggs.
The television chef says her cookbook, How to Be a Domestic Goddess, should be read as a ‘feminist tract’ because cooking is seen as a female pastime.
Speaking at the Hay Festival, Miss Lawson said the book, which became a best-seller in 2000, celebrated the role of women in cooking.
She said: ‘I think it’s a very important feminist tract in its own right, and I’m not being entirely ironic.
‘Baking is the less applauded of the cooking arts, whereas restaurants are a male province to be celebrated. There’s something intrinsically misogynistic about decrying a tradition because it has always been female.
‘I’m not being entirely facetious when I say it’s a feminist tract.’
The 51-year-old also joked that the worst thing to happen to cooking was the rise of Simon Cowell and his ruthless judging style.
‘Something which so undermines a lot of people when they cook for friends is this terrible feeling that you’re going to be judged,’ she told an audience at the festival.
‘The way television is going, with more reality shows, is that there is this false gloss of perfection. My cameraman makes everything look wonderful and the lighting is just perfect, and I’m aware it can give a glamour that doesn’t exist.
The way to a man's heart...? Nigella Lawson, pictured with husband Charles Saatchi, says he prefers Weetabix to her cooking
‘But reality programmes create this environment in which you feel everybody is there to criticise you and send you away. You feel that when you cook it’s going to be given the Simon Cowell treatment.’
One of those more critical of her cooking is her husband, arts patron Charles Saatchi. He once said: ‘I like toast with Dairylea, followed by Weetabix for supper.’
She added: 'Charles said to me there is nothing you could cook ever that would compare favourably with Weetabix,'
'I suggested he joined me in some prawn dansak I had made recently and said "how was it ?". He told me it was the most disgusting thing he'd ever eaten and he was telling me so I never gave it to him again.
'It is an amusing challenge for me to get to grips with his eating habits I can tell you.'
Mr Saatchi admits Miss Lawson’s food is ‘a bit wasted’ on him ‘but the children like it’
Not one to take insults on her culinary skills personally, Nigella recently revealed the best weapon in the war against ageing is a curvy figure.
She insists she is happy with what she sees in the mirror, despite believing she is ‘built like a shot-putter’.
She said: ‘Of course, I have moments of doubt. All women have times thinking, “My God, I can’t go out, my hips are so big today!”
‘But there’s a range we are comfortable within and I don’t like it when I go above that.
‘I’ve got no desire to go below it. If I lost 40lb, I would age ten years straightaway. That’s my excuse!
‘But you know women find it very easy to persecute themselves over their weight and whenever I’ve said, “I ought to lose a bit of weight,” I can guarantee I’ll put it on.
‘I love food and I love cooking so therefore I never deprive myself.
'Thinness is fantastic for clothes, but I don’t do fashion.’
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