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The Best...TV chef

Keith Floyd
  • Posted at 1:13pm
  • 06 October 2006
  • by RhodriMarsden-RT
  • 14 comments

It seems remarkably easy to become a celebrity chef these days.

We seem to have an insatiable appetite for their winning smiles and briskly constructed dishes, and the qualifications needed to become one are getting much easier to achieve:

* An over-reliance on the word "literally" (as in "I'm literally going to put this hake in the oven", or "all you have to do is literally get the bowl out of the cupboard")

* A tendency to describe foodstuffs as having been "caramelised" when what they actually mean is that they've been "fried"

* A mastery of what has become known as the "chef's preposition", eg "We're going to cook this out/reduce this down/fry this off/season this up/sieve this through/fricassée this beyond" (I might have made up the last one)

But the need to fill the schedules with this new breed of chefs has meant they've become as homogenous as their perfectly blended sauces.

What I miss is the maverick, the man whose pans will boil over while he drops his ladle and gets into a fight with his producer. The man who will attempt to prepare an authentic French dish, and when openly criticised on screen by a proper French chef will shrug good-naturedly and then leave the whole humiliating scene in the programme. The man who will get monumentally drunk, make expansive gestures, fall over and laugh himself stupid. And that man is Keith Floyd.

When you see a re-run of Floyd's programmes, you genuinely want to get in the kitchen and cook. For all Gary Rhodes's skills, he doesn't make me want to delicately arrange slices of poached salmon on a pristine, oblong plate. Delia's shows don't make me want to boil an egg. All Gordon Ramsay teaches me to do is swear - loud and long.

I don't want to gently drizzle olive oil - and Floyd never drizzled anything, he poured stuff with gusto and carefree abandon in a series of absurd, ad hoc outdoor locations. He confronted an ostrich while frying an onion, for goodness' sake. You'd never see Sophie Grigson attempting that.

We forget that in the 1980s cooking on television was dying a lingering death. Ponderously voiced-over documentaries about eating habits in rural Spain vied for screentime with stilted shows where a nervous presenter addressed the camera equipped only with an oven, some less-than-shiny pans and a dowdy assistant who marched on and off the set with purpose, dedication and a deeply unfashionable haircut. The person who managed to make us feel excited about food again was Keith.

So today, swamped as I am with perfectly roasted seabass, al dente runner beans, gorgeously risen soufflés and a delicate sorbet for pudding, I'm in danger of nodding off. What I want is someone to sling together a bourride while spilling red wine down his shirt. What I want, really, is Keith Floyd.

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Comments

  • Posted on 06 November 2009
  • at 1:52pm
  • by Elainetwickenham

RhodriMarsden has said it all. Floyd's the man & the only tv cook who has ever made my want to rush to the kitchen! How to get hold of his many series? Are they on DVD/Video?

  • Posted on 28 September 2009
  • at 7:20pm
  • by HRT

Sorry to remind you folks, but the original "quick slurper", long before Keith Floyd, was the marvellous Graham Kerr, aka The Galloping Gourmet.

  • Posted on 01 September 2009
  • at 11:26pm
  • by Grub

I cant understand the love of the jerk Camera, 100 Different angles per second and glossing over the actual cooking.

This all seemed to come from Jamie Olivers first series or two. it worked fine there - as that was the style of that programme - however, no need to copy it in every single programme ever.

Floyd, Stein, Rhodes and Delia all have a common thread...its easy to watch and listen about food and it sounds like, albeit at different levels of competancy and audience, they are competant and enthusiasitc about what they do. Worst ever had to be the last of the food and drinks with AWT. Contrived nonsence.

  • Posted on 01 September 2009
  • at 8:36pm
  • by thenunnery

I never linked Keith F and Jeremy C before in my mind, loving the former and hating the latter. The only solution is to get K to cook J, perhaps as Clarkson Wellington with a nice Claret (leave us some Keith)

  • Posted on 01 September 2009
  • at 10:58am
  • by Michael

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks "Keith Floyd" and "Jeremy Clarkson" go together in a sentence as perfectly as tomatoes and basil, asparagus and hollandaise, and that Rick Stein is the chef above all who communicates a love of food and the kitchen and the human race.

