It’s my own fault for asking him, but there is a moment during my conversation with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall when I can no longer suppress a snigger. “I don’t talk to my vegetables,” he answers, “but I admire them.”
The celebrity cook then proceeds to wax brassical about how cutting into a red cabbage and being impressed by the pattern of its cross-section can lead to wondering about its nutritional impact on our brains and bodies. “These are the everyday things that are keeping you alive,” he says, then sounds a warning: “I’m going off on one now. It’s kind of like a secular grace, isn’t it? A meditative grace: ‘Thank you for being an amazing red cabbage.’ You’re grinning now but I don’t think anyone
