Uploaded July 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
This event took place on 17 April 2025. The information below is correct as of the publication date.
Food legend Prue Leith in conversation with Jimi Famurewa.
Prue Leith is one of the most powerful voices in food in the UK. From starting a private catering company in the 1960s, to opening a cookery school, to advising government on hospital food to judging the nation’s favourite ‘Bake Off’, Dame Leith has witnessed and contributed to radical changes in food culture across the last 60 years. Join her reflecting on a life in food and the changes she has witnessed with food writer and critic Jimi Famurewa.
This event took place as part of the British Library Food Season 2025, in partnership with Miele.
To join more online and in person events visit our website: events.bl.uk
Discover more of our past events at our playlist: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVRvouzCZmFeI-PSlsaLHzJwtEkKshATx&si=94-9DoaNCNTFAyQc
Speaker Bios:
Jimi Famurewa is a British-Nigerian author, broadcaster and freelance journalist. His writing has appeared in the Guardian, Wired, GQ, and Observer Food Monthly. He is the former restaurant critic for the Evening Standard, regular guest judge on the BBC One series MasterChef and was also one of the lead judges on Channel 4’s The Great Cookbook Challenge with Jamie Oliver. He hosted the award-winning podcast Where’s Home Really?, and, in 2021, he won Restaurant Writer of the Year at both the Fortnum & Mason Awards and the Guild of Food Writers Awards. His first book, Settlers: Journeys through the Food, Faith and Culture of Black African London, was published by Bloomsbury in 2022 and was shortlisted for Foyles Non-Fiction Book of the Year.
Prue Leith’s career has included her own restaurants, cookery school businesses as well as being a board director of many companies. She has published eight novels, a memoir, and 14 cookbooks inc. her latest cookbook, Life’s Too Short to Stuff a Mushroom published in 2024. Prue is probably best known as a judge on The Great British Bake Off, American Baking Show, The Great British Menu and My Kitchen Rules. Prue has her own TV show, Prue Leiths Cotswold Kitchen, with a 2nd series coming Spring 2025. Prue has had a long involvement with education and the arts and was Chair of the School Food Trust, responsible for the improvement of school food and food education. She started the campaign for contemporary sculpture to be exhibited on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square and has been active in many charities. She has a DBE, 12 honorary degrees or fellowships, the Veuve Clicquot Businesswoman of the year, and her restaurant, Leith’s, won a Michelin star.
The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk/Donate
This event took place on 17 April 2025. The information below is correct as of the publication date.
Food legend Prue Leith in conversation with Jimi Famurewa.
Prue Leith is one of the most powerful voices in food in the UK. From starting a private catering company in the 1960s, to opening a cookery school, to advising government on hospital food to judging the nation’s favourite ‘Bake Off’, Dame Leith has witnessed and contributed to radical changes in food culture across the last 60 years. Join her reflecting on a life in food and the changes she has witnessed with food writer and critic Jimi Famurewa.
This event took place as part of the British Library Food Season 2025, in partnership with Miele.
To join more online and in person events visit our website: events.bl.uk
Discover more of our past events at our playlist: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVRvouzCZmFeI-PSlsaLHzJwtEkKshATx&si=94-9DoaNCNTFAyQc
Speaker Bios:
Jimi Famurewa is a British-Nigerian author, broadcaster and freelance journalist. His writing has appeared in the Guardian, Wired, GQ, and Observer Food Monthly. He is the former restaurant critic for the Evening Standard, regular guest judge on the BBC One series MasterChef and was also one of the lead judges on Channel 4’s The Great Cookbook Challenge with Jamie Oliver. He hosted the award-winning podcast Where’s Home Really?, and, in 2021, he won Restaurant Writer of the Year at both the Fortnum & Mason Awards and the Guild of Food Writers Awards. His first book, Settlers: Journeys through the Food, Faith and Culture of Black African London, was published by Bloomsbury in 2022 and was shortlisted for Foyles Non-Fiction Book of the Year.
Prue Leith’s career has included her own restaurants, cookery school businesses as well as being a board director of many companies. She has published eight novels, a memoir, and 14 cookbooks inc. her latest cookbook, Life’s Too Short to Stuff a Mushroom published in 2024. Prue is probably best known as a judge on The Great British Bake Off, American Baking Show, The Great British Menu and My Kitchen Rules. Prue has her own TV show, Prue Leiths Cotswold Kitchen, with a 2nd series coming Spring 2025. Prue has had a long involvement with education and the arts and was Chair of the School Food Trust, responsible for the improvement of school food and food education. She started the campaign for contemporary sculpture to be exhibited on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square and has been active in many charities. She has a DBE, 12 honorary degrees or fellowships, the Veuve Clicquot Businesswoman of the year, and her restaurant, Leith’s, won a Michelin star.
The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk/Donate
