London - For many of her generation, offal was often the only meat that was affordable.
But Mary Berry has revealed that she still loves tucking into it – in particular, ox tongue.
The 80-year-old celebrity cook said her liking for it evolved during her childhood in the Second World War, when it was one of the few meat options that was not rationed.
She admitted that not everyone will share her taste for offal, which fell out of favour in the 1970s, but said it makes a nutritious and inexpensive meal.
Miss Berry said: “Because it was wartime, meat was rationed so you didn’t always have it.
“But offal was not rationed and not everybody knew what to do with that. I love it. [My favourite offal] is ox tongue. It just melts in your mouth.
“In supermarkets you can only get an ox tongue at Christmas time, but in a good butcher you’ll get it any time of the year.”
The Great British Bake Off judge made the admission as she discussed her childhood with chef Brian Turner on BBC1’s My Life On A Plate..
She said that during the war she would watch as her mother learned to cook with limited ingredients. Offal was regularly on the menu, with vegetables grown at the house in Bath, Somerset, where she lived with her parents and two brothers.
She shares black and white pictures from her childhood and discloses how her family kept goats for milk and hens for eggs, and stopped putting sugar in their tea so her mother could bake the occasional cake.
She added: “We were self-sufficient in the war for vegetables and fruit. We grew a lot in the garden.
“I remember also we had goats and mum would make a bit of butter from the cream. We didn’t eat the goats because they were there for the milk.
“We also kept a pig. We would eat the pork, but we weren’t allowed to ever discuss at meal times that that was our pig.
“My father would almost burst into tears. He was a very unemotional man but he’d get up from the table and you could see he was so upset.”
Offal has enjoyed a resurgence recently, both as a result of the recession and because it has been championed by celebrity chefs.
It is on the menu at fashionable restaurants and has returned to the shelves of supermarkets including Waitrose and M&S.
Daily Mail