FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD PRESS PACK The hunt is on for Britain’s best-loved recipe. The Food Glorious Food experts have scoured the British Isles to sample recipes from home cooks all over the country. You don’t need to be an amazing cook to enter, all it takes is one great recipe. This is a show for people who are passionate about their dishes, but fancy chefs need not apply! Food Glorious Food focuses solely on dishes created by the public and the huge variety of beloved recipes and stories behind them, from old family favourites passed on through generations to brand new concoctions. Carol Vorderman is joined by our four passionate food experts, food writer Tom Parker Bowles, globe-trotting gastronome Loyd Grossman, Women’s Institute vice-chair Anne Harrison and baker Stacie Stewart, who have travelled the country armed with rosettes which they hand out to dishes that meet with their high standards. Each judge has their own area of interest. Stacie, owner of online company the Beehive Bakery, is on the hunt for an amazing cake or pudding that the nation will fall in love with, food writer royalty, Tom is scouring the land for a great British recipe with culinary heritage, Loyd is hunting for a new favourite to match that much-loved dish, the curry, and Anne is championing traditional home cooking. Each episode visits a different region of the UK as our judges eat their way through plenty of pies and puds, to find six amazing recipes and contestants to take through to the semi-final stages, where two will be picked to battle it out for a place on the shelves of Marks & Spencer and £20,000. The winning dish will be decided by shoppers and sold exclusively by Marks & Spencer stores across the country with 40p from each dish sold going to Great Ormond Street Hospital. This is a show that is not on the lookout for the next British super chef but just one brilliant home cooked recipe that the nation can fall in love with, and anyone and everyone is in with a chance. PROGRAMME: OVER VIEW REGIONAL HEATS (EPISODES 1 -6) Every recipe tells a story, and every family has, a recipe that makes you laugh, brings back memories and sums up all that’s great about food and its ability to delight our senses, bring people together and spread joy and happiness.

This is a competition anyone can enter, and the prize couldn’t be more mouthwatering with the winner getting to see their dish on the shelves of Marks & Spencer stores across the UK as well as receiving a cash prize of £20,000. Food Glorious Food has scoured the country in search of a very special dish that everyone in Britain will, for the first time ever, be able to buy and eat. Each of the regional episodes will tour the country in search of the great and the good. Queues of people clutching mouth-watering cakes, tarts, pies and puddings arrive at the location, vying to win the right to have their dish in the final. Presenter Carol Vorderman meets the entrants as they wait anxiously in line, soothing jittery nerves and finding out about what – or who – inspired them to enter the Food Glorious Food competition. Was it a proud parent, a pushy partner or a delighted dinner guest? Dishes prepared, each contestant has to face one of the Food Glorious Food judges, globe-trotting gastronome Loyd Grossman, food writer and historian Tom Parker Bowles, self-taught baker extraordinaire Stacie Stewart and WI top brass Anne Harrison. Each judge will hand out rosettes to the dishes they feel most delight the senses and capture the imagination, but before the day is out they must each choose their one favourite dish of the day. At Judges HQ, the four remaining regional contestants have to cook their beloved recipe again, this time for all four judges to taste. The judges then do battle to pick just one to dish to go through to the semi-final and represent their region. SEMI-FINALS (EPISODES 7 & 8) After much deliberation, six contestants will reach the semi-final stages. Our judges will travel to the homes of the semi-finalists to break the news of the next stage of the competition. Across two semi-finals the six regional winners of the heats will be whittled down to just two finalists who will be that one step closer to seeing their home cooked dish on sale on the supermarket shelves. And for the judges, it’s the moment their protégés need to ready themselves for so they can make the big leap to the next level – from home heroes to national culinary sensations. Then it’s time for the big challenge as semi-finalists will be asked to cook their dishes on a scale they’ve never been cooked before. They will have to prepare 150 perfect portions for a group of special diners, the WI one week and the emergency services the next. Each semi-finalist will gather together an army of supporters to help them take on the culinary challenge of a life time. The tasters at this big dinner will blind taste each of the three competing dishes and each vote for the dish they believe deserves to win. In each of the two semi-finals, only ONE dish will go through to the Grand Final.

