Nothing goes together like mad cow and mash

The Agreeable World of Wallace Arnold

Yummy, yummy. To my chums at The Garrick, the name Wallace Arnold has long been synonymous with Bon Viveur. Though I am pictured above sucking thoughtfully upon my beloved pipe, at the time of that pose a steaming plate of steak-and-kidney pud with accompanying mash was wafting its way straight into my nostrils from the groaning dining-table below.

Ever the Renaissance Man, I straddle the worlds of gourmet and gourmand. At one moment, I will be ordering a delicate starter of Beluga Caviare with Pan-Fried Apricots on a Bed of Couscous, and at the next I will be happily wolfing down a Shin of Lamb Coated in Toffee, Redcurrant and Hazelnut Meringue with a Wild Mushroom Sauce and french fries. Small wonder that I am regularly asked by Mr Lard Grossman to adjudicate on Masterchef. Nor should it surprise anyone that I am the doughty author of more than 10 cookery books, including Wallace on Anchovies (based on the BBC series of the same name), 101 Ways to Mash Potato, Eating with Both Eyes Open, and, of course, Towards the Fuller Figure: 250 Recipes with Double Cream.

I have many other projects in the immensely profitable cookery book stakes "on the boil", including a brand-new version of Linda McCartney's Vegetarian Cookbook for meat-eaters, with many recipes from the original oeuvre enlarged and improved, including Linda's Vegetarian Nut-Roast with Extra Liver and "Linda's Lovely Carrot and Pumpkin Hot-Pot with Scrag End of Raw Beef".

My entry in Who's Who In The British Pantry reminds me that for a full five years I was the Spectator's much-lauded Food Correspondent. As such, I was a key player in the great revival of Old English favourites of table and hearth - ancient dishes such as Rabbit Steamed in Its Fur and Served with Parsnip Crisps, Donkey's Ear in a Port Wine Sauce and that excellent old stand-by to eat when hunting stray cats on a blustery day: Coxcomb Fritters.

Every now and then, I would don my chef's hat and apron and cook some of these venerable old recipes for the most distinguished contributors to that estimable journal. For many, these dishes posed something of a challenge - I well remember Mr Enoch Powell, for instance, wrestling with a bit of spiralling gristle that had got stuck in his teeth after consuming a bowlful of my celebrated Pig's Tail Soup. But for others, they were little short of nirvana: Lord Wyatt of Weevil still talks about my Swan Mousse; indeed, so much so that I haven't the heart to tell him that it was in fact Smoked Pate of Ox Bottom.

Today, cookery books are all the rage. Personally, I can't get enough of them: I always like to peruse a decent cookery book or two whilst sitting down for a healthy meal, and I have a further shelf full of cookery books in "the smallest room" to help me while away the minutes whilst struggling with my "number ones" and "number twos". And, needless to say, the great cookery book publishers are all mustard-keen to have me on their lists. Next year sees the publication of Fresh Tripe the Arnold Way (Chatto and Windus pounds 19.95) and I am already busily preparing my special millennium cook-book, 1000 Years of Vol-au-Vents for My Lord Weidenfeld.

As you must already be aware, I am considered an absolute natural on the dread gogglebox. Though he himself cuts an unhealthily lean figure, Mr John Birt simply cannot have too many programmes about eating and drinking, and it seems that I am his favourite food presenter. My 20-part series, Wallace Arnold's Gravy Train, will be exploring all the different methods of making gravy throughout the world, particularly concentrating upon those places that offer comfortable five-star hotels in exotic locations. This will be followed by a government-backed education series, It's Spongi- Good! Twenty Scrumptious Ways with BSE, in which I open the viewing public's eyes to all the gorgeous dishes that can be created with a dash and whisk of good old traditional British spongiform.

My task for the first of the series was to cook the inaugural dinner of the new Referendum Party, the brainchild of my old quaffing partner Jimmy Goldsmith. Believe me, it was quite a challenge to cook and serve half a ton of Prime British spongiform to 100 candidates. But when the programme is shown, I trust one can tell from the grins on their faces and the energy in their dance-steps that Le Chef Arnold has worked his magic once more.