A Telegraph interview from 2015, in which then Environment Sec Liz Truss reveals her favourite potato and tells us that Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh were the Liam Fox of their day (I paraphrase).
The French are right to be worried, warns Elizabeth Truss.
"They have been saying there is an Anglo Saxon conspiracy to knock them off their gastronomic pedestal, and I think there's something in that," she says, with barely suppressed pride.
Producers of English sparkling wines are beating the elite champagne houses of France to win major international awards, while the UK now offers more varieties of cheese than the grande fromagerie across the Channel.
As Environment Secretary, Miss Truss might be expected to thump some tubs about "buying British".
But her passion is clearly genuine. A self-confessed food lover who counts the fearsomely pungent Stinking Bishop among her first-choice cheeses, she even has a favourite variety of potato.
"I want people to buy British because it's the tastiest food and the most exciting food," she says. "When I was growing up, other countries' food - like the French - was perceived as exciting and innovative and our food wasn't seen like that.
"It's still the case with wines. Our sparkling wines are award-winning and compete very well with champagne but I'm not sure if people realise the extent to which it really is a very high quality product."
In an interview with The Telegraph, Miss Truss declares her personal mission to get consumers to buy less cheese from abroad, while reconnecting the British people with the ancient agricultural landscapes from which their food is grown.
She warns that the European Union is having a damaging impact on farmers, even dictating the types of crops they can grow, and suggests she could be prepared to vote to leave the EU in a referendum if satisfactory new terms cannot be agreed.
With the Eurozone economy newly imperilled by the new radical anti-austerity government in Greece, the Cabinet minister urges British food companies to look far beyond the EU, and export more ale to America, cheddar to China and sausages to India.
Export express
Before entering Parliament at the 2010 election, Miss Truss, 39, was an executive in the energy industry, and a free-market economist at the think-tank Reform. Neither of these seems the most obvious fit with a government department responsible for badger culling, flood-prevention, and pet passports.
Yet she sees her faith in economic competitiveness - a credo that has earned her comparisons with Margaret Thatcher, who she once played during a school election - as central to her new role.
At Defra, there is an opportunity to spread Britain's economic might further around the world, she says. The terms in which Miss Truss makes her point are certainly not lacking in ambition.
"If you look at the great Elizabethan era - Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh bringing products back - I think we have an opportunity to do that again. Britain has always been at its most successful when it's a trading nation," she says.
"With huge opportunities for export and the issues in the Eurozone at the moment, getting more products out to the US, the Americas, Africa and Asia is really important."
Which British delicacies are likely to be on the world's shopping list? Whisky, of course, but also beer, cheese, and snacks, she replies.
"The British brand is so popular particularly in the US that they put the union jack flag on top of beer bottles because it sells," she says.
"Tyrrells crisps are one of the top sellers in France," she says. "I don't know if you've tasted crisps in other countries, but I really think British crisps are world leaders. I went to China and they told me there is only one type of potato available there."
Brussels and sprouts
But there is a profound handicap that threatens the UK's farming and food producing industry which the Eurosceptic Miss Truss is in no mood to hide.
She sees "all the time" the damaging impact that the EU's Common Agricultural Policy can have on British farmers.
In particular, the new "three crop rule", which comes into effect this year, means all but the smallest farms must grow at least three different crops, in order to encourage "diversity" and protect the environment.
Miss Truss says: "There are benefits to being in a single market, but there are serious costs.
"The three crop rule means that Brussels bureaucrats are going to be deciding what our farmers produce, rather than what consumers want, which is a problem."
Other rules around pesticide use should also be decided at British level, rather than by the European Union, she says.
Hairnets and Wellies
If there is no change to the meddling and micromanagement from Europe, will she vote to leave the EU in the referendum that the Tories are promising to hold by 2017, if the party remains in power after the election?
Miss Truss chooses her language carefully. "It entirely depends on what the offer on the table is," she says.
"The best position for us is to get a good deal from the EU so we can stay part of a single market, but we can get rid of some of these regulations that hold back not just our own competitiveness, but also the competitiveness of the whole of the EU."
In the absence of this result, Miss Truss clearly does not believe it would be an inevitable disaster for Britain if the electorate voted to quit the EU.
But wouldn't the farming industry collapse without immigrant workers who are willing to do the jobs the British won't, such as picking fruit?
"There will always be a need for seasonal workers," she says. "What we need to make sure is that people come to do the job when they are needed." In other words, to work, not claim welfare.
She concedes, however, that "there is more that we can do" to encourage English school-leavers to work in food and farming. It is a hi-tech industry, requiring engineers and specialists to operate driverless tractors and digital field maps, not simply "an industry of hairnets and wellies".
Learning the landscape
Miss Truss, who has two daughters, is concerned about the deep cultural rupture in Britain between food on the plate and people's understanding of the land from which it comes.
"Food is a hugely important part of our culture," she says. "It's part of our history and our landscape as well. I think in this country we have lost connection with our food and our landscape."
There is "huge scope for more county-based labelling" to address this, she suggests. Shoppers increasingly want to know exactly which parts of the country their food comes from. Cornish sea salt, she says, again reaching for a vivid example, is wildly popular in Sweden.
The Environment Secretary wants Britain to buy more local cheese. Despite having produced cheddar for 800 years, we actually import £330million of it from foreign dairies each year, twice as much as is exported.
"There is definitely more scope to promote UK products, such as cheese,"she says.
"Look at something like Yorkshire Wensleydale, hand-crafted using milk from local herds since the 12th century. When you eat a local cheese, you're enjoying the traditions, livestock and the landscape special to that place."
Although Miss Truss is always impeccably presented, the Norfolk MP does not have much time for fad diets, unlike, say, the Chancellor, who has famously lost weight through the 5:2 regime (immediately prompting fevered speculation that he was planning a leadership bid).
"For me, food isn't something that's just there to fuel life, it's more exciting than that," she says. "There's a reason why food is part of every major celebration we have."
What is that? "Maybe it's just me, but my early memories are all about new food," she says, adding, after a long pause: "Fresh bread, my mother making pizza.
"I really remember the bread."
Truss on Truss
Any diet tips? "Everything in moderation; food shouldn't be technocratic."
Best of British cheeses? "Stinking Bishop is a particular favourite. I like Stilton - a lot, and there's a fantastic Norfolk cheese called the Wells Alpine. It's quite an ironic name as Norfolk is very flat."
How do you unwind from the stress of politics? Brat Pack flicks from the 1980s. I watch Ferris Buellers Day Off a lot; The Breakfast Club, St Elmo's Fire, that kind of thing. Just popular culture.
Where would you go for a holiday in Britain? I love the Norfolk coast - it's fantastically unspoilt. Old Hunstanton is really nice. I visit Yorkshire quite often, my parents are based there. There are so many fascinating parts of Britain.
What will you be drinking instead of champagne? Camel Valley Vineyard [in Cornwall] is fantastic. They do award-winning rosé sparkling, which is very good.
What is your favourite potato? The best potato of course is the Norfolk Peer, which is a new potato. I said it should have a picture of Baroness Gillian Shephard [who previously held Miss Truss's South West Norfolk seat].
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