From Gordon Ramsay's F Word to his mum's cooking: Discovery Bay's Barrington Douglas talks about how he got passionate about food

Feb 24 2010 by Hilarie Stelfox, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

WITH a family of five hungry boys to feed it’s probably just as well that Jamaican-born Valda Douglas always enjoyed cooking.

And when one of her sons, Barrington, the second youngest, began to show an interest in food and its preparation she was only too happy to show him how it was done.

“My mum just pulled me to one side and said ‘watch this pot’ and told me what to do. I was about 12 but I’d always been interested in cooking,’’ explained Barrington, now 42.

“I used to watch my aunties baking and I ended up knowing things like how to dissect a chicken for the Sunday dinner. None of my brothers were interested at all,’’ he added.

Valda, who came to Huddersfield with her husband Wilbert during the wave of emigration from the West Indies in the 1960s, taught Barrington the traditional Caribbean recipes from her homeland.

“She was taught to cook by her own mum,” he explained. “She used to shop for fresh meat and veg and cook every day. When there was no money she’d find something in the fridge and rustle up a five-course dinner.’’

Even today Valda still cooks for her large family and supplies the restaurant with her own home-baked sweet potato pudding.

“We still go to my mum’s on a Sunday, with our children. There are usually at least seven grandchildren and as many adults,’’ he added.

Although food has always been a passion for Barrington, who was raised in Deighton but now lives in Fartown with his wife Cheryl and two young sons, he remained an enthusiastic amateur until 2006 when he opened his restaurant, Discovery Bay, in Wood Street.