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| Tracey Emin at St John Bread and Wine, Spitalfields, London. Photograph: Harry Borden |
Tracey Emin: 'I was on 100 oysters a week'
Sleeping under a dinner table is safe and snug. I picked it up as a child. As a young artist, at a big dinner, sometimes I'd get so tired I'd think, "If I just snooze for half an hour I'll be fine", and I'd slide underneath. More recently I don't, because my absence would be too noticeable.
In the 60s my mother ran the Hotel International in Margate. I spent tons of time in the kitchen. I used to steal cream caramels when they came out of the fridge.
When little my favourite thing to eat was a pomegranate. I'd peel, take out every single seed individually, make sure all the pulp was off and then eat the hundreds of seeds one by one. I'd like to be a pomegranate.
My favourite cinematic food scene is of the paralysed man dreaming of eating oysters in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. The first time I had surplus income, as an artist, I bought oysters. I was 30 or 31 and I'd never had one. Suddenly I'd spend every spare penny on oysters. At one point I was on 70 to 100 a week.
If anyone really wants to seduce me, a picnic is the way to go. I fantasise about them and when I see old-fashioned hampers I get a wave of nostalgia for something I've never had. I own a couple myself but I've never used them. I just stroke them.
I find it really difficult eating cute things. I mean, I never eat rabbit. Even when Mark Hix makes me his [rabbit and crayfish] Stargazy Pies, I can't have rabbit in it. Stuck on my fridge is a magnet which says "Foie Gras is Cruel".
I've a really naked kitchen in my basement. It's got just the basics. And there's a tiny shelf of cookery books – but I've never referred to one in my life.
When falling in love I always imagine what I would cook for the person and how this culinary foreplay would work, but nine times out of 10 it ends in disaster. It's because of wishing everything to be perfect, when all I really want is a good shag.
I was in Japan, on the outskirts of Tokyo, with Nic Serota [director of the Tate], and he said, "Tracey, tell me you're not going to eat that." And as I said "Yeah" I looked down and it was dark and it was alive. A squid in an egg omelette thing with its tentacles still moving. Pretty hardcore. But not too vile to eat.
My table manners are impeccable. I really dislike it when people eat with their mouths open. It's not difficult – you chew, swallow, then you speak, OK?
When I was a student I did lots of Last Supper paintings. You won't have seen them, because I destroyed them all. For my own last supper, I'll probably order caviar and a dozen oysters, if it's during summer. A cosy shepherd's pie if it's winter.
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