Prue Leith dishes on her long career, favorite foods, and more

Prue Leith has had a long and illustrious career in food, running a Michelin-starred restaurant and creating Leith’s School of Food and Wine in addition to writing for a number of publications and authoring several cookbooks and novels. The Guardian recently published an interview with the 79-year-old Leith, in which she relates some very interesting tidbits. 

Although Leith’s career has mainly been in high-end foods, she admits that now and then she enjoys a tin of tomato soup.  When asked what is her favorite food, she notes that it depends on when you ask her. “I love sausages and mash. But if I’d already eaten them for lunch, then you asked me at tea-time, I’d probably answer “crab salad”,” she says. 

Leith related a shocking tale from her days in the kitchen, in which she accidentally stabbed a chef when she tripped and fell while holding a knife. She was afraid she had “stabbed him in the manhood” because blood began pouring out of his upper thigh. It all worked out in the end, although Leith says that she ended up paying him “quite a hefty amount of money when he couldn’t work for a while and then wanted to go back to Spain and open a cafe.”