THE FINAL (EPISODE 9) Episode 9: The Grand Final In The Grand Final both finalists will make their way to London, where presenter Carol Vorderman will reveal the news that their dishes will be trialed in stores across the country, thousands of tasters, thousands of votes, but only one winner. With the prize tantalizingly close, there is a huge challenge ahead. Before the dish can be produced on a mass scale, the two finalists will work with Marks & Spencer to turn their recipes into a final product that could ultimately end up in stores across the country. With dishes ready, thousands of samples will be distributed around Marks & Spencer stores. Each potential customer that tries the dish will taste and vote – the most popular dish will win the series. As the results from the trial runs are counted, the finalists head back to London, surrounded by their family and friends, where the winner of Food Glorious Food is revealed.

HOST: Carol Vorderman “I used to win cooking competitions at school.” Loose Women anchor, Carol, is fronting Food Glorious Food and confesses she’s been bitten by the baking bug! “Working on Food Glorious Food has brought back a lot of memories about baking things and even the techniques of pastry making – I used to be brilliant at puff pastry. This show is a great because it’s not just a competition between people who are great cooks. These contestants might just do one thing really well, like a pie and a pasty or a pudding and that really widens the net.” Carol’s own cooking career began when she was a schoolgirl, when she cooked for her family, “I used to make tea every night when I was at school. My mum was working as a school secretary so I’d be home from school before her. I loved laying the table and getting everything ready.” For Carol and her family it wasn’t typical 1970s cooking the family dined out on – thanks to her Italian stepfather, “In the ‘70s it was very unusual to cook with proper Italian produce. Back then, you’d buy olive oil from the chemist to get the wax out of your ears! Parmesan cheese was dried in cardboard tubes and smelt like sick. Whereas we had the proper stuff because we used to go to Italy every year. We had canned olive oil from my stepdad’s brother’s farm, we’d bring back Parma ham that my aunties had cured then use a bacon slicer at home to cut it.” However, despite the Italian produce stored in the Vorderman pantry, Carol reveals that any cooking skills she has are not down to her mum, Jean, “My mum is a rubbish cook and as soon as she heard the ping of her first microwave, that was it – she never switched on a hob again. I

cooked on weekdays and my mum was in charge of cooking on a Saturday lunchtime. My stepdad was a builder and would work on Saturday morning and Mum always used to serve him these stuffed peppers when he finished work. They were beautiful, dripping in olive oil and dad would show mum off to his builder mates as a great cook. But I knew her secret: She used to buy tinned stuffed peppers from a supermarket in Rhyll! Dad never twigged.” Though Carol, who studied at Cambridge, is best known for her maths knowledge thanks to 26 years on Countdown, she reveals she was a prize winning cook, too, “I used to win competitions at school. But then, of course, my thing is engineering and buildings so I ended up going down that route.” Cooking every day isn’t on the agenda for Carol now, “Realistically, because I live in Bristol and do Loose Women three days per week I only really cook at weekends. I’ve got my mum and son Cameron (15) and he’s often not at home. I tend to cook at the other end of the day instead and do a fried breakfast.” However, Carol’s clearly passed her baking genes down to her daughter. She explains, “Katie, who’s at Cambridge doing Physics, is a brilliant cook. When she was very small, I use to make fairy cakes with her every day. She’s a brilliant baker and does amazing cupcakes with spun sugar on the top and macaroons better than the ones you can buy.” For Carol, being surrounded by all manner of puddings, pies and delicious meals on Food Glorious Food is too much temptation. She explains: “I don’t eat for two days after filming. I arrive to start filming and think, ‘Ooh, I must try that’ I never normally eat cakes but here I’ve eaten muffins and cupcakes and I have about three curries a day. It’s terrible! I’m not eating vegetables. No one’s brought a salad!” JUDGE: Tom Parker Bowles- The food history boffin on the lookout for a recipe that taps into age old recipes and techniques. ‘This is the Antiques Roadshow of food.’ As a food columnist for the Mail on Sunday’s Live magazine and Food Editor at Esquire magazine Tom is no stranger to giving his opinion on food and he was incredibly keen to become a Food Glorious Food judge. “When you get a call saying, “We’re doing a co-production with Optomen and Syco about finding the nation’s best home cooked dish,” you’re not going to say no!” Tom’s excited about a TV show that promises to show real people cooking real food. “What I love about Food Glorious Food is that it’s not like other TV

