Our guest this week is legendary food writer, illustrator and broadcaster Elisabeth Luard. Joining us from London, Elisabeth candidly recalls adventures from her extraordinary life, describing how, after growing up in Uruguay and boarding school, she was a young journalist on Private Eye, when she met her husband, Nicholas Luard. Marrying at 21 and having four children in quick succession, Elisabeth decamped to rural Andalusia, finding a way into food writing and the traditional recipes via the locals at the school gates where her kids learnt to trap and skin rabbits. After a couple of shows in a top wildlife gallery exhibiting her natural history paintings, she started writing about food in 'The Field' magazine accompanied by her own illustrations, but her passion was to write a book about real peasant cookery and the importance of knowing the land, the limitations of fresh produce and only using what's seasonal and local. A concept that seemed transgressive at the time, but has, as she says, come full circle. Full of wisdom and wit, Elisabeth has travelled all over the world and enlightens us about some of the foods she's encountered along the way, such smoked reindeer tongue, as well as making a case for bringing back salep, a powdered dried orchid root. She doesn't 'do' jewellery as she's always cooking, but she shows us two of her treasured rings - a sapphire ring belonging to her late daughter, Francesca, as well her welsh gold wedding ring. Writing regularly on Substack (elisabethluard@substack.com)

Elisabeth's fascination with the natural world as well as the world of food and its interconnectivity with culture continues. She says that like the wood-wide-web, we're all 

connected and that to forget that would be a terrible mistake. Wise words indeed.

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