Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by Mary Berry
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a British chef Mary Berry.
Last updated on December 21, 2024.
I won't do 'Strictly' or any of those ghastly reality programmes. 'I'm a Celebrity' would be the end. It makes me shudder.
I wasn't the brightest button in the class at school, but I enjoyed cooking and baking. I wasn't clever enough at Maths O-level to get onto the cookery teaching course I really wanted to do, so I did a catering course instead.
My bread and croissants wouldn't win a prize! I'm not an expert in yeast cookery.
I still think it's essential for a parent to cook with their children. Weighing out the ingredients and learning where the food comes from is educational, but it also helps to place meal times at the heart of family life. We never had dinner in front of the TV.
It should be that every child, when they leave school, can do ten meals, because when they leave home, they've got to be able to eat healthily. Blow the science of it and everything else. They've just got to be able to know what's good for them, how to buy it, and how to make a few dishes that they enjoy and don't cost too much.
Life is all about sharing. If we are good at something, pass it on. That is the pleasure I get from teaching - whether it is television or books. We should all share.
One of my first jobs was as a recipe tester for a PR agency. One week, the editor of 'Housewife' magazine called my boss and asked me to write a column - the cookery editor had gone away on a press trip. I was terrified.
It is something you can't predict, and it is the huge sadness in your life, losing a child.
As I was growing up, all meals, including breakfast, were family occasions, and you all sat down to eat together - and you had to finish everything as well.
I don't want food all over the place, down the sides of the sofa... When I shared a flat before I got married, we would always eat around the telly, but not now!
I would serve a selection of cakes, scones, and small sandwiches for afternoon tea. High tea is usually served between 5 P.M. and 6 P.M., replacing an evening meal - it is more substantial.
The biscuit tin shouldn't be handy - move it about a bit. Try to keep it out of the way.
At 17, I went away to Pau in the south of France for a few months to study domestic science - including cleaning windows with newspaper and water - while living with a Catholic family with 10 children.
It helps to have a happy home life to keep up alongside your career.
Having children is the greatest thing that can happen to you as a husband and wife. They are infuriating at times when they're little, but on the whole, they're such a joy. I don't think I was the most brilliant mother when they were young. I had quite a bit of help because I was working and I enjoyed my work.
I am a bit of a mother hen at Christmas! I always prepare in advance. It is the only way; otherwise, it can be really daunting.
Dad thought something very fishy was going on when, at 22, I was offered a job for £1,000 a year - more than Dad paid his own staff - for inventing cheese recipes and writing leaflets at the Dutch Dairy Bureau in London.
I love Michel Roux, Jr., and James Martin - the chefs who are experts in their own right, like Rick Stein on fish. But I don't watch them very much because I don't think it's fair for my husband to be in a total food environment all the time! So we watch programmes about gardening more.
My husband is not in the slightest bit domesticated, but as the years go, by he's getting better. He can make an excellent omelette.
My favourite TV show is... 'Downton Abbey.' The characters are wonderful, and the style is created so beautifully on screen. Everything from the table settings to the linen seem perfect to me. While I'm watching it, I'm in a totally different world.
I was always nervous before a television show, and I still am now. But 'The Great British Bake Off' is a happy show; there is no bad language, and although we do have drama, we deal with it calmly.
I think to eat cake is very good for us, but it's the size of the slice and how often you have it.
I have no desire to be a centenarian. I think 90 is a great time. You've had a good innings. You have to deal with the cards that have been dealt, of course, but I don't think very old age, if you haven't got your marbles, can be very nice.
All my grandchildren bake. On a Saturday, Annabel's boys, Louis and Toby, always bake. Louis makes a chocolate cake, Toby makes banana or lemon drizzle. They're 12 and 10, and they can do it totally on their own. My son's twin girls, Abby and Grace, are 14; they make birthday cakes and like to do it on their own with Mum out of the way.
Wherever possible, I like to use home-grown or locally produced ingredients.
I think baking is very rewarding, and if you follow a good recipe, you will get success.
Lots of people have written to say 'Bake Off' has inspired them to bake with their children. I feel proud about that; it's exactly what I used to do with mine.
I would always stand up for women, but I don't want women's rights and all that sort of thing. I love to have men around, and I suppose if you're a true feminist, you get on and do it yourself. I love it when someone says, 'I'll get your coat' or, 'I'll look after you', or offers you a seat on the bus. I'm thrilled to bits. I'm not a feminist.
