Kitchen calypso

Ainsley Harriott, the affable host of BBC television series Ready Steady Cook, sizzles in a tete-a-tete with Shalaka Paradkar.

Ainsley Harriott is somewhat like one of his self-created meals-in-minutes. Barely 10 minutes into the conversation one is treated to an appetising, colourful spread of a life lived in the food-as-entertainment industry. His clothes are a little less colourful in Dubai.

Instead of the expected tangerine or fuchsia silk shirt, Ainsley (as everyone calls him) is dressed in sober white with a dark leather jacket.

But he's even more flamboyant in the flesh than his Ready Steady Cook on-screen persona, where he's been flirting with contestants, joshing the chefs, singing and dancing around the kitchen for 17 series.

Blessed with a really big personality (literally, as well - he's 6'4" tall and quite well built), Ainsley is best known for Ready Steady Cook, still being aired on TV channels around the world. But he's also done eight prime-time cooking series, extolling his brand of full-flavoured, big-hearted cuisine.

Apart from his work on television, Ainsley has a lot on his plate. You can see his congenitally jolly face beaming at you from packets of dried soups and couscous on supermarket shelves.

He's a successful author who's sold more than 2 million copies of his books, an entrepreneur who has also been a fairly successful entertainer, and a family man to the hilt.

In Dubai for the Ideal Home Show, he did a fair bit of cooking, entertaining and chatting up the audience.

As a culinary expert, he is more credible because of his 20 years' experience as a chef, having worked at London hotels The Dorchester, Brown's, The Hilton, The Westbury, Café Pelican and Quaglino's.

The 49-year-old has his detractors, of course - after all, what celeb chef doesn't? One chef in particular, known in the UK (and Dubai) for his belligerent attitude, described him as "more of a comedian than a chef".

But for those who like their TV chefs to be knowledgeable, friendly, funny and fast - Ainsley's the man.

I
I have two passions in life - and the second is a passion for entertainment.

I have always been very comfortable in the kitchen, and from a very early age. My earliest memory is of my mother asking me to cut the flour to make it even finer! I get quite a kick out of looking into people's kitchens and pantry cupboards.

I can never remember my mother not being in the kitchen. Cooking was central to our family life when I was growing up, as Mum would often cook for friends and family who were always welcome in our home.

I am quite a show-off. Even as a primary school student, I would bake cakes and invite friends to come home and watch me cook - back in those days when people were very conservative and one was seldom invited to someone's house.

I tell my children never to deny themselves any experience. If it works, that's great. But even if it doesn't at least they have the satisfaction of knowing they won't be wondering later about the choice they should have made.

I don't regard anything as being a failure. You embrace and experience life - you gain more from losing than constantly winning. As my mother would say, a new broom sweeps clean, but the old one knows the corners.

ME

Me and my childhood:
I started cooking when I was quite young. My father had a bit of money, we had a nice home and we were never restricted in what we could do in the kitchen. My mother never stopped us from experimenting. She never said, "You're wasting the eggs and the flour."

Instead, she would say, "You're baking? That's great. Let's make some cakes." My friends would come home and they loved it. Food is one of the great social events of life; it gets people together.

My mother, Peppy, inspired me to learn how to cook. Mum was just a very friendly and generous lady. We always had people staying in the house.

My father was a professional pianist who constantly invited people over. We had a large house (in Balham, south London) and any relatives who came over from Jamaica stayed with us.

Interestingly, the family tradition of having an open house has continued with us. Our door is always open and our children keep bringing back their friends for meals. This early experience with cooking is what started my lifelong passion for food and cooking.

My mother passed on her philosophy of using fresh ingredients, always preparing beforehand, and most importantly, having fun while cooking.

One of the great things about my mother is that she encouraged all of us to cook. My brother and sister cook well too. My sister, Jacqueline, actually teaches cooking and is a lecturer in home economics.

My brother Chester Jr is a businessman and the main cook in his house - his wife is Iranian (they have been married 30 years). He often cooks for the large parties they have at their place. In true West Indian tradition, he was named after my father being the first-born son.

The most vivid memories of my childhood are of sitting around our Bluthner grand piano while my father played. Lots of his friends would come around and they would have impromptu jam sessions. My uncle Joe Harriott was a very well-known saxophonist (he died a few years ago).

