Clarissa Dickson-Wright

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Clarissa Dickson-Wright (born Clarissa Theresa Philomena Aileen Mary Josephine Agnes Elsie Trilby Louise Esmerelda Dickson-Wright^{[citation needed]} on June 28, 1947) is an English celebrity chef best known from her appearances with Jennifer Paterson in the BBC series Two Fat Ladies. "Esmerelda" comes from her dad's favorite pig and she was born in the year of the pig.

She was born in St John's Wood, London, the only child of a Protestant father Sir Arthur Dickson-Wright K.C.V.O. who was surgeon to the British Royal Family after World War II, and her mother Molly, Lady Dickson-Wright was a Roman Catholic Australian heiress. Clarissa was trained as a barrister, becoming the youngest woman ever to receive a call to the bar at the age of 21, working as a barrister for some years before moving into cookery. Upon her mother's death in 1975 she inherited "an obscene amount of money" - well over £1 million - but these two factors destroyed her sense of ambition and led to her becoming an alcoholic. She went on working as a caterer for private individuals to support herself (a business called "Clarissa's Company"), as well as running a luncheon club in London. After her second bankruptcy, however, she went to the Lefever PROMIS clinic in Kent where she took part in the Twelve-step program. After living in a half-way house, she began working in a bookshop in Notting Hill - "Books for Cooks" - and gradually rose to manage it. This was followed by her own shop in Edinburgh, Scotland named "The Cook's Bookshop".

She has been described by author Henrietta Green as "the world's leading authority on cookery books."

Initially taking part in BBC Radio 4's Curious Cooks she moved to television in a series which was allegedly a response to, and parody of, those made by another celebrity chef, Delia Smith. Two Fat Ladies reached a worldwide audience and featured Dickson-Wright and Jennifer Paterson driving around the UK in a motorcycle and sidecar combination preparing large meals which often included eccentric ingredients. It ran for three seasons until the death of Paterson during filming of the fourth.

When interviewed for Desert Island Discs she admitted to a pathological hatred of carrots because her father used to feed them to her still with slugs on, although she also stated she would now happily eat the slug instead.

Outside her food interests she is a pro hunting campaigner for the Countryside Alliance, and a former rector of the University of Aberdeen.

[edit] External links

• Biography on BBC Food website
• Larger Than Life - article from Waitrose Food Illustrated
• Transcript of BBC Radio 4's 'Desert Island Discs' interview