Dame Meera Syal is starry-eyed for our summery fish, fennel and saffron stew

About this episode

The latest great Dame to join our party! Dame Meera Syal is an award-winning actress, comedian and writer, who sat down with us on the scorching-hot day of the solar eclipse. It’s a busy time for Meera ahead of the release of her life story, Vigilauntie: A Memoir - Innit?, and the opening of her new play, The Children. So, imagine our surprise when she arrived with home-baked goods in hand! What a legend. Meera is a firm believer in the power of food to get people talking and sharing stories, which is exactly what happens in our time with her around the Dish table. There are loving stories about her proud and supportive parents (including the secret to her mum’s saag paneer), and how Meera’s bakes bring new acting casts together. When discussing her rich and warm memoir (out on 3 September), we take a trip back to the groundbreaking work of Goodness Gracious Me and The Kumars at No. 42, where she played a grandmother to the man who’d become her husband: Sanjeev Bhaskar. It’s a feast of an episode, with a cooling mango & passion fruit frozen lassi to start, followed by a summery fish, fennel & saffron stew, a recipe by Eleanor Maidment. This is paired with a bottle of Altos de