Mary Berry (food Writer) - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

Berry attended Bath High School, where she described her academic abilities as "hopeless" until she attended domestic science classes with a teacher called Miss Date who was particularly encouraging of her cooking abilities. Her first creation in the class was a treacle sponge pudding which she took home, and her father told her that it was as good as her mother's.

She went on to take a catering course at Bath College of Domestic Science, and a qualification from the French Le Cordon Bleu school at the age of 17. She recalled that the temporary move to France came as a culture shock; she couldn't help but cry all the way through her first meal; it was horse meat, reminding her of the pony she had left behind at home in Bath. She worked at the Bath electricity board showroom and conducted home visits in order to show new customers how to use their electric ovens. She would typically demonstrate the ovens by making a Victoria sponge, a technique she would later repeat when in television studios in order to test out an oven she hadn't used before. Her catchment area for demonstrations was limited to the greater Bath area, which she drove around in a Ford Popular supplied as a company car. Her ambition was to move out of the family home to London, something which her parents would not allow until she turned 21. At the age of 22, she moved to London to work at the Dutch Dairy Bureau while taking City & Guilds courses in the evenings.

She left the Dairy Bureau to become a recipe tester for a PR firm and began to write her first book. She has since cooked for a range of food related bodies, including the Egg Council and the Flour Advisory Board. She became a magazine editor by the time she had children, and only took five weeks leave on each occasion as there was no set maternity leave at the time and each time she risked her post being filled by someone else by the time she was scheduled to return. She was cookery editor of Housewife magazine from 1966 to 1970 and of Ideal Home magazine from 1970 to 1973.

Her first cookbook, The Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook, was published in 1970. She launched her own product range in 1994 with her daughter Annabel. The salad dressings and sauces were originally only sold at Mary's AGA cooking school, but have since been sold internationally around Britain, Germany and Ireland with retailers such as Harrods, Fortnum & Mason and Tesco each stocking the product ranges.

Since 2010, she has been one of the judges on BBC Two's The Great British Bake Off alongside baker Paul Hollywood who specialises in bread and Berry says that since working together, she has learnt from him. However, some viewers were outraged during the first series when a decision was made to make the contestants use one of Hollywood's recipes for scones instead of one of Berry's. Her work on the show with Hollywood has led to the partnership being suggested by The Guardian as being the best reality TV judging partnership ever. She has also appeared on a BBC Two series called "The Great British Food Revival".

In her own kitchen, she uses a KitchenAid mixer which she describes as being the one gadget she couldn't live without. She has always had an AGA cooker, and used to run cooking courses for AGA users. She describes Raymond Blanc's restaurant Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons as one of her favourites as well as the Old Queen's Head, local to where she lives in Penn, High Wycombe.

She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to culinary arts. In July 2012, she was given an honorary degree for her lifelong achievements in her field by Bath Spa University which incorporates the former Bath College of Domestic Science. A few days later, on July 29th 2012, she appeared as the guest on the long-running BBC radio programme Desert Island Discs.