Speaking at her new restaurant at Norwich City Football Club, Delia Smith had just enough time between courses to talk to us about her new book, Delia's Vegetarian Collection. Here, she explains why she decided to do a vegetarian book despite loving meat, why American cooking inspires her, and why she hates broccoli.

Why did you decide to write the Vegetarian Collection?
DS: We've had a lot of requests; people have always wanted it and I've always meant to do it, and now I've done it, so let's hope it's what people want in the end.

What market will the book appeal to?
DS: It's very nice not to have to look through every book of mine to find the vegetarian recipes. There are a lot of people who are not vegetarians but who cook for vegetarians on a regular basis, so I hope it will be a service for them as well as the vegetarians themselves. I think everybody now is on board with vegetarian food. When I first started writing about cooking there was Cranks restaurant in London and that was all but it's grown and grown and grown and it's become a very important part of eating. What I wanted was to provide, for the people who wanted it, all the vegetarian recipes that I really rate in one place.

You're known as a meat lover but do you like vegetarian food?
DS: I started writing recipes 33 years ago and I've always done vegetarian recipes because I eat vegetarian food quite often. In our house some of our favourite recipes happen to be vegetarian but I still very much enjoy meat and I believe in meat.

Can you recommend a vegetarian fast food?
DS: Lentils take 25 minutes to cook and one of the greatest meals for total balance in nutrition is beans on toast. It's lovely. If you pair grains with pulses you?ve got first class protein; exactly the same as meat.

What are your favourite vegetables?
DS: Runner beans. It's a beautiful vegetable and no one ever serves it in a restaurant. You need a machine to do it, because the secret of the runner bean is that it?s got to be sliced thinly, and when it's sliced thinly it only goes in the water for a brief amount of time and it's luscious. And you only have it once a year. It?s not like boring boring broccoli, which is always there. Whatever restaurant you go into, it's always there. And boring boring mangetout.

Which ingredient will have the Delia effect this time?
DS: Not Swedes! I don't think there's anything in this book that's going to be the new ingredient.

Will cooking as an art survive?
DS: It's quite a battle with supermarkets and ready meals but I think cooking will survive because human beings are creative and they like to eat real food

What are you hoping to do in the future as far as cookery is concerned?
DS: We're looking at the Vegetarian Collection and if that's successful what might happen in the future is other collections because after 30 years and millions and millions of recipes I've build up a fantastic amount. When you come home from work at night and you've got a chicken in the fridge why not have a book on chicken? Or if you want a chocolate dessert, why not have a book on chocolate? We could do an Italian book or a menu book. I get a lot of people writing to me saying they want a menu book. On the website we ran some research and what people want more than anything else in the world is advice on menus. People say 'I've got people coming to dinner and I want you to give me a first course, a main course and a dessert, and please tell me what to do' the day before. I'd like to do a menu book.

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