Dinner with Mary Moriarty

What’s the best meal you’ve ever had?

Returning after two hungry hitchhiking weeks on the continent with £4.10d. in my pocket and making for the first greasy spoon cafe for bacon, egg, slice of bread and marg. Cup of tea = 2/3d. Cigs were 1/9d. for 20. Now I go to a lot of functions, so my tastebuds have improved.

What’s the worst meal you’ve ever had?
Something my husband cooks (luckily, this only happens once every decade). It’s indescribable – lots and lots of curry and chilli and even more garlic.

What’s in your fridge at the moment?
End of the Sunday roast, milk, Sunday leftover cream going a bit off (will throw it out tomorrow), cheese, butter, limp lettuce and a lemon – think I was keeping that to lighten my hair.
What food couldn’t you live without and what could you never touch? Mussels and oysters, herring, sardines (out of a tin, of course) and halibut. Yes, most fish dishes. I can’t eat curried food, it plays havoc with the old digestive system.

How do you remember school dinners?
My dad made up our lunch sandwiches. School dinners would have been a luxury.

Is breakfast the most important meal of the day?
If you consider black coffee and a cigarette a breakfast, then it is.

What’s your ideal comfort food?
Cheese – real Scottish cheddar, French camembert, Danish blue, soft cheeses, even those cheeses that squirt out of a tube.

What’s the most essential utensil in your kitchen?
The kettle, then the dishwasher, next the microwave oven for obvious reasons.

And what’s the most bizarre gadget?
My antique nutcracker, opens everything, very handy. Last time I used it, it was to tighten the handle on the kitchen cupboard door.

Who would you invite to a fantasy dinner party?
Definitely Henry VIII – six wives. I could upmarket him and tell him about Lizzie Taylor and Joan Collins and others who shall remain shameless. Eat your heart out, Henry.

And what would you cook them?
It would have to be Carbonara – it’s the only dish I can rummage up quickly.
Not to be confused with the real Italian Carbonara as served deliciously in Italian restaurants. Anyway, who wants to spend hours slaving over a hot stove when there’s hot gossip to digest?

What was your worst dinner-party disaster?
Dipping my greasy fingers in his glass
of red wine because my napkin was somewhere on the floor. Don’t worry –
I swapped him. What do you expect when 22 empty bottles of red wine hit the dustbin next morning?

What’s your classic stand-by recipe?
Any 15-minute pasta dish like Carbonara, but I sometimes add mushrooms and other delicacies.

Host or guest – which do you prefer?
I used to love hosting meals when I enjoyed cooking – but it is delightful
to be a guest. I’m lucky to have lovely friends who cook the most delicious meals and invite me along to share them.

What’s your favourite Friday-night feast?
Unfortunately , I can’t remember having
a Friday night free for the past 20 years. If I was allowed to dream my choice would be mussels, or bouillabaisse, blue steak and salad, cheese and biscuits, black coffee – perfect.

What makes a perfect Sunday brunch?
For me it would be: egg, bacon, sausage, black pudding, mushrooms, fried bread – lovely – tea, toast marmalade. I was
going to include hash browns as in US breakfast, but perhaps that’s not the terminology one should use these days. Of course, a Bloody Mary or two wouldn’t go amiss.

What’s on the menu tonight?
Tonight’s menu will be “if it’s” – if I make it to Scotmid before it closes then the choice will be infinite.

Whose cooking inspires you?
Who else but my mother who was an Athol Crescent-trained cook? And Mrs Beeton’s houshold book, great for balancing on your head and learning to walk correctly.