Delia the renegade master

[Cheezy]

She's certainly flipped, the signs were there for all to see a few years back:


http://youtube.com/watch?v=Z_8JLkwzpd0


Sad what drink (and possibly drugs?), aluminium pans can do to an icon.

That bit about extra special jumbo crab white meat is a bit contentious as well. Since the way they get it is fish for the crabs, pull the claws off and throw the live crabs back in. Crabs can regenerate some limbs , but its been proven that this obviously leaves them traumatised and unable to feed. If you buy crab meat make sure its mixed brown and white, or a whole crab.

[Shirley]

They actually showed that clip on the programme!!!! Unbelievable.

[MKG]

Yet more evidence - I've just caught a bit of a fairly old Delia proggy (in the conservatory in winter). She made a Spotted Dick, cut a bit off it and said "It's no wonder we won the Battle of Trafalgar".

Anyone???????

[mrsflibble]

dang I love poeple who can edit video. they fill my life with such joy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E2C1O5r ... re=related

[Cheezy]

dang I love poeple who can edit video. they fill my life with such joy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E2C1O5r ... re=related

THe thing is these edited video's are a parody of Delia's earlier programmes, but now the new programmes are a parody of the edit's....you don't think she saw them and thought genius, all I have to use is tinned and frozen produce!.

Spam casserole isn't that far from tinned mince shepards pie after all.

[QuakerBear]

I wonder why she's done it.

A lot of the ingredients she's using clearly don't taste as good as fresh and home cooked and as a cook she must know that.

So in all seriousness, what are her motives, money, fame?

[Helsbells]

ARGH!! Just seen Delia on the telly using bought bread crumbs and ready whipped cream in a plastic pot!!
ARRRRRGH!

[chookwoman]

I thought tonight's programme wasn't as bad as last weeks/ cooking wise anyway. But I had to turn off when they showed her off to church. I know it's called "Delia" but I don't want to know flippin everything about her.

[marshlander]

I watched the first half of tonights prog. Couldn't stand it any longer.

According to Delia the only pesto that's any good is fresh from Italy - really? I'd rather make my own while waiting for the pasta to cook.

And talk about leading questions - about e numbers - they're only preservatives - salt is an e number and of course Eurpoe is really careful about what's allowable!

Hope her prediction that tinned meat will be the next hot seller is wrong but sadly, if the Delia effect still works, she may be right! Heaven help us!

I just love this article top chef Aldo Zilli cooks her recipes, there's tastings and costings - brilliant! http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/foo ... 05,00.html

[ina]

I just love this article top chef Aldo Zilli cooks her recipes, there's tastings and costings - brilliant! http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/foo ... 05,00.html

Very good! Just what I thought... It takes more time, costs more money, and tastes rubbish. Plus it's unhealthy.... What more do you want? Typical British standard food! Well, not just British; American, too - and the rest of the world is trying to catch up with "progress"...

[dudley]

My wifes has bought all the Delia cook books in the past, but never again.

[Green Rosie]

I wonder how long it will be before she brings out a range of her own "Cheats" ingredients:

Delia's better than the rest cheats mince in a tin etc etc.

BTW - I am sure I had an early Delia book (possibly Frugal Food) where she claimed that no good cook needed a freezer and frozen food was not very nice - wonder what she's got to say about that now?

[The Riff-Raff Element]

I wonder why she's done it.

A lot of the ingredients she's using clearly don't taste as good as fresh and home cooked and as a cook she must know that.

So in all seriousness, what are her motives, money, fame?

In all fairness, what she is doing here is more to do with the appaling state of the average British kitchen than any deep-held desire on her part to advocate the use of processed junk as a substitute for cooking from scratch.

Delia has previously specialised in targeting the less able cooks. Back in the 1970's when she did the "Complete" series, the average level of competence was pretty good by today's standards. Perfectly able to cook roast on Sunday, cottage pie on Monday, risoles Tuesday, soup Wednesday, somehing cold Thursday, Friday fish and Saturday a grill.

Very post war, and rather dull. So she introduced a whole pile of new tastes to the "average" British kitchen. And the minority of people who had read Elizabeth David derided her.

Twenty years later and she's producing the "How to Cook" series. Basic skill levels have fallen so far that she has to show people what boiling water looks like. This time she gets it in the ear from the Gary Rhodes brigade .

2008 and she now has to present to an audience so denuded of skills that they cannot carry out basic preparation so recipes have to include large numbers of pre-prepared components. Derison again from the minority who know one side of a chopping board from the other.

Of course, there was no such chorus of disapproval from the foodie classes a couple of years ago when M&S launched their "Cook!" range of pre-prepared ingredients or Waitrose their "Easy" range. But then these were reassuringly expensive and aimed at the "right" kind of people.

For me, the disappointment is not that Delia made this series but that the potential viewing audience existed in the first place. Domestic skills such as cooking have been systematically devalued and dispoilled over the past 30 years to the point that only a small percentage have even the faintest idea what they would do if presented with a chicken, say, and were asked to joint it up.

It is very, very easy to take a pop at Delia for showing people how to cheat, but what she is showing them how to produce is still one step up from buying a TV dinner and shoving it in a microwave. And she may just encourage some people to go a lot further.

After all, can anyone think of anyone else on TV trying to teach even the basic skill of assembling a dish like a shephards pie? Plenty of aspirational cooking programs showing us how to use a hamster cage to smoke haddock as part of a fish pie that would cost the equivalent of a weeks food budget for many families, but basic skills? Nope!

Final thought before I shut up - did you know that when Delia first graced our screens may, many years ago her cookery programes were made by BBC Education? Cookery programs these days are not about education. Mostly they are not about cooking either. They are about lifestyle. Delia has rather vividly showed the world that a lot of people's lifestyle is pretty s***e and its not what we wanted to see.

[Green Rosie]

After all, can anyone think of anyone else on TV trying to teach even the basic skill of assembling a dish like a shephards pie?

I think Delia has missed 2 great opportunities:

1. She could have used her name and considerable knowledge to work on the powers that be to get cookery back into the school curriculum

2. She could have structured the programme such that initially she showed how to make the packaged variety of a meal and then moved on to showing the simple step up to making the "real thing".

[chookwoman]

I couldn't agree more Rosie.