I remember watching my son learning to eat food for the first time. He'd squeeze it in his hand until the juice came out and mulch it with his fingers, put it in his mouth, then take it out to look again. All his senses were working.

When I was young there was a breakfast bar which connected our kitchen to the dining room, so the food passed through had a catering feel. I've retained a weakness for being served through hatches. As a teen I'd go to dedicated cider pubs in Bath where hatches opened to reveal lethal pints of homemade scrumpy.

I remember sharing a Crunchie with my mother while sat on the front step in the sunshine. The sense memories are very strong, of chocolate melting on honeycomb, of her looking glam, of the step's heat travelling through my trousers.

During a two-week trek through the jungle in Indonesia, I started to hallucinate, envisaging a satsuma. I subsisted on boiled rice and dried fish for days and days and days, augmented by a found tomato, which was delicious – its skin, its taste, its juice, everything about it felt like a rediscovery.

I've eaten fruit bat. The wings are a bit wingy – just membrane flapping.

I've also eaten dog. It was served to me as an act of generosity by people who had very little so I'd have felt ungrateful if I'd refused. I once refused whale in Japan, when I was 22, idealistic and gung-ho. It was at a feast at the home of a famous sushi chef, and I caused enormous embarrassment. I might still do that now, I don't know.

When writing a show, I get to a critical tipping point. Food is part of the process, especially fruit, as displacement activity. If wanting a struggle, a lychee. For energy, bananas. Grapes? Instant handy fruit, but I associate them with illness.

I've not been formally thrown out of a restaurant, but have left by, er, mutual consent. One night, after a gig, I knocked over a flaming sambuca which set alight the whole tablecloth, then the tablecloth next to it, and so on. I came close to torching the entire place. The owner said, "It's probably time to go," and I said, "Yeah, you're probably right."

After three OK cups of tea, it's the fourth cup that really hits the spot. I've taken many fourth cups out of the house, on walks, or into cars, because I just can't leave them behind. I don't want to be dropping down dead while thinking, "I left that lovely cup of tea steaming on the kitchen table and I walked away forever."

Bill Bailey tours the UK from 14 September