shows with really skilled people doing really posh food. It’s more like the Antiques Roadshow of food. It’s much more British and eccentric. This is about home cooking and it doesn’t matter if, I’m tasting a curry, a lasagne or a shepherd’s pie – all I’m looking for is the very, very best. It could be cooked by a 90-year-old granny or a six-year-old child – as long as it tastes good, that’s all I care about.” Rather than eating food made by accomplished cooks, Tom has been keen to meet people who have their own specialty dish, “I like the idea that everyone has one dish they do really well. This could be the show for someone who does great roast potatoes.” As a food writer and food historian Tom is keen to find a regional recipe or traditional British dish with real history. “I’m obsessed with the history of food and I want to find a great British recipe with a fascinating culinary heritage.” Tom admits to having a long love affair with food but says he took a bit longer to get hands-on in the kitchen himself, “I was quite late to cooking. I’ve always eaten, being a greedy pig. My mum’s a good cook and my dad was a farmer but I didn’t really get into cooking myself until after university. I certainly wasn’t at my mother’s apron strings when I was growing up – I was far too lazy.” However, Tom, who’s a father of two, now prefers to while away his weekends in the kitchen, “Cooking is very relaxing. There’s nothing better than spending Saturday afternoon cooking with a glass of wine and Planet Rock on the radio. For everything else, I have to rush around so cooking is a pleasure for me.” Tom’s enjoying the novelty of being on the Food Glorious Food judging panel. “I like that we’re not celebrities, I grew up hearing Loyd talk about food, Stacie is an encyclopedia of baking and Anne truly knows her stuff with her years of judging. They could have hired celebrity chefs but the four of us each have our areas of expertise, and this is what we all do. I’ve been judging traditional dishes like chicken pie, fish pie and I’ve just tried a caul and awarded some remarkable faggots a rosette. The quality of cooking has been mind blowing.” When it comes to his role as a judge, Tom clearly knows what he wants from a dish but admits that offering feedback to would-be cooks is a challenge, “It’s difficult being nasty. The contestants might say to me “what do you know?” And that’s fair enough, but I do know when something is under seasoned, burnt or undercooked. Sometimes it’s a matter of taste. I did expect some things to be awful but that hasn’t happened!” JUDGE: Loyd Grossman – the globetrotting gastronome on the lookout for a modern day favourite whether it be a curry or a stir fry, and he should know what it takes having sold 10’s of millions of his own sauces. “Every single dish has a story behind it.”

Famous food lover, Loyd, is excited about being involved with Food Glorious Food, not least because the show is about real people and real food! “Food Glorious Food involves the public very widely which is important. People are entering because they love food, not because they want to be celebrities or professionals. These are genuine amateurs who love the food they cook and want to share it. That’s very attractive. We have a lot of programmes on TV with guys in white jackets shouting at members of the public. But on this programme, it’s not about chefs. It’s about the love of food.” Loyd’s a self-confessed foodie and says childhood experiences first sparked his interest, “I just loved food. I was very lucky: I travelled a lot as a kid; my parents were interested in food and restaurants so I was exposed to a lot of good food. I grew up in New England where there were both farms and fishing so I saw all the fabulous produce first-hand. I always remember how exciting it would be to go down to the harbor in the morning and see the fishermen unloading their catch.” Loyd explains that, as well as tasting fabulous food, he is interested in finding a modern British champion. As Loyd explains “UK food is no longer just meat and two veg, we love curries and stir frys and I want to find a dish that we’ve taken to our hearts and adapted to our tastes.” But, for Loyd, telling contestants their dishes weren’t up to standard proves tricky, especially where children are involved. “It’s always hard judging younger ones. You want to cut young people a lot of slack and encourage them. On talent shows, you can’t let a six-year-old tap dancer win if they’re not that good at it. Children must be encouraged but you have to judge them with the standards with which you judge everyone else, otherwise it isn’t fair.” And Loyd also confesses to causing offence with a few honest comments about the dishes he has tasted. He says: “People have an emotional investment with their food. You never tell someone their dog is ugly, do you? You might think it, but you don’t say it. It’s hard telling someone their favourite family dish is not exciting.” JUDGE: Stacie Stewart- the home taught baker and entrepreneur who is on the lookout for a cake or pudding the nation can fall in love with. “I want to find something unique; I’m hoping for something traditional with a twist.” Food Glorious Food’s baking expert knows what she wants from the show’s winner and Stacie, who opened The Beehive Bakery in Sunderland after reaching MasterChef semi-finals in 2010 and now runs a successful on line baking business, has boldly remarked that she won’t be happy if a cupcake baker is crowned champ.

