Fanny Cradock
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
GREAT LIVES The first lady of Why I’m Fanny’s appearances online and she was the TV Kitchen suddenly very popular again. To find the period-appropriate recipes I researched Fanny’s early Food historian Sue Bailey reveals how her interest 1970s weekly part-work series and biggest fan in Fanny Cradock – the first TV celebrity chef worked out how to demonstrate the most party-appropriate and slightly – has led to a new career (and why the famously scary dishes, such as stuffed blue-egg canapés. But in this media-savvy age snooty chef ’s legacy lives on) simply researching and reproducing recipes was never going to be enough. Then I had an epiphany – what if I resurrected not just Fanny’s recipes, n my normal life I am a journalist, radio and television but also her character and her life? university lecturer, writer and presenter, writer and food celebrity, My first challenge, however, was to food historian on television. But I supported by Johnnie. Her perfect her unmistakable look – plaster- have a guilty secret: in my spare exaggerated style and brightly thick foundation, line-drawn eyebrows time I forget academia and coloured dishes made her memorable and bright red lips, plus a ginger wig. The first lady of the Iembrace my alter-ego. I shed my for many years on our TV screens. But My daughter suggested using glue to sensible work clothes, slip on diamanté her fall from grace came when she flatten my eyebrows, rather than shoes, a ginger wig and a blood-red humiliated gentle Devon farmer’s wife shaving them off, as Fanny possibly ballgown and become the first female Gwen Troake by grimacing and Fanny promoting her did. We then layered foundation over TV celebrity chef: Fanny Cradock. gagging about her over-rich menu on TV show in 1967 and, them and she carefully drew the highly TV kitchen Why do I do this? And why do I love Esther Rantzen’s Big Time Cook of arched eyebrows back on. above right, with her Cradock even now, more than a the Realm talent contest in 1976. husband Johnnie Hosting my first sell-out Christmas century after she was born? She was a Audiences were shocked and perhaps party for the Museum of Cambridge, controversial character (not least for the tide was turning against Fanny’s her personal life) and her recipes may own brand of excess. ‘My first challenge, however, was to perfect Fanny’s unmistakable look – plaster- seem outdated, given that she died Just to be clear – I don’t dress up for more than 25 years ago at the end of my husband (also called Johnnie), I thick foundation, line-drawn eyebrows and bright red lips, plus a ginger wig’ 1994, but I still think she has a well- recreate Fanny’s wit, retro-food and deserved place in our food history. dishes for food festivals around the how to cook, she never had the lecturing in London while bringing up planning an eight-dish demonstration Which is why I love dressing up, country. As her, I resuscitate some forcefulness of Fanny. Like Mary Berry two daughters with my husband. and preparing all the period food with remembering what she achieved and well-loved dishes from her stage and early in her career, Fanny also did While lecturing full-time, I can say limited facilities was more nerve- how she is still inspiring people to this television performances from the cookery demonstrations for the Gas with certainty that Fanny did not racking than performing as Fanny. day – including me. 1950s to the 1970s. Delights such as Board. I remember being inspired at feature largely in my life as I was Somehow, as soon as I started to talk In her forties, Fanny wrote her first Liptauer cheese dip stabbed with salty Sue Bailey in school after going along to the gas working and bringing up our children about her life, I started to love cookery book and became a newspaper pretzels, wobbly jelly bunnies, the character as showroom where home economists did – does anyone with a job and two resuscitating the recipes and showing columnist. But this was after surviving famous ‘no-crack’ Swiss roll and Fanny Cradock the demonstrations. young daughters have time to make how perfectly feasible they were. I marriage and widowhood when she upright banana ‘party candles’ with As a child growing up in the 1960s, latticed deep-fried potato baskets and found it very easy to bully my poor was pregnant and 17, then leaving slivers of glacé cherry ’flames’. she memorably once said: ‘Only a slut my parents loved having drinks aspic-topped cold ham soufflé? assistant and deal with a somewhat behind her second marriage and Fanny provided a much-needed gets in a mess in the kitchen.’ parties, with savoury cheesy footballs, But then, a few years ago, I faced inebriated Johnnie – who performed younger son as she couldn’t divorce her sparkle and an escape from post- When I asked my mother if we used vol-au-vents and my mother’s brilliant redundancy. My husband and I his part to perfection. alcoholic Catholic husband. Taking Second World War rationing for the to watch Fanny together she said: ‘I smoked-mackerel pâté, all courtesy of wanted to move out of London, so we Unlike Fanny, who was married her first son to London, she was too pre-baby boomer generation. In can still remember Fanny on the the Cradock legacy. However, Fanny relocated to Cambridge. Although I four times, twice bigamously, I am still poor to look after him properly so when fact, food writer Marguerite Patten television screen – she was very would have added choux pastry swans was still running my university course, with my (first) husband who assists me he was four his paternal grandparents (who died aged 99 four years ago) didactic and she used to boss Johnnie swimming on a mirror-glass lake and I I wanted to stop commuting, so began in my performance as Major Johnnie, took him over. After her third actually praised her as ‘the post-war saviour of around monstrously. He was often should have offered to make them as, to look at different options and started complete with glass of good red wine. GETTY/SHUTTERSTOCK bigamous and short-lived marriage, British cookery’. bumbling around in the background. by then, I was studying home researching Fanny’s life and work. Johnnie and Fanny started by she met the married Johnnie Cradock. Even though it is more than 25 She had a very posh voice, not economics at school. Retro food was making a comeback reviewing hotels and restaurants post Fanny and Johnnie combined their years since Fanny’s death, everyone disagreeably so, she just made you Fast-forward a few years and after and I wondered why. Museums kept war in a column titled Bon Viveur for love of food and wine to become a over a certain age knows of her. She listen. She did know what she was training as a secondary school teacher asking me about her and what she was the Daily Telegraph. Johnnie’s research, writing and presenting team. appeared in cocktail dresses with talking about.’ specialising in nutrition and food really like. A BBC docudrama about knowledge of wine and Fanny’s critical Fanny’s forceful ambition and gift for Johnnie as her hen-pecked partner, My mother and I agree that technology and flirting with sixth form her life had aired, videos of her tongue to give them the exposure to reinvention enabled her to become a never wearing an apron, because as although Delia Smith really taught you teaching and journalism, I moved into performances were making regular launch into cookery exhibitions w 50 THE LADY 10 JANUARY 2020 10 JANUARY 2020 THE LADY 51 50-52 Fanny Craddock 10Jan.indd 50 03/01/2020 16:56 50-52 Fanny Craddock 10Jan.indd 51 03/01/2020 16:56 GREAT LIVES and then television work. Fanny and Johnnie didn’t marry until she was 68, Fanny’s famous no-crack but to give her respectability she Swiss roll adopted his name by deed poll shortly after she met him. By the late 1980s u 4 free-range medium eggs, fresh as a their popularity had much waned button when Johnnie died aged 82 of lung u 25g caster sugar, sifted – and heated cancer, a few years before Fanny. to warm to give extra volume So why do people still have a u 125g self-raising flour, sifted fondness for Fanny? I think that u 1 tbsp hot water Fanny’s slightly alarming people loved her ability to make u Extra caster sugar for dusting blue egg barrels cooking fun and I appreciate the way u Filling of your choice – half a jar of she encouraged people to be apricot jam combined with imaginative and focus on seasonal buttercream is delicious piece of baking food. Although her dishes often looked u 125g unsalted butter parchment slightly larger than the extravagant she always had an eye on u 250g sifted icing sugar tin, place on a clean slightly damp ‘the purse’. She was fascinated by food, tea towel, and sprinkle it with caster cooking techniques and elaborate 1 Line a 25cm x 38cm Swiss roll tin sugar to roll the sponge in. presentation from an early age. Her with baking parchment. Preheat 7 Remove the sponge from the oven natural flair for drama and your oven to 180C/200C, 350F/400F, and allow to cool a little.