Intelligence Squared: The 12 Books of Christmas | Comfort Eating with Grace Dent

Guest: Grace Dent (Journalist, Restaurant Critic, Author of Comfort Eating: What We Eat When Nobody’s Looking)
Host: Deborah Frances-White (Comedian, Host of The Guilty Feminist)
Date: December 20, 2024

Overview

This episode of Intelligence Squared's "The 12 Books of Christmas" series features Grace Dent discussing her latest book, Comfort Eating: What We Eat When Nobody's Looking. Joined by Deborah Frances-White, Dent dives into the themes of food, memory, nostalgia, and grief, exploring why comfort food resonates so deeply and how it’s often inextricably linked to family, identity, and emotional survival. The conversation is deeply warm, relatable, and candidly funny, blending poignant moments with hilarious asides.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

Food and Emotional Truths (02:51–10:24)

• Confessions of Comfort Eating:
  Dent and Frances-White set the tone by acknowledging the split between the foods people claim to eat for appearances (dinner parties, social eating) versus what they actually eat when alone—"like a wild animal in private." (05:13)

• Food as Memory Lane:
  “The podcast is wonderful because you are exploring people's lives and their childhoods through those early iconic foods… But it reminds you of a time.” — Deborah Frances-White (06:14)

• Comfort Food vs. Fancy Food:
  Dent explains why her podcast and book focus on the humble, "unfancy" foods that provide real comfort—beans, toast, supermarket bagels, and tinned chocolate—preferring honest culinary confession to gourmet showmanship (04:34, 05:51).

Grief, Loss, and Food Rituals (06:41–10:09)

• Food During Grieving:
  Cake and hampers replace the traditional sympathy flowers; food is practical and brings joy during sorrow. “Let’s send a hamper… My family was so excited!” — Deborah Frances-White (06:42)

• Shared Food as Silent Support:
  Dent shares a story about Richard E. Grant: a friend sent him home-cooked meals weekly during his wife’s illness, a gesture requiring no uncomfortable asks for help (07:33).

• Writing About Grief and Laughs:
  Dent acknowledges her books always end up addressing the loss of her parents and the role comfort food played in family coping. "All of my books, I always say, are kind of coughing up a big fur ball... We talk about tinned pasta, chocolate by the supermarket counter..." (08:56)

The Sacredness and Science of Butter (10:09–15:16)

• Butter as Emotional Bedrock:
  The butter chapter is repeatedly referenced as both comic and deeply resonant. Butter recurs across chapters; it’s what makes restaurant food taste irresistible.
  “We are hardwired to love butter.” — Grace Dent (13:05)

• Generational Shifts—Butter to Margarine:
  Discussing her childhood and postwar British food culture, Dent recalls how her mother's generation was indoctrinated to prefer long-life margarine (Flora, etc.) over real butter, leading to a cycle of joyless, diet-driven eating (15:16–17:41).

Diet Culture, Body Positivity, and Generational Shame (17:41–21:43)

• No Body Positivity:
  Both speakers recount Gen X's exposure to "slimming magazines," brutal one-food diets (pineapple, egg, or grape weeks), and the utter lack of body diversity in public life (18:01).
  “There was one thing you could be and that was very, very, very thin, and that was it.” — Deborah Frances-White (18:18)

• Modern Fads, Old Patterns:
  They compare historic fad diets to the current obsession with weight loss injections like Ozempic, cynically noting the continuity between generational cycles of deprivation (20:29).

Comfort Food, Class, and Culinary Snobbery (22:34–27:14)

• Restaurant Critics, Real Food, and Relatability:
  Dent reveals she finds talk of posh restaurants "dull" and is more interested in the private, embarrassing foods that people secretly love—powdered gravy, oven chips with mint sauce, and Cadbury's chocolate (22:34–26:53).

• Food as Proustian Trigger:
  Childhood candy like Cadbury’s Buttons or chocolate eggs elicit immediate emotional time travel, sometimes more so than any gourmet meal (26:53).

• Hyper-Processed Food Debates:
  Dent notes she doesn’t idealize ultra-processed foods, is aware of their health issues, but also resists their moral demonization: "I'm not saying that we should all just live on these things. And I am thoroughly aware that we've all got a very complex... relationship with these things." (27:14–30:36)

The Psychology of “Balanced Indulgence” (30:33–33:11)

• Joy vs. Longevity:
  Frances-White makes a convincing case that happiness "is part of being healthy," and the occasional treat is psychologically essential.
  “I want to live wide as well as long.” — Deborah Frances-White (30:36)

• Care Homes and Full-Circle Comfort:
  Dent describes her father's Alzheimer's care home, where the daily menu was sponges and pink custard, gypsy creams, and other classic treats—the opposite of nutritional sterility (32:02).

