The astronomer and Sky at Night presenter on alien diets, 3D food printers and living with a severe dairy allergy
My parents split up when I was four. I sometimes lived with my mum, sometimes with my dad. At one point my mother lived above a sweet shop, which was exciting – BlackJacks and Fruit Salads were half a penny each – then she married a vicar. My diet changed, from my father’s traditional Nigerian food to the more English cooking of my mother. Maybe because I comfort ate, I put on a lot of weight at my mother’s. When I moved back to my father’s, I lost it.
I went to 13 different schools while I was growing up, which made me very adaptable to most things. I loved hot sweet tea at home, but then went to boarding school aged seven and exclaimed, “This isn’t tea! It tastes like dishwater.” And Nigerians don’t traditionally eat salad or veg, so I’d say, “Some of those leaves, please.”
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