In those days, all your friends lived on the same street and we all went to the same school. We were a family of five, but everyone else had enormous families. My friend Michael Noble had a family of eight.

The Scudamores had seven kids, the Garveys had nine. There was no time to make new friends outside of your little community. It was so busy, with so many people around, and rather close-knit. I had a wonderful time growing up.

Me and becoming a chef:
When I turned 16, I went off for the summer to France. I stayed with a French family and learned to cook with them. Went fishing with the father and went to the market with the mother. When I returned to England, I told my mother that I wanted to be a cook.

She was shocked. Like most mothers of immigrant families, she wanted her sons to be doctors or accountants or engineers. She was devastated, but it was something I was very determined to do.

I had to be independent and focused to succeed, because though I had my mother's love, I did not have her support when I enrolled in catering college. My mother thought being a chef was a job that was not going to take me anywhere. Little did she know!

At the age of 17, I began my official career in cooking by signing up at Westminster Catering College, where many great British chefs have started their careers. I went for loads of interviews to top hotels for a job as junior trainee.

But I didn't like the experience: I didn't like that you walked in and felt like a number, the disdain and the attitude - you never saw the chef, just one of the assistants.

Until I went for an interview to this French restaurant on Regent Street: Verrey's. I walked in there and was told to wait at a table littered with coffee cups and ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts.

Towards the end of the shift, when chefs usually finish work and do interviews, one of the chefs walked out, offered me a cup of coffee and talked to me.

I thought, "This is more like it. I am not just a number, but a person and people are actually talking to me."

Then the other kitchen staff walked by with mock horror stories of how the chef beat up people who didn't work. They made me laugh and even though Verrey's was the worst money on offer and the conditions were less than optimum, I signed up for the job.

It was a great experience: I learnt a lot, worked with some amazing people who really shaped (me into) the chef I am. We'd go out after work.

It wasn't like working in a big place with lots of different chefs where you don't know who you would be assigned to next. I graduated to commis chef at Verrey's before moving to The Strand Palace as chef tournant.

Me and turning entrepreneur:
When I was 23, I also started my own catering company. It was an exciting period. It was a bit like my career in television: being at the right place at the right time.

The company grew out of the orders I was getting to cater for private functions. That gave me an introduction to the outdoor catering business.

One day I'd be creating posh nosh for Elton John - the only man to have a Faberge egg to keep his kitchen door open; the next I'd be making steak and kidney pud for Princess Margaret.

I've worked at every level of the catering business - and I think that it's an enormous advantage to know how to make delicious beans on toast as well as Lobster Thermidor.

Catering for posh people also necessitates being discreet, or you won't be hired because you blab about people to the press. It's a complete privilege and you are being paid for your culinary skills as well as your discretion.

In the initial days of running the company, I was living in a flat. Since I was used to big kitchens, at home and work, I knocked down a few walls in the flat and put a whole lot of trestle tables to set out my food.

Luckily it was winter soon, so the outside was my refrigerator. Quite soon I realised I had to move to bigger premises with proper storage and refrigeration. The orders just kept flowing in: private parties, Christmas dos and weddings.

I loved the excitement of outdoor catering: the challenge of handling different venues from big corporate conferences to somebody who wanted a marquee in (his) backyard. And moving on to something else after the party was done.

Me and entertainment:
Growing up in a musical environment, I was always tapping and playing one of the percussion instruments, like maracas, that were always lying around the house. (Starts drumming the table). Music came naturally to me.

When I started out as a chef, the food industry didn't pay very well. I was getting some £15 a week. Some of my friends were earning three times that amount. It was quite challenging.

One year I went touring around Europe with a friend from the neighbourhood whom I had known since I was five. Paul Scudamore (one of the seven Scudamores I mentioned earlier) had a guitar.

Every time we felt hungry, we headed for a nearby square and started playing music. Then we would buy food with whatever money people gave us. We called ourselves the Calypso Beat.

When we got back to London, we decided to perform in London's famous Covent Garden. It used to be a massive vegetable market, before they closed it down and moved the stalls somewhere else.

But the Art Deco buildings still remain, it's a beautiful, stunning sight. To this day they still have street entertainers who perform on the cobbled street. One fine day we decided to go and perform there, just for a lark. We were told we would need a licence.

So we auditioned, got a licence and were selected to perform as The Calypso Twins.

