Gordon Brown would whip up a "Chequers steak pie" for the Scottish athlete Eric Liddell, immortalised in the classic film Chariots of Fire, while David Cameron would take the time to slow roast a shoulder of lamb for Victoria Cross recipient Johnson Beharry.
The prime minister and Conservative Party leader have revealed the recipes they would serve up to personal heroes for a charity cookbook designed to raise money for Help the Heroes, a charity set up to help wounded military personnel. "[Liddell] gained his sporting fame at Edinburgh University," Brown writes in the book, "and if the food was the same as it was in my days there, he would have approved of hearty fare like the Chequers pie."
His recipe sees him cooking up beef steak, onion, celery, carrot and leek - with a dash of Worcestershire sauce - to create the pie's filling, which is then covered with puff pastry, brushed with an egg and cooked until golden. Cameron's recipe is a little spicier, with two red chillies and a bottle of red wine adding a touch of zing to his lamb roast.
More than 80 people have contributed to the book, with around 40 servicemen and women providing recipes alongside Brown, Cameron and other politicians and personalities including Ewan McGregor, Antony Worrall Thompson, Bruce Forsyth, Kelly Holmes and Stephen Fry. The book is the brainchild of squadron leader Jon Pullen, who was so moved by the plight of wounded soldiers in Iraq that he decided to raise money for Help the Heroes. "I thought, 'are you going to lie in a bath of beans to try and raise £125, or are you going to do something different?'" he said. "I didn't want to beg, I wanted to raise £100,000, which will be slightly challenging."
The first celebrity to sign up was McGregor, who revealed he would cook his mum's beef and Guinness casserole for American actor Jimmy Stewart. Jonny Wilkinson would put together a healthy-sounding spicy chicken pitta pocket, complete with almonds and apricots, for his hero Walter Payton, the Chicago Bears running back. Ricky Hatton, meanwhile, plumped for boxer Roberto Duran - but "as everybody knows I can't even boil an egg, so what I would do is take Roberto to my local cafe the Butty Box in Hyde, and let the girls do the cooking while we have a chat and a brew," he writes.
All profits from the book, which goes on sale for £14.99 on Armed Forces Day, 27 June, will go to charity. Military chefs are cooking all the recipes in the book to make sure they're up to scratch, said Pullen - some, he added, needed a little doctoring.
Brown appears to be suddenly and strangely busy as a food writer. This is the third contribution to a charity cookbook revealed by the prime minister this week. The Daily Mail reports that he has given his recipe for vegetable and mozzarella parcels to the Saints and Celebs Cookbook, raising money for All Saint's Parish Church in Ilkley, West Yorkshire. He has also penned a hymn to rumbledethumps, a Scottish version of bubble and squeak, for Donaldson's School for the Deaf in Edinburgh.
