Name/TitleProblem Cooking with Fanny Cradock
MakerBBC Publications
About this objectSlim booklet titled 'Problem Cooking with Fanny Cradock ~ BBC TV', priced 1s. 6d, complementing five cookery programmes first broadcast on BBC1. The introductory text states: 'Fanny Cradock is famed for her cookery, and she receives many thousands of letters every year from interested viewers. These five programmes are in response to this correspondence and are based on some of the difficulties most often expressed by those who have written to her.' The publication contains recipes based on the following topics:
Problem No. 1 - 'Difficult' cakes made easy
Problem No. 2 - How to use up savoury left-overs
Problem No. 3 - How to use up sweet left-overs
Problem No. 4 - Meat cuts with a difference
Problem No. 5 - The easy use of gelatine
Also contains an inserted recipe (x2) for char sui (Chinese roast pork)
Fully digitised (19 pages incl. insert)
Medium and MaterialsOrganic, paper
MeasurementsH: 229 x W: 146 mm (booklet)
H: 117 x W: 100 mm (insert)
Date Made1967
Period1960s
Place MadeEngland, London
Place NotesBritish Broadcasting Corporation, 35 Marylebone High Street, London W.1
PublisherBritish Broadcasting Corporation
Publication Date1967
Publication PlaceEngland, London
Series TitleBBC Publications
Subject and Association Descriptionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Cradock:
Phyllis Nan Sortain Pechey (26 February 1909 – 27 December 1994), better known as Fanny Cradock, was an English restaurant critic, television chef and writer. She frequently appeared on television, at cookery demonstrations and in print with her fourth husband Major Johnnie Cradock who played the part of a slightly bumbling hen-pecked husband.
TV personality: In 1955 Cradock recorded a pilot for what became a very successful BBC television series on cookery. Each year the BBC published a booklet giving a detailed account of every recipe Fanny demonstrated, allowing her to frequently say in later years, "You'll find that recipe in the booklet, so I won't show you now." Fanny advocated bringing Escoffier-standard food into the British home and gave every recipe a French name. Her food looked extravagant, but was generally cost-effective, and Fanny seemed to care about her audience. Her catchphrases included "This won't break you", "This is perfectly economical", and "This won't stretch your purse". When presenting her Christmas cake recipe she once justified the cost of ingredients, saying "But on the other hand, we do want one piece of decent cake in the year."
As time went by, however, her food began to seem outdated, with her love of the piping bag and vegetable dyes. As she grew older, she applied more and more make-up and wore vast chiffon ballgowns on screen. Cradock had always included relatives and friends in her television shows. Johnnie suffered a minor heart attack in the early 1970s and was replaced with the daughter of a friend, Jayne. Another assistant was Sarah, and there was a series of young men who did not last long.
Throughout her television career, the Cradocks also worked for the British Gas Council, appearing at trade shows such as the Ideal Home Exhibition and making many "infomercials", instructing cooks, usually newlywed women, on how to use gas cookers for basic dishes. Despite the BBC's ban on advertising, Cradock used only gas stoves in her television shows and often stated that she "hated" electric stoves and ovens.
Her series Fanny Cradock Cooks for Christmas is the only one of several she made to have survived in the TV archives and to have been repeated in recent years, on the UK digital television channels BBC Four, Good Food and Food Network UK, usually in the run-up to Christmas. Good Food also occasionally broadcasts Fanny Cradock Invites You to a Cheese and Wine Party, one of a few surviving stand-alone episodes from other series. Cradock appeared in twenty-four television series between 1955 and 1975.
Subject and Association Keywordscookery, cooking, recipes
Subject and Association KeywordsTV personality
Object TypeBooklet
Object numberGWL-2023-17-1
Copyright LicenceAll rights reserved