Len Deighton
And the thriller writer's Ballymaloe Connection
It says a lot about the status which Len Deighton enjoyed in the food world in the 1970’s that he was asked by Myrtle Allen to write the Introduction to The Ballymaloe Cookbook, back in 1977 when the book was first published.
Deighton, who has passed away aged 97, loved Ballymaloe – he told the legendary restaurant critic Fay Maschler to go there for her honeymoon – and it’s easy to see why Myrtle would ask him to write a page to tee up the book.
Len and Myrtle were two iconoclasts, two people who in their very different ways created their own worlds, their very own way. Myrtle Allen invented the concept of the country house hotel and up-ended the perception of the Big House when she opened her own Big House to paying guests.
Deighton’s mother was a Fitzgerald from Ireland, and he liked to joke that he grew up in a big house in London with 15 servants.
His parents were two of the servants.
But Deighton had the luck. He got to grammar school, then after national service he got a serviceman’s grant which enabled him to go to St Martin’s School of Art, and he graduated from the Royal College of Art. As such, he was one of those 1960’s working class creatives for whom art college offered the lifeline of a creative career – think Keith Richards; Jimmy Page; David Hockney; Richard Hamilton; Bryan Ferry; Brian Eno; Pete Townshend; John Cale – amongst many others.
Deighton then enjoyed a successful career as a freelance graphic artist, before writing a spy book called The Ipcress File “for a lark.” It was a massive success, made the career of Michael Caine thanks to the movie version, and set Deighton up as a writer.
But throughout his entire career, the constant in Deighton’s life was actually food and cooking. His mother, Dorothy, was a fine cook, and Deighton worked as a waiter and kitchen assistant to get through college. Even before he became famous with his spy books, his illustrations and scribblings on how to cook began to appear in The Observer – Deighton called them Cookstrips – and a series of cookery books soon began to appear.
Deighton wrote his spy books in part because he regarded Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels as childish nonsense, with a psychopathically cruel protagonist. Deighton’s Harry Palmer, however, was a smart guy who – like his creator – both loved to cook and loved to eat.
Whilst the media suggested Deighton was the “anti-Bond” the crucial difference between the two authors wasn’t just one of class. Fleming had no interest in food – Bond lives on scrambled eggs – whilst Palmer is a serious food lover, an aesthete and a music lover. Deighton’s books spill over with details about food and drink.
There is a charming story about the Harry Palmer films where in one kitchen scene Palmer is meant to crack an egg with one hand. Michael Caine just couldn’t do it, so the hand that cracks the egg in the shot is actually Deighton’s.
Deighton and his family lived in Blackrock, County Louth, for many years, before moving to the Channel Islands. Our great friend Declan Lynch, the Sindo’s finest columnist, knew Len when he lived there, and Declan will swear to this day that a tomato Len gave him which he grew in his Blackrock garden is the finest Declan has ever eaten.
“At Ballymaloe they raise their own pigs and make everything from salt pork to sausages, not forgetting black puddings. A customer looking forward to crab or lobster would do well to speak to Myrtle in advance, for it won’t have come out of the deep-freeze but out of the sea. Like the lobsters and the pork, lamb and beef will all be local produce… Myrtle Allen is a wonderful cook.”
Len Deighton writing on Myrtle Allen is the definition of game recognises game.
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