Restaurant Spy

Yes indeed! Hetro women DO love Delia and universally rubbish the likes of Nigella but it has nothing to do with cooking skill and everything to do with jealousy! Delia has the distinct qualifications of being plump, patronising and DULL with little skill and no PASSION for food - in other words, NO Threat to any woman under 50!! It appals me that a 'Post-Feminist' society appears to be one where women like Nigella are still not allowed to be both attractive and talented! So much for the struggles of the 60's and 70's! And Fanny Craddock? Yes she was indeed bossy and snobbish and her recipes do appear terribly dated but that is just a superficial view. Phylis and Jonathan Craddock were both successful cookery writers (Daily Telegraph) long before their television re-invention. Renamed "Fanny" her TV persona was a media product as, indeed, was her husband's as the bumbling incompetent he definittely was not (Military officer, knowledgeable journalist). As the first TV cook, Fanny's recipes are fussy and silly by modern standards until you recognize their function was to challange the narrow-mindedness of post-war restriction at the end of rationing. With that in mind, Fanny was every bit the revolutionary as the divine Elizabeth David (herslf a touch over-powering at times). Furthermore, it is objectionable to use an open website to slander. Floyd's fondness for a "slurp" or tow is also a media tool -- TV cookery programmes are, after all, entertainment before they are education. For the record, Floyd is a witty and amusing broadcaster with a true passion for food! And that is the heart of it! It is the Passion that is attractive and which Daisy (suitably boring name) misinterprets as "Flamboyance" ( a telling Victorianism if there ever was!) Wake up, it's the 21st century not the 19th and food and eating have moved on from the Purianism of British simple cooking even if Ms Middleton and her heroine Ms Smith would like is to remain in the world of Mrs Beeton! Think about it - Floyd and his bottle, Jamie's cheeky mockney, the Fabulous Fat Ladies, even Gordon's swearing are all about food as something delightful not just fuel. Another manifestation of Life as something to be grasped with enthusiasm and joy not bored into submission! And, yes, in her own way Fanny was passionate about the fussy concoctions she proposed. Sooner that, silly though many were, than the mummsy dullard Delia. Oh, and as a final comment, it's just a touch contradictory to accuse Fanny of being patronising (which, of course, she was) and then propose Delia Smith. How to boil an egg! If that ain't patronising watch any one of her bloody boring shows! Give me death by excess not by brain stewing tedium!!