Following Part 1, BEN FINLAY reaches the top five of his guide to the best television cooks…

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5. Madhur Jaffrey

Delhi-born Jaffrey is often credited with bringing Indian cuisine to the West with her debut cookbook, An Invitation to Indian Cooking (1973) and in 1982 was hired by the BBC to present a show on Indian cuisine. Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery was broadcast to great success by the BBC and was followed by Madhur Jaffrey’s Far Eastern Cookery in 1989 and Madhur Jaffrey’s Flavours of India in 1995. Each came accompanied by a bestselling cookery book, ubiquitous in domestic kitchens across Britain.

All of this is just another in a line of achievements from Jaffrey, who is a talented actress (she joined RADA in 1955 with Diana Rigg, Siân Phillips and Glenda Jackson after being awarded a scholarship by the British Council in India) and has appeared in many films and dramas on radio, stage and television.

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4. Delia Smith

Cool, capable and always impeccably groomed, this was a woman on a mission, determined to drag Britain kicking and screaming into the new decade and what she inspired was little short of a revolution. – Dominic Sandbrook, The Eighties With Dominic Sandbrook (BBC, 2016)

It turns out that Delia is a particular favourite of historian Dominic Sandbrook; indeed, he cites her, rather than then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher, as the real embodiment of the revolution which took place in Britain in the 1980s, arguing that Delia was at the vanguard of that shift.

Whether we can lay that responsibility all at Smith’s kitchen door is debatable, but what is certain is that she did have a huge influence over home cookery in the 80s, with her extremely popular shows and bestselling cookery books. After her 90s series How to Cook, Smith’s frequent use of eggs on the show caused a 10 per cent increase in British egg sales, leading to the creation of the term ‘the Delia Effect’ – basically, a high-profile recommendation (usually by a celebrity) of a product which in turn results in overnight success. So, it’s quite possible that, in today’s parlance, Delia Smith was the ‘the original influencer’. Not bad for a cook I first saw on 70s kids Saturday morning show Multicoloured Swap Shop and thought was a bit boring. (I was five at the time.)

Trivia note: Smith baked the cake that was used on the cover of the Rolling Stones’ album Let It Bleed (1969).

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3. Rick Stein

Holding a degree in English from New College, Oxford, Stein is cookery’s renaissance man – or at the very least a bit of an old hippy. In the early 1970s he ran a nightclub in Padstow, Cornwall, and after the club lost its licence and was closed by the police (mainly due to frequent brawls with local fishermen), he converted it into ‘The Seafood Restaurant’ in 1975, subsequently taking over the town (somewhat disparagingly nicknamed ‘Padstein’ by locals) with four restaurants, a bistro, a café, a seafood delicatessen, a pâtisserie shop, a gift shop and a cookery school.

His first television appearance was as a guest chef in Keith Floyd’s 1985 series Floyd on Fish and in Floyd on Food the following year. He was then offered a chance to make his own programmes with the BBC, produced by David Pritchard, and has since made many series in the UK and around the world, including the great Rick Stein’s India in 2013.

Despite not being overly popular with (I kid you not) the Cornish National Liberation Army – who in 2007 threatened Stein’s restaurants via email, claiming they were hurting local people through driving up living costs – his laidback presenting style has made him ubiquitous on British telly.

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2. Si King & Dave Myers (The Hairy Bikers)

For me, the most entertaining presenters of TV cookery shows: irreverent, funny, a bit silly, but also great cooks. The unashamed bromance between the pair made for a breezy, accessible presentation, and their cookery was excellent, with recipes replicable in a domestic setting.

The duo’s many series saw them travel the world, and I have a particular affection for The Hairy Bikers’ Mississippi Adventure (2012). The travelogue aspect owes a debt to Keith Floyd, with the informal presentation style and banter with the cameramen and crew reminiscent of the Bristol boozer.

Gifted and extremely popular presenters, they produced over thirty series and many cookbooks before Myers sadly succumbed to cancer in 2024.

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1. Keith Floyd

Floyd inspired a nation. The thing which is very sad is a little piece of Britain today died which will never be replaced. He was a beautiful man, his ability to inspire people to cook just with his words and the way he did things was extraordinary. If you look at TV chefs today, they don’t have his magic.’ – Marco Pierre White on Keith Floyd’s passing, 2009.

It’s no understatement that Keith Floyd revolutionised the TV cookery show in the 1980s. His boisterous, often chaotic style, fuelled by ample amounts of booze, made him extremely popular with viewers and provided an accessibility to the world of gastronomy. But Floyd was also a gifted cook, a born communicator and a serious proponent of regional French cookery.

His life story was fascinating. He grew up in a council house in Somerset, but was educated privately at Wellington School, before becoming a junior reporter on the Bristol Evening Post. After that he joined the army, followed by a series of catering odd-jobs, eventually opening three restaurants in Bristol in the early 70s. After a sojourn in the south of France (where he opened another restaurant), he was back in Bristol in the early 80s, started yet another eatery and began his broadcasting career by becoming a radio chef on Radio West (where he once flamed a lobster live on air – on the radio…) before being picked up by the BBC’s David Pritchard.

On a personal note, I first came across the great man when the Beeb broadcast Floyd in France in 1988. I was instantly taken with the informality, humour and general irreverence, but also with the informative travelogue aspect of the show (and of course the theme tune, ‘Peaches’ by the Stranglers). And in many ways, it’s entirely Keith’s fault I became a chef – little did I know that the reality was nothing like the red wine-swilling bonhomie that he portrayed. That he could do that is another testament to his talent.

His influence was far and wide, and that he inspired a thousand lesser cookery shows shouldn’t be held against him. He lives on in clips and shows on YouTube and his cookbooks are excellent and still worth looking out. Cheers, Keith!

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