I was working as a chef at the time at the Strand Palace Hotel, five minutes away from Covent Garden. I would complete my shift as a chef, change and run up the street to join my friend Paul Boross.

He played the guitar, I played the maracas - we were The Calypso Twins and we sang topical songs, making them up about people who were in the audience.

Paul worked as a teacher and I was a chef. We were overworked and underpaid at our jobs. But at Covent Garden we managed to earn a week's wages in half an hour of performing. All in coins though.

It was a fantastic experience and gave us the break to perform at other venues. Our biggest success came when we became a big hit on London's comedy circuit which led to several TV appearances and even a record release.

Actually my first appearance on television was on the cult sci-fi series Red Dwarf in 1993.

Me and the media:
Ready Steady Cook has been going strong for 17 series and over 1,000 episodes now. Can't Cook Won't Cook, my popular daytime cookery challenge, ran on BBC1 for several seasons.

I have also done Ainsley's Barbeque Bible, where I travelled around the world, sampling and cooking al fresco. Ainsley's Meals in Minutes in 1998 was about bringing fast, appetising meals to the table in less than 20 minutes.

Ainsley's Big Cook Out took me on a culinary journey through the Americas in 1999. The Ainsley Harriott Show appeared on US TV in 2000. I have also hosted the US version of Ready Steady Cook.

I am also a presenter of the BBC's City Hospital, filmed live in one of the UK's busiest hospitals.

I also have 12 solo books to my name, with co-editions in Dutch, Danish, Slovenian and even American. Barbecue Bible was my first major international book, which has had several reprints.

Meals In Minutes (1997) has been my biggest selling title to date. In 2004, I collaborated with the British Olympic Team to produce a cookbook of healthy fun recipes in Olympic Cookbook.

MYSELF

There are a whole lot of cookery shows on TV, with chefs who never went to catering school. How important is it to have a formal education?

It's important to have education at any time in one's life. It makes you appreciate the finer aspects of your craft. It gives you patience. You have to listen to learn.

While working at Verrey's, I attended college once a week to get my 7061 (the chef qualifying exams), eventually getting my 7062.

Along with me, were people who came in from different parts of the food industry: there were chefs from five-star hotels as well as people who worked in industrial kitchens.

Thanks to my on-the-job education, I knew how to cut up a cow, while fellow students just knew how to take sausages out of a packet and put them in the oven. So it wasn't too difficult for me to get top grades in my exams.

When you have that opportunity, where someone is teaching you a new skill, you should grab it. An education prepares you in absorbing the knowledge.

Sometimes people can be fickle about it, they think their job is just to put numbers on envelopes, so why do they need an education for that?

It doesn't matter what you are doing, if you have education, you can understand and appreciate what you are doing a little bit better.

Up until a few years ago, British cuisine was widely regarded as somewhat of an oxymoron. How did the renaissance come about?

That's because until a few years ago, a lot of places that the average tourist frequented served poor food, which got British food its bad reputation. (Unless you stayed in a fine hotel with fine chefs).

They were not very good, because the training wasn't very good. The chefs saw food as a kind of fuel rather than something you sit down to enjoy at leisure.

In the 1980s it started to change as people started travelling a lot more, began to appreciate other cuisines. British people didn't realise how other nations thought about our cuisine until they started travelling themselves.

We are also more affluent, there seem to be more people with more money now than before. There is more spending and more appreciation of good food and good produce. There has been a change in attitude as well - people's palates are more adventurous now.

Tell us about your latest radio show, where you cook comfort food with immigrants to Britain.

When my parents first arrived in Britain from Jamaica, they didn't have the produce they were familiar with in the Caribbean. No plantains, no saltfish, or any of the varieties of Caribbean fish and fruit.

My parents cooked food for a very long time over a very slow flame. It's something I have noticed in hot countries throughout the world. Now that the quality of produce has improved so much, they don't need to.

But old habits die hard. And they are used to the soft taste, of flavours melding together and cooking down slowly - it's a distinctive taste.

We had to adjust to ways of using classical English produce, and sometimes embracing it, after spicing it up a bit. Now it is easier to get hold of familiar produce in the local supermarket.

My latest show, Ainsley's Kissing Connections, which is up for an award, is about refugees and asylum seekers in England. I go and visit them, talk about their journey to England whilst cooking comfort foods from their homelands.

When you are persecuted or forced to leave your country, it becomes even more important to hold on to those values, to those comfort foods.