He might have survived on curry and chips during his university days in Oxford but Tom Parker Bowles is now a respected food writer. His latest cookery book Let’s Eat Meat argues less is more where carnivorous feasts are concerned. Jaine Blackman reports

Tom Parker Bowles is aware that he could sound like a walking contradiction.

The food writer, and son of Camilla Parker Bowles, knows that writing a book called Let’s Eat Meat and then encouraging people to eat less of the stuff – but instead spend more on more ethically-produced meat – might sound counter-intuitive.

He also is conscious that with his privileged background, it could seem grating when he implores others, from his “ivory food-writer tower”, to pay more for better-quality grub. But when it comes to food, he is not one to be easily deterred.

“You get older and a little bit wiser, and you realise that you don’t have to eat meat every single day,” reasons Parker Bowles, who hit the headlines this week when an alleged sex scandal at his former prep school, Summer Fields in Oxford, came to light.

Parker Bowles, who later went to Eton and then Oxford’s Worcester College, may have been a member of the Piers Gaveston dining society at Oxford but he has been quoted as saying: “I basically went out all the time and ate crap — I survived on chips and curry sauce.”

Now he is food editor for Esquire magazine, writes a weekly column for the Mail On Sunday and Let’s Eat Meat is his fifth culinary book.

“The point of this book, if there is any point, is eat meat, love it, worship it, but eat less of it and eat better meat,” he says of his latest tome.

“Even if you’re eating meat every day, it doesn’t have to be a slab of protein in front of you. I do believe that if you eat a little less meat, it means you can afford to buy better and use more of the cuts that are cheaper.”

The book includes a meat-free chapter, as well as one which shows how to use meat as a seasoning, and is also packed with recipes where traditional cuts and offal are the stars.

Parker Bowles, who likes to support British farmers and is strong advocate for having cookery classes in schools, clearly enjoys meat, but the 39-year-old credits his childhood in the countryside for giving him no illusions about “the brutal reality of life, that pigs are killed for meat”.

When it comes to his own career, he is similarly pragmatic.

“There wasn’t a moment when I decided to write about food, [it was] just greed,” he says.

“I could string a sentence together, cook and eat. If you want to write about food, you really need to be able to eat, and I’ve never had a problem with doing that at all.”

Oxford Mail:

He says he generally eats less meat since having children; he and wife Sara split the family cooking duties at home, so spending time in the kitchen still feels like a pleasure.

And it’s clear that while he is a “husband and father first”, he has two young children, Lola and Freddy, he relishes spending time perfecting his recipes.

“For me, happiness is a Saturday in the kitchen with the radio on, just cooking,” he says. “It relaxes me. I know I talk very fast and have lots of energy, but cooking actually fully relaxes me, it’s very cathartic.”

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