“Cupcakes are over. Everyone makes them. In our first week of the competition I had at least six sets of cupcakes to taste. There’s no way a cupcake should win a prize like this. 50 million cupcakes are sold every year. You can buy them in a corner shop. As far as I’m concerned, I’m not going to embarrass myself in front of the other judges by putting them through.” Instead, Stacie is looking for someone who’s tweaked a recipe to deliver the perfect dish, and she’s a hard woman to impress. “I want to find something unique but what I’m really hoping for is something traditional with a twist. I want something original yet amazing. I’ve just tasted a ginger cake, which you can get anywhere, but this one had a crumble topping and compote to compliment it. The man who baked it had thought about the flavours, he knew it was going to be fiery and it needed something moist to balance it. That’s what cooking is about, balancing things. Why would you bring a normal ginger cake, when you could bring one with a something extra?” For Stacie, a family connection will also win points. “I like to see people cooking recipes that have been handed down through generations because that’s how I learnt to cook.” Stacie’s grandmother is responsible for her passion for baking, and cooking stems from her childhood. “My mum can’t boil an egg so my nana taught me how to cook. Every Saturday without fail our mams went to bingo, our dads went to the pub, our grandad sat in the front room and watched the horse racing and my nine cousins and I were in the kitchen with our nana. It’s a great memory and, now, all my cousins cook as well as I do.” Though she likes a family tradition, Stacie won’t be impressed unless a competitor has put their own spin on a dish. “I also like to see innovation, taking something you’ve been taught how to do and making it better. Just because something was done one way many years ago, it doesn’t mean that it has to be done that way now. If that were the case, we’d still be walking around like cavemen. There has to be progression. My nana used to make scones with lard and water, because that’s all she could afford. It doesn’t mean they were the best scones in the world.” Following her stint on MasterChef, Stacie started her own business and she hopes whoever is victorious on Food Glorious Food will be able to follow their ambitions too. “I hope whoever wins will let this change their life. I’d like to think anyone serious enough about cooking to enter Food Glorious Food is prepared to change career like I did. I was a PA before Masterchef. I loved being a PA and I thought that was my career, then I entered MasterChef and everything changed. It took me 26 years to realise my dream and now I want to help other people.” Straight talking Stacie doesn’t believe in not being honest with contestants and wants to help them to improve. “I try to give constructive criticism – you have to tell someone if what they’re doing is wrong. No one sugarcoated it for me: I got kicked off a TV show and it didn’t make me run away and cry.”

JUDGE: Anne Harrison – No stranger to judging the Vice Chair of the WI has almost 30 years experience judging home-cooked food. “I’m looking for something extra special.” Anne’s day job as Vice Chairwoman of the Women’s Institute sees her judging homemade food all over the country and she’d like to see the same very high standards from Food Glorious Food contestants. “I do a lot of judging at county shows, WI shows and village shows. I actually taught cookery so I know what’s right and wrong, that’s what I’m doing here.” So what is Anne looking for in a winning dish? The experienced judge wants to see proper, thorough cooking and dishes made to a high standard, ‘The main thing about judging food is that it tastes good. I consider appearance and how it’s made too. I want to see good home cooking and I like to see people cooking from scratch and not relying on packets. I give people credit for producing their own pastry, for example. If we’re looking for perfection then we want everything made from scratch.” For Anne, sticking to traditional recipes is important and she would like to see a traditional dish win the contest. “I’m very keen on traditional foods. I love roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and a champion Yorkshire maker has already impressed me in this competition. I’m hoping he’ll let me have his recipe! Whatever wins has got to impress all the judges. We’re looking for something extra special.” Anne’s foodie beginnings came from her farming background. “My parents were farmers and my father was killed in the Second World War. My mother didn’t go out to work, she and my grandmother always cooked. In those days, you didn’t go out to buy anything. I was always keen to have a go at cooking myself, I suppose I absorbed their knowledge and I’ve always been used to home cooked food. Later, I went to boarding school and excelled at what they called domestic science. That led me to teaching.” Despite her busy schedule of WI business that sees Anne travel all over the country, she still likes to bake and cook as much as possible and has some very strict views on baking. “Buying biscuits is such a waste of money, with a bit of flour and sugar, you can make something very quickly. I’m not at home everyday but I do still cook for my husband and son and I keep my freezer full. You know what they say, a way to a man’s heart is through his stomach and, in the case of my husband, if he isn’t fed, he gets bad tempered!” However, even Anne confesses to having some help when she’s pushed for time, “I do however keep some ready-made meals in the freezer – but just for emergencies!” Marks & Spencer PRODUCT DEVELOPER: APRIL PRESTON