  • Posted on 26 August 2009
  • at 5:02pm
  • by Mary

I have never, never read a blog I agree with more. I know exactly the chef you are referring to with his 'literally' and 'frying it off' and he drives me MAD.

  • Posted on 20 August 2009
  • at 7:26am
  • by Madge

At least Keith Floyd spoke to camera and the camera focused on what KF wanted you to look at. Nowadays the camera is all over the place, you can't see what is cooking and presenters seem to be talking to someone who is standing behind my left shoulder! To be honest, if the programme needs new and exciting camera and presentation techniques the food and chef do not inspire me to cook and therefore I don't watch the programme and I don't buy the book.

  • Posted on 10 June 2009
  • at 7:00pm
  • by amanda

Only problem is, if you follow Mr Floyd you end up far too drunk to cook. At least too much swearing doesn't usually mean no lasagne.

  • Posted on 03 June 2009
  • at 6:45pm
  • by Gavin

Absolutely, my whole interest in food and cooking is largely down to Sir (about time?) Keith, Rick Stein is the only other chef that makes such a great blend of food and travelogue, with genuine personality and real enthusiasm for proper stuff.

  • Posted on 13 April 2009
  • at 7:08pm
  • by Jaxs

It's not about the vocabulary, the grammatically correct or the most expressive turn of English, It's about the taste, the nuance of flavour, the epicure of blend, the ... it's about the food. the dish, the plate, the bonne assiette.... the serious watcher is looking for the innovative, the untried and the rich and enchanting flavour, the ... just cook and stop being so pretentious

  • Posted on 09 October 2006
  • at 6:27pm
  • by Michael M

It never once crossed my mind that anyone actually liked Keith Floyd, the crude prototype of Jeremy Clarkson - loud, boorish and self-regarding. Thank heavens TV cookery was saved by the incomparable Rick Stein - a warm man, with enthusiasms that he wants to share, not merely parade.

  • Posted on 07 October 2006
  • at 9:04pm
  • by Alvin Vassoodaven

i was just checking the TV listings when this blog caught my attention…and as Keith Floyd is one of my favourite chef if not my favourite, I couldn't agree more with what has just been said, he is one of a kind. Keith does cook the authentic food without taking out seeds from chilies so on so forth. He's one of a kind I as well get excited about cooking when watching his program.

Those new celebrity chef try too much, making everything sound posh or exotic and fancy fancy!!! It's getting too much now.

Bring Floyd back!!!

  • Posted on 07 October 2006
  • at 8:00pm
  • by alexander

Keith Floyd is a legend and i always watch his shows on sky travel, i agree that he makes people want to cook. iam only 16 but think that he should be brought back onto the screens. long live keith Floyd the best tv chef ever!

  • Posted on 07 October 2006
  • at 2:32pm
  • by Declan

Ha! I feel justified. Its not just me who's sick to the back dente of the pretentions of mordern unterchefs. Oddly enough I wrote a letter to Giles Coren (Times food critic) asking him to deduct marks from restaurants adopting the same pretentious use of language as today's TV chefs. Sample words include:

"Enjoy!" accompanied by a nauseating little sashay, head on the side.

The overtired "pan" fried, like we were expecting deep frid lemon sole or lamb chop or wilted greens etc, what next " not accompanied by batter or Mars bar"?!

Or the use of the personal after my eg "My presonnel recommendation…" Aaaargh!!!

When one goes to the supermarket, how many additional and pointless adjectives are used on food descriptions like "fresh" (hmm and I thought I was going for stale bread, damn you just can't get stale bread anymore, harrumph!) or juicy oranges, same again. I really wanted dry and and out of season stuff etc etc. The sad thing is that the descriptions are often complete lies, as out of season oranges are dry and tasteless, the extra tasty (expensive) tomotoes are more perfumed than tasty and the bread is in fact not that fresh.

I vote we raise merry hell when confronted by such abuses. Lets all give it to them so such manifest slack jawed abuses don't go unchecked. In the end we may give them cause for, dare I say it, wait for it...... THOUGHT!!!!!!!!

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