It takes several doses of any veg before children like it, but once they do they'll like it for life. You wouldn't give up on a child who didn't want to learn to read. Learning to eat is every bit as important.

The way to get to like good food is by learning to cook, which is why I'm for ever banging on about children learning to cook.

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.

With great difficulty, I persuaded my dentist to saw one of my teeth level with the others. He thought it might kill the tooth, but it didn't. I wanted it done because I was doing a lot of television with food and I saw myself eating with these horrible crooked teeth.