Prue Leith

I grew up in a very white, privileged, old-fashioned society in South Africa and went to a boarding school run by nuns.

People don't always behave the same way on different programmes. If you go to church you don't behave the same way you do at a party in the middle of the night.

I just hate television that's out to make people cry because other people like to see people cry.

The most important thing is to teach children to cook at schools. And not only to cook but to understand about where their food comes from.

Very few parents give out healthy lunchboxes due to pressure from their children.

I didn't actually know what a treasure 'The Great British Bake Off' was, so I just thought, 'oh it'll be fun to do that, I'd like to do that.' Then when I went and had to have an audition and meet Paul Hollywood, I suddenly thought, 'this is really important.'

I've been an entrepreneur, a writer, a food correspondent. I might have been an architect - but I'm bad at maths.

I can't resist temptation of any kind.

People say I'm a celebrity chef, and I am on telly a lot but that's because I judge contests. Perhaps I'm more of a celebrity eater than a cook.

If you eat good ingredients, and moderately, it should not be a problem. If you look at the bakers over the years, how many obese bakers have there been? There have been a few - nobody's saying you can't join 'Bake Off' if you're obese - but by and large bakers, just like cooks, are not particularly overweight.

Food shouldn't do you any harm, obviously you don't want a bad diet, but it should be one of life's great pleasures.

I get cross with foodies who think hospital food should be Michelin-star and caterers can fall into this trap.

Nobody should eat too much cake.

Before 'Bake Off,' frankly, if you'd asked most people on the bus if they'd ever heard of me, it would probably only have been those aged over 55. But if they were 15, they wouldn't have, and that's the difference with 'Bake Off' - it's loved across the generations.

Nobody thought a white girl should learn to cook in South Africa. I went to drama school. My mother was an actress, so I thought I'd be an actress.

Any woman will tell you after the menopause, nobody whistle at her, well - that's just the beginning. As you get older people don't want you at their parties, we all are prejudiced about old people.

In my 40s: I had two children young enough to think their parents wonderful, my business was booming, I was happily married and living in the Cotswolds with a veg garden and ponies in the paddock. Who could not be happy?

My first taste memory is of our nanny in South Africa making white bread sandwiches with salad cream, which was potato mashed with a cheap mayonnaise thing with bits in it of - I suppose - pickled cucumber. I absolutely loved them.

One summer I was made housekeeper to my own family, making menus and shopping lists. It was my mother's idea of teaching me to be a grown-up. The main thing I remember is my father being so delighted to get roast duck.

I opened Leith's in Notting Hill in 1969 and it eventually worked its way into being awarded a Michelin star. At the time, there were a few women running small bistros - but I was the first woman to have a 'serious,' expensive restaurant.