Si King says creating new Hairy Bikers book ‘tough’ while grieving Dave Myers
Across their career, Si King and Dave Myers published dozens of cookbooks as the Hairy Bikers.
TV cook Si King has said it was “tough” but also “very cathartic” to put together a Hairy Bikers cookbook while grieving his co-star and friend Dave Myers.
Myers, who found fame alongside King as part of the motorcycle-riding cooking duo, died aged 66 in February 2024 after being diagnosed with cancer.
King, 58, has released a new cookbook titled The Best Of The Hairy Bikers: Timeless Recipes That Everyone Loves, published on March 13, and reflected on the difficulties of knowing what recipes to include after years of cooking with Myers.
Speaking to Kate Garraway and Robert Rinder on ITV’s Good Morning Britain (GMB), he said: “The whole process, Rob, was really evocative and nostalgic. It was lovely.
“It was really difficult. So we’ve produced around about 30 cookbooks, so that’s a significant amount of recipes.
“The hard bit about it was to be representative of what I know Dave loved and his favourite recipes, but also of what to leave out.
“So we kept going backwards and forwards to the publishers, going, ‘Can we have 250?’ They were like, ‘No, you can’t. You can have 150. Actually, no, you can’t even have 120′.
“It was really difficult to do, to go through that process.”
“It’s the last of the Hairy Bikers’ publishing run, because Dave’s no longer with us,” he added.
“I was just saying, actually, yesterday, it’s interesting when you’re putting a book together, because food is comfort, isn’t it?
“And grief is a very interesting emotion in the sense that it’s as individual as the person that feels it.
“It was a tough book to put together, I have to say, because the team and I have been working together for 20 years.
“And we all had those stories, in meetings and on Zoom, and we all had a few tears, and we had huge laughs about what Dave would think of this.
“It was lovely. It was a lovely process, very cathartic.”
King also spoke about how thousands of motorcyclists travelled from London to Myers’ hometown in Barrow-in-Furness in June 2024 as part of the first ‘Dave Day’.
“It was the most wonderful tsunami of love, affection, care, and a sense of belonging and place that was quite remarkable,” he said.
In 1995, Myers met his long-time co-presenter King on the set of a TV drama, and they went on to build a friendship and successful career together.
Across their career they published dozens of cookbooks together and presented shows including The Hairy Bikers Ride Again, The Hairy Bikers’ Food Tour Of Britain, The Hairy Bikers: Mums Know Best, The Hairy Bikers’ Cook Off and Hairy Bikers’ Best Of British.