April, who develops recipes and charts their journey from idea to finished product, admits that working to produce the winning Food Glorious Food dish is quite unlike any other project she’s worked on for Marks & Spencer. “Never before in our 128 year history have we done this. The choice of the recipe has been completely taken out of our hands and there has definitely not been an opportunity like this before. It’s perfect for Marks & Spencer. We thrive on new challenges. We’ve never had access to family recipes before. In terms of market research, that is huge and should help to create a great product. I’ve loved seeing previously hidden dishes, it’s fascinating.’ And April believes the winning cook, will also get a huge sense of achievement at seeing their dish in hundreds of stores, “The rush you experience from seeing your creation hit the counter never goes away and the winner will get a real sense of that. They will also get to see the internal workings of the company and have an understanding of what it takes to make a recipe into an actual dish. Hopefully the winner will find it as exciting as I do.” April explains how she’s involved in the process of developing the winning recipe, ‘I’m not involved in the choosing of the dish. My role kicks in when we start developing it into a product which can be sold in hundreds of stores. Somebody cooking in their kitchen is not the same as providing for 20 million customers a week. We’ll work with the contestant to get the dish to the counter in a way that reflects the original recipe.’ While April and her team have developed thousands of products, Food Glorious Food presents a different challenge, following the TV final, the product should be on sale the very next day, ‘It can normally take us anything from three months to three years to launch something on the shelves, so this timescale is more demanding. But we like to think we can make the seemingly impossible possible!’ Marks & Spencer will also donate 40p from each package sold to Great Ormond Street Hospital. Find out more on the website at www.itv.com/foodgloriousfood and join in with our chats on Twitter using #FGF

The Official Book Published 25th February 2013 Mitchell Beazley £20 Every recipe tells a story and every family has one that brings back memories and sums up all that’s great about food. A recipe has the ability to delight the senses, bring people together and touch our hearts. Food Glorious Food is an exciting new ITV1 series presented by Carol Vorderman, searching the country for that one very special recipe. The winner gets £20,000 and their dish on the shelves of Marks & Spencer (with 40p from the sale of each package going to charity). The show will draw on culinary talent and family recipes from every corner of Britain, celebrating amazing dishes cooked with love by mums, dads, husbands and wives, grannies, families and friends. Mitchell Beazley will publish the accompanying tie-in book to the show and will feature more than 100 of the most delicious recipes uncovered throughout the series. The Food Glorious Food official book will be crammed full of heart-warming and delicious recipes from the show – including all finalists’ dishes and the winning recipe. Divided into regions, the book will be full of the food that we all love to eat and want to know how to cook. Old favourites like Bread and Butter Pudding, Cornish Pasties and Bakewell Tart will sit alongside new and inventive fusions of flavours that simply have to be tasted. Some dishes will incorporate quirky twists – for example, an extra ingredient that was originally added by mistake – while others will stick to time-honoured techniques handed down through multiple generations of the same family. Food Glorious Food will celebrate the best of British home cooking and tell the heart-warming stories behind the contestant’s dishes and how they have become so special. In between the featured recipes will be thoughtful reflections on Britain’s food heritage and the nation’s love affair with home cooking. This is the definitive guide to the nation’s best recipes, written for the people of Great Britain, by the people of Great Britain.

For further information about the book: Fiona Smith on 0207 632 5489 or email: [email protected] For further information about the TV series: Sara Lee on 020 7636 8715 or email [email protected] Lyndsey Large on 0207 157 3024 or email [email protected]