Appetite: A Memoir in Recipes of Family and Food

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Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding is indeed the best thing you can eat, but I maintain that beef dripping (fat) from the joint, smoking hot is preferable to Ed’s groundnut oil – and while roast potatoes can indeed be fabulous with olive oil, they too are even better cooked in dripping. Ed always seems likeable on TV and radio appearances and comes across favourably in this well-written book.

Food and its associations plays such a big part in all our lives - just look how nostalgic people get about their childhood favourites.It is a good hearted book, as you’d expect with such a dedication, with glowing endorsements from his Norwich City pals Stephen Fry and Delia Smith. Photograph: Alex Lake/The Observer View image in fullscreen ‘There are Le Creusets and frying pans and bowls and sieves…’ Ed Balls in the kitchen. Read more about the condition New: A new, unread, unused book in perfect condition with no missing or damaged pages.

View image in fullscreen All the moves: Ed Balls shows his fun-loving side on Strictly in 2017, with dance partner Katya Jones. Moreover, he is one of those people, you would always want around for a barbecue or dinner party and not only because he clearly can always talk to anyone and will be a fun addition to a party, but mainly because the man can cook and understands good food. I’ve just agreed to play in a concert in December – a charity concert in Kings Place – I’m going to play the opening aria of the Goldberg Variations. I loved his competitiveness when it came to his favourite family recipes in "Celebrity Best Home Cook" and it was very interesting to watch as the former and I would say life-long labour politician compete with the sister of our then future and now former worst-ever prime minister.I noted how the finer details of recipes were sometimes lacking, for instance: how big a shoulder of pork for the bbq recipe?

On radio and TV, Ed is best known for his BBC series Travels in Trumpland with Ed Balls, his Radio 4 documentary Virtues of Vulnerability, his memorable appearance on the 2016 series of Strictly Come Dancing and as the first winner of Celebrity Best Home Cook. Balls recounted his mother’s Shepherd’s pie, a recipe that he has stayed true to (aside from the addition of a splash of Worcester sauce). For you to see your mum, who had always cooked Sunday lunch, produce something raw, was a jarring moment. Poor Ed assumed this was the starter, but no, this was Mandelson treating food as politics, and that was the lot. It’s Ed Balls rather than his wife Yvette Cooper who does the cooking in their house; he’s adamant that social and gender revolution and cultural diversity have been changes for the better.At 27 he took a job working on fiscal policy for Gordon Brown with another bright young Labour wonk, Ed Miliband. It’s asking them what they want, cooking the things they ask for, to be able to be the person who delivers. His stories resonated with the listeners at Durham Book Festival, as tales of Sunday roasts and the quirks of family eating awakened the audience’s collective memories. There’s an interesting account of Peter Mandelson’s way with lunch: “small and exquisite tomato soup, crusty French bread, and a little green salad with baby tomatoes and a lightly tossed vinaigrette”. Since losing his parliamentary seat in 2015, the former Labour shadow chancellor has been perfecting his culinary skills.

I definitely wanted slightly more detail on Ed’s life - events were briefly described and then we were moved swiftly on - but I really enjoyed this book. This is more like Yvette’s kitchen,” he adds, throwing his wife, Yvette Cooper MP, under the slovenly bus.When Balls is done pretending to sieve flour we sit down for cod and chips from Knight’s, a West Norwood institution round the corner from the photo studio.