What’s in your kitchen?

My kitchen is full of fancy gadgets, many of which I don’t use! I have a spit in my oven that I’ve used once and a pizza stone that I rarely bring out. I’ve got a chargrill and deep fryer - it’s always important to me that I can cook and eat good steak and chips with a nice salad.

I invested in a first-rate coffee machine and make sure that I always have very good olive oil and vinegar to hand. I’ve nearly finished a bottle of Vin Santo vinegar from Italy – possibly the best I’ve ever had and I’m struggling to track another bottle down.

I also like to have cheese, Parma ham, salami, charcuterie and great bread in the kitchen to snack on. My shelves are laden with De Cecco pasta and sauces.

England's 8 best places to eat out

The winner of the Enjoy England Taste Awards 2009 is a classic Yorkshire pub with a terrific kitchen

• The best B&B in England

• How to cook asparagus

• The world's Top 100 restaurants

10 things we didn’t know about food

How the authors of the new Rough Guide to Food lost their appetites for the food industry

Related Links

• Real Food Pioneer: Gary Rhodes

• Get growing

How would you sum up your food philosophy?

Straightforward, all-encompassing and product led. If I find a great product I decide what I might do with it rather than dream up an idea from scratch and piece it together that way.

My ideal is to put myself at the service of the product, be respectful to it and try to show it at its best - ie. change it as little as possible. It’s best to buy fresh ingredients at their peak. I’m always keen to get locally sourced seasonal products.

How has British food and our attitude to it changed in your lifetime?

There’s been an enormous change. If you take something as simple as the humble salad this has changed over the years from bland undressed lettuce and tomato to salads incorporating a wide variety of vegetables and dressings.

As a nation we used to think that good food needed to have a fancy French name and/or foreign origin. Everything was veiled in a mask. However, now we have become more comfortable with our own food and history. We’re starting to develop a real food culture of our own and are thankfully moving away from being obsessed with technique.

What annoys you about food culture in Britain?

There’s a lot of voyeurism attached to food and cooking. People like to change the nature of the ingredients for the sake of it. It annoys me when young chefs overwork food and treat it like cement by adding some water and trying to turn it into something else. Then when it comes to them having a meal, they want to cover everything in ketchup and eat it standing up. Food is all about taste and trying to remember the origin of the food.

Times Recommends

• Thomasina Miers’s cabbage and bitter leaves on garlic toast
• Food that's good for body and soul
• Carrot, date and goat's cheese salad