In a Bristol kitchen, England prop Sarah Bern shares her carbonara playbook, brutal pre-season secrets and a surprising dream beyond rugby.
Listen to the full episode with Sarah Bern from the 5 O'clock Apron Podcast then delve into the podcast archive for more culinary adventures.
Carbs, caps and carbonara
Pre-match fuelling is serious business, and for Sarah it starts 24 hours before kick-off. She calmly tots up the numbers like the seasoned pro that she is.
“You wanna kind of carb-load, so you wanna get six grams per kilo of body weight - for me, it’ll be just under 600.”
That translates to plenty of toast in camp, a Squares bar and half a banana just before taking the field. High-fat foods are out in the build-up — “it can upset your digestion” — which is why her carbonara of choice skips cream entirely.
In the pan, diced guanciale (the “cheek bit”) renders into savoury nuggets. A whole garlic clove goes in for a whisper of perfume, then comes the alchemy: a tangle of hot pasta, a shower of pecorino and Parmesan, and egg yolks loosened with a “slosh” of starchy cooking water. The sauce turns silky and clings to every strand.
It’s food for body and soul, although not an everyday indulgence. The peppery bite, the salty cheese and that glossy sheen are exactly the kind of sensory reward that makes a long pre-season feel worth it.
Inside camp life
Sarah’s summer has been a blur of shifting venues and brutal sessions. Camp has pinballed around the capital — London Irish’s old ground, the Lensbury, Pennyhill Park — a deliberate move for a home World Cup that will demand adaptability. Facilities are shared, schedules are tight and, crucially, meals are matched to the grind.
“A lot of it is specialised to what we’ve done that day. If we’ve done a really hard training session, the nutrients will match that.”
There’s always toast. There’s also support for how players learn. Sarah, who is dyslexic, likes a cookbook to hand — or her partner to read out the steps while she cooks.
The training itself is punishing by design: CrossFit-style blocks of sprints, turns and down-ups; synchronised burpees; tackle tech; carrying team-mates over distances. Then straight back into running, then into touch games and match play. The goal is to make the games feel, if not easy, at least familiar when the lungs are burning.
“There’s been a few people being sick on the side - I was nearly sick this week.”
From back row to front row
Sarah’s route to tighthead prop was anything but straightforward. She fell for rugby around 10 or 11 after a nudge from family, played everything going at school — swimming, cricket, athletics — and once dreamt of downhill skiing. By 18 or 19, she had an England cap, and now counts 71.
Initially a back, she slid forward through the positions until an England forwards coach made a persuasive pitch to move her into the front row. At first, she refused. It was a decision tangled up with how she saw her body and how front-rowers were perceived.
“I didn’t want to be a front row. I was always very muscular - I didn’t want to be put into that box.”
The turning point was reframing. She wouldn’t be “made a prop”; she’d be the same player, adding a new string to her bow and learning to scrum — that dark art she describes with bracing clarity.
“It’s like doing a maximum squat and also try and play chess at the same time.”
Eight months later, she was anchoring scrums at a World Cup. Since then, there’s been another World Cup — the last one lost in the final stretch — and the steady accumulation of experience that transforms a front row from strong into smart.
Rivalry and respect
At home, rugby is both family and fault line. Sarah plays for Bristol; her partner, Mackenzie Carson, plays for Gloucester. They occupy the same spot in the front row, on opposite sides, which makes club days as intimate as they are intense.
“When we play against each other, we are literally head to head.”
They’ve agreed the rules: on the pitch, it’s just rugby; off it, there’s genuine pride in each other’s achievements, even on the hardest days. In camp, her roommate and captain is Zoe Croft — another thread in a web of relationships that stretches across teams and rivals. The sacrifices are shared too: the missed weddings, the family parties skipped in the name of performance.
What’s next
For all the focus on September, Sarah is already thinking further ahead. The dream is unexpected and perfectly logical: become a pilot. Rugby has shown her the world — New Zealand, Canada, Spain, France, Japan — and the rhythm of performance under pressure has its own pull.
“I really want a new challenge - I want to remember it as a player rather than a coach.”
That means planning a transition that protects identity as much as it opens doors. Work hard, rest hard and find the next runway. For now, there’s pasta to twirl, pepper to grind and a home World Cup to chase, one glossy, guanciale-studded bowl at a time.
source https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/scrum-sweat-and-spaghetti-sarah-berns-carb-loaded-path-to-a-home-world-cup
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