Kevin Geddes
Above all, garnish and presentation: An evaluation of Fanny Cradock's contribution to home cooking in Britain
Geddes, Kevin
Authors
Abstract
The development of cooking on television, and the associated rise in ‘celebrity chefs’ is often seen as a modern phenomenon involving cooks like Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson in Britain. Fanny Cradock (1909–1994) is from time to time credited as a pioneer in television cooking and Britain's ‘first celebrity chef’. However little detail of her career has been documented, despite working as a journalist, radio and television presenter, food demonstrator, writer of fiction, children's books and cookbooks spanning from 1942 until 1986. Cradock was prominent on television between 1955 and 1975, with her final appearance in 1985. Cradock is as often remembered for her colourful character as for the colourful food she presented and her name remains synonymous with elaborate cooking in ball gowns, using copious amounts of food colouring and aspic, and for berating her husband who assisted her on stage, on television, and in print. However, from Cradock's personal archive a far more substantive contribution to home cooking through the development of television cooking and cookbooks, looking at her undocumented ideas and innovations. Additional archive materials and collections of newspaper clippings collected between 1942 and 1982 by Cradock herself shed light on how she was perceived at the time, her role as an entrepreneur and her own ‘brand’ identity. From this documentary evidence, it is argued that Cradock deserves to be much better remembered for her contribution to British food culture.
Citation
Geddes, K. (2017). Above all, garnish and presentation: An evaluation of Fanny Cradock's contribution to home cooking in Britain. International journal of consumer studies, 41(6), 745-753. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijcs.12387
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Jul 31, 2017 |
Online Publication Date | Aug 24, 2017 |
Publication Date | 2017-11 |
Deposit Date | Aug 19, 2020 |
Journal | International Journal of Consumer Studies |
Print ISSN | 1470-6431 |
Publisher | Wiley |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 41 |
Issue | 6 |
Pages | 745-753 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1111/ijcs.12387 |
Public URL | http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2656848 |
Downloadable Citations
About Edinburgh Napier Research Repository
Administrator e-mail: repository@napier.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search