Show-and-Tell: Guilty Comfort Foods (36:06–44:58)

• Celebrity Snack Ritual
  On Comfort Eating, guests must bring the food they truly eat in private, leading to touching and hilarious revelations. The moment underscores vulnerability:
  “We always have to cut 15 minutes of self-explanation before they open it…” — Grace Dent (37:17)

• Deborah's "Embarrassing" Chocolate Cake:
  Deborah brings a homemade "log" cake of sherry-dipped chocolate biscuits, jam, and cream, topped with Flake (41:03–42:59). Her nervous introduction epitomizes the episode's theme of honesty and nostalgia.

• Flake and Sweet Nostalgia:
  Flake chocolate triggers communal laughter about sneaking coins to buy sweets as children, and scratching the layers of family revisionism (44:04–45:39).

Aging, Truth-Telling, and Letting Go of “Sexy” (45:58–47:48)

• Both speak frankly about the relief of aging out of the expectation to be attractive and instead feeling liberated to tell more personal truths and be less concerned with external perceptions.

Reading from Comfort Eating: Tinned Pasta and Family Memory (48:24–60:42)

• Dent Reads from Her Book:
  The excerpt chronicles holidays in a rainy Cumbrian caravan, with family routines built around humble tinned ravioli and spaghetti hoops (52:11–58:00). Food becomes the thread connecting generations against a backdrop of loss.
  “I love tinned pasta because I like to cling to the small things that are constant.” — Grace Dent (59:47)

• Emotional Response:
  Frances-White tears up, summarizing the book’s core lesson: food as connection, not just sustenance or a path to a longer life (60:42).

Audience Q&A (61:33–69:30)

• On Food Critics as Dinner Companions:
  Dent humorously details her "critic posse," praising Tom Parker Bowles, Jay Rayner (“Jay is a messy bitch who loves the drama”), and the delightful gossip in the MasterChef green room (62:16–64:45).

• “Worst Thing You’ve Ever Eaten?”
  Dent vividly recalls a £600 tasting menu whose final course was a dessert shaped like a used condom ("Sex on the Beach")—a dish that, despite its charitable angle, left her angry and existentially drained (65:33–69:01).
  “It was a condom that was left on a beach and it was sugar sand and a sugar condom… I just felt angry.” — Grace Dent (67:45)

• Awkwardness of Edible Art:
  The story prompts a discussion about the absurdity and alienation of avant-garde dining compared to the soul-enriching simplicity of comfort food.

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On Butter:
  "Butter is the—I think that when we all say, oh, we know during lockdown, we all missed restaurants... What makes restaurants good is butter." (13:27)

• On Food and Grieving:
  "We all go, 'Give us a shout if I can do anything.' No one’s going to give you a shout...Every Sunday [a friend] opened the door and there was home-cooked food. That would completely distract me from my caring duties." (07:33–08:01)

• On Diets and Body Image:
  "There was no body positivity. There was one thing you could be and that was very, very, very thin, and that was it." — Deborah Frances-White (18:18)

• On Embarrassing Foods:
  "I really like oven chips with gravy, but that powdered gravy that you get that you make in a cup. And I have them with mint sauce because it’s like a kind of instant Sunday lunch." (24:08)

• On What Tinned Pasta Means:
  "Tinned spaghetti has this particular special place in my life. It’s basically adult baby food… Tinned spaghetti is day nine in a static caravan and the rain has poured to such an extent that the parking area is flooded. But we are adventurers." (54:02–57:39)

• On Processing Loss Through Food:
  "I love tinned pasta because I like to cling to the small things that are constant." (59:47)

• On Culinary Extremes:
  "I once went to a very, very expensive tasting menu in London... The last course... replicated a used condom that had been left on a beach—it was sugar sand and a sugar condom... And I just felt angry." (67:45)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:51] Opening Remarks and Setting Theme
• [06:41] Food in Times of Grief
• [10:23] Structure of the Book's Chapters
• [13:05] The Cultural Power of Butter
• [18:01] Diets and Body Image through the Generations
• [22:34] Restaurant Critic Life & Embarrassing Comfort Foods
• [27:14] Ultra-Processed Foods: Health vs. Nostalgia
• [32:02] Food in End-of-Life Care
• [37:17] Snack Show-and-Tell—Deborah’s Embarrassing Treat
• [41:03] The “Yule Log” of Biscuits, Sherry, and Cream
• [45:58] Aging, Truth-Telling, & Relinquishing Sex Appeal
• [52:07] Book Reading: Caravan Holidays & Tinned Pasta
• [60:42] Emotional Reflection: Food and Connection
• [62:16] Q&A: Favorite Critics to Dine With
• [65:33] Q&A: “Worst Thing You’ve Ever Eaten?” (Edible Condom Story)

Conclusion

This episode, blending wit and wisdom, lays bare the underappreciated power of comfort food: not guilt, but identity, memory, and gathering. Grace Dent’s vulnerability, humor, and unapologetic embrace of ordinary tastes are the heart of both her book and her conversation with Deborah Frances-White, reminding listeners that culinary honesty—however messy—is always the most nourishing.

For more intimate stories of food, family, and memory, read Grace Dent’s Comfort Eating: What We Eat When Nobody's Looking, or listen to the Comfort Eating podcast.