Best known as a photographer, Mary McCartney is also a passionate cook, and now she’s continuing mum Linda’s legacy with a meat-free cooking show.
It’s not unusual for TV cooks to invite their friends onto their programmes, but the calibre of guests on Mary McCartney’s new show is so stellar it almost sounds made up. We have Liv Tyler popping round for chilli tacos, Cameron Diaz munching brunch, Kate Hudson grilling up maple vodka peaches, Dave Grohl sharing his recipe for ‘Baddass Lasagna’...
“Not all of my friends are famous,” insists Mary, laughing. “But I think the audience would be more interested in the well-known ones. They’re pals, and it’s important for me to cook for people. I like pleasing people with food.”
Filmed in her London kitchen, Mary McCartney Serves It Up! sees the Beatle’s daughter creating meat-free family favourites, from turmeric tofu noodles and vegan banoffee cheesecake to mum Linda’s classic marinara sauce.
“The recipes are not too healthy and not too unhealthy,” she says. “They’re that good middle ground where you feel like you’ve indulged, but you’ve got some nutrition out of it. And I show how you can get something really impressive, really quickly.”
Because, she says, speed matters. “I like somebody to be in the kitchen hanging out with me, watching me cook. I want to be socialising, so I don’t want it to be too much of a chore, but then when we sit down and eat, I want their face to light up and for them to go ‘Wow!’”
Until now (and unlike her younger sister, fashion designer Stella) Mary has tended to dodge the limelight. She’s best known for being behind the camera – her photography portfolio includes faces as famous as Kate Moss and The Queen – yet the 51-year-old has long been an advocate of vegetarianism. She’s written two cookbooks and, alongside Sir Paul and Stella, co-founded the Meat Free Monday campaign in 2009.
That’s not surprising, given her upbringing. Paul and Linda famously became vegetarian in the 70s after watching lambs gambolling outside their window – while eating lamb. Happily Linda was an excellent cook, and Mary learned her skills by helping out.
“The kitchen was the heart of the home, so Mum would be cooking and I’d chop things. It was much more unusual to be vegetarian then, and there was this big, glaring gap in the middle of the plate, so I’ve grown up coming up with ideas.” Launching her food brand in 1991, Linda almost single-handedly made veggie meals mainstream; when she died of breast cancer seven years lager, aged 56, the family vowed to continue her legacy.
The McCartneys are, says Mary, “really close, and the reason there are so many family anecdotes in the show is because we grew up talking about food.” (The anecdotes aren’t all food-related, though: guest Mark Ronson relays how aged 9, he swam out of his depth in the sea, and Paul dived in and saved him, Baywatch-style).
Mary sons – aged 21 and 18 from her first marriage, and aged 12 and 9 with her film director husband, Simon Aboud – can all cook, and are all vegetarian. “At this point there have been no mutinies!” she says. “Everybody seems very happy with the food.”
Has she ever tried meat? “When I left home and was cooking for myself, I thought I’d try it, and then I was like do you know what? I don’t need it. Mum was such a great cook that I never missed it, and it made me realise how well I’d been taught.
“And now it’s exciting because growing up it was very much ‘us and them’, whereas now people are looking for this type of food – and I’m enticing them in through their taste buds.”
::Mary McCartney Serves It Up! is available to stream on discovery+
An edited version of this interview featured in Waitrose Weekend in February 2021 (c) Waitrose