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INTERVIEW: BBC celebrity chef Floyd to do TV series on Pakistani cuisine - Page 2

© Mahim Maher and Anjum Nida Rahman

While in Pakistan he was feted from the north to the south, from the Kyber Rifle Officers' Mess to the Arabian Sea. He spent Saturday afternoon on a fishing boat. "I lounged on the deck like a sultan and food was brought to me as I relaxed in the sun," he said. "I have been treated with outrageous hospitality and received an incredibly warm welcome."

He admitted he had a slightly different perception of Pakistan before he came here. "What I think is that Pakistan has quite a bad image but no one really knows how good the food is and how nice the people are," he said. "The Pakistani people have such passion for their food and take such good care of their guests and each other. They seem like a very caring society."

He has just written a book called "100 Great Curries" based on his work in India where he worked for two and a half months and enjoyed himself immensely. But there are some differences he noticed. "I don't mean to offend anyone," he says, "but India was dirty and scruffy and from what little I have seen of Pakistan on this trip it appears comparatively clean and civilised."

Mr Floyd grew interested in food in the 1960s, when he was about 19 (he was born in 1943). That was a time when British food was appalling and all the jokes about it were true, he said. He had joined the army then and went to Germany, which gave him the opportunity to travel to France and the Mediterranean where he was amazed to discover that food took on a different meaning. He resolved that when he left the army he would teach himself how to cook. He even established a restaurant in France called "Floyd's Restaurant" near Avignon.

At the time he wanted to become a chef it wasn't fashionable at all. "People became chefs then because they couldn't become electricians," Mr Floyd said. He takes his inspiration from France, where cooking as a profession is something to be proud of.

He said with a wry smile that he's geographically schizophrenic because he travels so much and has two homes - in England and France. When he is in England, his wife of ten years, Tess, does the cooking and when the couple are in France he takes over. When he met Tess she was working as a food stylist and today she is involved in his work. Unfortunately, he said it is unlikely that Tess would make it to Pakistan in March for the series.

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