I'm not great on the florals. I think you've got to wear what you're happy in and that is fun but isn't mutton dressed up as lamb.
Without doubt, without hesitation, I choose gardening over the gym. I can't stand going to the gym. It doesn't appeal to me at all. Give me gardening every time.
I walk, and I play tennis, but mainly I watch what I eat. I eat all the things that I love, including cake. Cake is very important to me. But it's all about the size of the slice!
I know people think I invented the Victoria sandwich, but I'm really not that old.
The only time I'll use a microwave is to warm up a cup of coffee I've left too long before drinking.
Our aim is to get people to enjoy 'Bake Off' at home and for our bakers to enjoy what they are doing. We don't want to catch them out. It's a very happy occasion, and it's about encouraging people to bake at home.
When I started, you had cochineal food colouring that would turn things pink, but you could never make it red. Now, red is no problem - and if you look at supermarket bakery sections since 'Bake Off' began, you can get everything.
I do not like a quiche with wet, undercooked pastry underneath, and that is that.
As parents are usually working, they haven't time to teach children about cooking, and it's a wilderness. They should be given healthy recipes - some standbys so that when they leave home, they don't live on junk.
Making your Christmas cake in September is perfect, as too fresh a cake crumbles when cut.
I hope that I dress for my age. Because there's no need to be dowdy, is there? But I don't go with all the colours that everybody is wearing. I'm not very fond of lime green or orange, so I don't do that. I read all the fashion magazines, but most things are totally unsuitable for somebody of 79.
'The Great British Bake Off' is family entertainment. There aren't many programmes where all ages can sit and watch from beginning to end. Everything else is violent, cruel, and noisy. We're educational without viewers realising it.
When you're on the way up, you have to take all the jobs because bills have to be paid.
When I thought I couldn't write recipes, my boss at the time advised, 'Write as you talk.'
I don't like showing cleavage because I get cold, and if I had fantastic legs, I might wear short skirts - but I think at 78, one's got to act one's age.
It's so comforting to have a small piece of cake. Just one slice.
When I was paralysed by polio at 13, I went into an isolation hospital and couldn't sit up, so I only took liquid food from spouted cups which the masked nurses would bring in and feed to me. I saw my parents only through glass; we couldn't touch.
The very best hotel I've stayed in is the Intercontinental on Park Lane. We went there for the Chelsea Flower Show a few years ago, and it was sheer luxury. Everybody had a smile on their face. I came home and changed all my pillows because the hotel ones were so beautiful.
What a privilege and honour it has been to be part of seven years of magic in a tent - 'The Great British Bake Off.'
I don't go to fancy Michelin-starred restaurants often.
I'm just very grateful that the media has been so kind to me, because there's nothing unusual about me. I'm just a mum and a granny who is teaching cookery on TV. Basically, I'm very ordinary.
I was born in 1935, so I was quite young when the war started. I remember we were in Bath, and it was 1942. We went down into the cellar of our house, and when we came up, I remember seeing all the glass on the floor where all the windows had been shaken out by the bombs.
I'm really boring. I think about cooking all the time. I have a little book, so when I go out or see something, I jot it down and try to include it in a recipe or do a variation of it. I even have a notepad by my bed, which is usually saying we're running out of mango chutney.
I hate Gordon Ramsay's programmes: I don't know if he's been told it makes good television.
Family life is fragmenting in this modern age, but it's up to all of us to keep it together.
I have no burning ambitions, and I can honestly say the thing I love most is 'Bake Off.' That will always come first.
I won't cook in deep fat. Years ago, I met a fireman who said most kitchen fires were caused by deep fat, and I don't think that's changed. Oven chips are good enough for my grandchildren, and they're chuffed with that.
Cooking and baking is both physical and mental therapy.
I was rather hopeless at school, but the one subject I seemed to be good at was domestic science.
Some of my fondest memories are holidays by the seaside.
I am not great at computers. If I were to try shopping through Google, I'd end up with 33 vests.
I was brought up to believe that it's family first. Of all the people my parents knew, the family was most important. You always turn to your family, and the family supports you. We do what we can to support our young and go and see the grandchildren if they're doing plays at school and their sports events.
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