What had a huge bearing on me – a sheep farmer’s son from Gwynedd – believing that I could sing Wagner on the stages of the world is my first language, Welsh, with its circumflex vowel sounds and rough, rugged, throaty consonants. If I was speaking towards you now, especially when eating and drinking, I’d be spitting in your face. We Welsh-speakers can sound like alley cats having a good tangle over a piece of fish.

My mother lost her mother quite early and she and her sister were put into a home because her father moved on with another partner. So that’s what coloured my mother’s culinary abilities – she learned a lot.

Meals had to fit around the work of my father, a great man. He’d be out on the mountain very early after a bowl of porridge, but arrive back for lunch. Dad had sheep and cattle, and his two brothers also owned farms so we had a plentiful supply of carrots and potatoes.

Dad’s mother had an excellent eye for cutting bread. The loaf goes a little bit off for most people, but she always got the thickness and feel right, and she could chuck it to you with such precision, like an Eric Bristow dart. I loved the crust, the final piece of a loaf, being lobbed over to me.

I started cooking, usually pasta with sauces, when I had to negotiate my career. I’d spend two months in, say, Chicago, New York, London. Usually Plácido Domingo had an apartment to rent and they always had Italian cookbooks. I was suddenly singing with conductors like Riccardo Muti and Claudio Abbado, and they adored Italian food. Even John Eliot Gardiner and Daniel Harding – they loved it. It’s ingrained in the conductor, for some reason.

When I started singing for Welsh National Opera they had a small office space in Tiger Bay and a chef in the cafeteria who was magnificent, which is often not the case in opera houses. It’s horrible sometimes in their cafeterias, where they should know that singers need to be fed like racehorses.

My first recording of a big opera was with Pavarotti and Joan Sutherland, and we stayed in a place called Fairyhill run by a couple, John and Madge, who had a sheepdog called Celyn. They welcomed me and said: “Dame Joan would like to invite you for tea in the garden.” Then, every night, we’d have stunning food together after our recording session.

After I come off stage I’m immediately thinking of food. And if I do, say, 10 performances at the Royal Opera House, I leave the stage door afterwards once out of those 10. Because nowadays it’s about contractual obligations and having dinner with sponsors. I want to be there to help, so have food and wine with benefactors who give a dinner in honour of the opera or its singers. Once I lost my voice in Reykjavík in Iceland and the night before I’d eaten, I believe, some bad mussels. So, I’m blaming those mussels.

A Wagner opera tends to go on for four or five hours, sometimes six, starting normally at 4pm, so I have steak at lunch and always eat something in the break. A cup of soup, some fruit; nothing too extraordinary. Simplicity is best. And I’m a strong believer in carrying honey always in my bag. I’m not sure if it has the power to bring back a voice but it’s there to help in an emergency.

My favourite things

Food
Any city in the world I’m tagging along with the Italian-restaurant goers. If you go to Rome you’ll have the most amazing carbonara, which I think is the most difficult to make. The best I had was in a restaurant in N.Y in the village, called Babbo. Stunning. Absolutely marvellous.

Drink
I remember my Australian tour and being given my favourite, a Magnum of Penfolds Grange. I didn’t want to leave it anywhere – it accompanied me throughout. Of course, back then I would cradle it on a flight; now you can’t even carry it on.

Restaurant
The Harrow in Little Bedwyn where (co-owner) Roger Jones is Welsh and Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons in Great Milton, where Raymond Blanc has a church on the side and two acres of veg and herbs. An example of meticulousness is the way they park your car when you arrive.

Dish
A good home roast. Beef with vegetables & gravy on a Sunday. Comfort food. My fiancée, Hannah, is a wonderful cook so I love to help. But sometimes it’s very difficult with rehearsals.

Dreams and Songs (featuring Rob Brydon & Emma Thompson) is out now on Deutsche Grammophon