Nigella Lawson confesses tragic reason behind passion for food after losing mum at 25
Telly chef Nigella Lawson has revealed she’s haunted by her late mum’s refusal to allow herself to indulge in a sweet treat until just two weeks before her death from liver cancer aged 48
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Nigella Lawson has confessed the tragic reason behind her passion for food.
The telly chef has revealed she’s haunted by late mum’s refusal to indulge in a sweet treat until just two weeks before her death.
Nigella, 60, lost her mum Vanessa to liver cancer aged 48 in 1985 - when she was just 25.
She’s since never let herself feel guilty about enjoying food, revealing her mum would make tasty treats but never ate them.
In her new book Cook, Eat, Repeat, Nigella explained how her mum denied herself anything sweet until she found out her cancer was terminal.
Nigella said: "I was brought up by a mother - the cook I have learned most from - whose grimly exuberant output in the kitchen was set in painfully sharp relief, and indeed fostered, by an expanding pattern of self-denial and self-punishment; not an uncommon syndrome, incidentally.
"Diagnosed with terminal cancer two weeks before her death, she started eating - for the first time, she said giddily - without worry or guilt.
"How unbearably sad to allow yourself unmitigated pleasure in food only when you receive a terminal diagnosis.”
"I want to maximise my enjoyment, not just eat for the sake of it.
"When I eat chocolate I linger over each square, deciding which I will let melt slowly in my mouth."
The TV personality recently confessed she felt grateful to reach the milestone of her 60th birthday in January because so many of her loved ones died so young.
Nigella was married to the late journalist John Diamond, who died from cancer aged 47, and she also lost her mum and sister to the disease at young ages.
As a result, Nigella says she did not make any plans to mark her 60th birthday.
"I’m not a planner – apart from when it comes to food!” she told Good Housekeeping .
"But to be completely honest, I’ve never been able to take for granted that I’d be alive by this age."
She added: "My mother died at 48 and my sister at 32. And then John at 47. So, even if I were the sort of person who planned ahead, I don’t think I would have seen myself here….”
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