Inspiring a generation of TV chefs

It seems you can barely move for cooks who want to get out of the kitchen and onto our screens.

There’s even a whole channel dedicated to food, not to mention an entire generation of people who not only know what a ballotine is, but expect it to come served with a langoustine foam.

Not that I’m complaining – I love a good cookery show.

I find them very relaxing, and there’s always the potential for some sort of soufflébased disaster, which makes me feel better about my own culinary skills.

So when my son went out with his dad for a Father’s Day outing at the weekend, I decided to treat myself to a bit of Saturday Kitchen Best Bites.

I don’t catch it very often and then rarely more than a bit of it, so I was quite surprised when Keith Floyd popped up.

The programme included a segment of one of Floyd’s old shows from the 1980s.

In this particular episode, he was visiting Cornwall – where I’m originally from - and cooking moules marinières, which is one of my all-time favourite dishes.

So I happily settled down to enjoy a glimpse of home, and get a few tips on how to cook perfect mussels along the way.

I was soon laughing out loud. I’d forgotten how funny Floyd was.

He happily guzzled back shellfish while chatting to a Cornish fisherman, who looked rather bewildered by the whole thing, but nevertheless demonstrated how to properly open a mussel several times as Floyd berated the poor cameraman: “Get in closer, Malcolm! People are never going to be able to see what he’s doing when you’re back there.”

After that he took over the fisherman’s wife’s kitchen and proceeded to fling ingredients all over the work surface and floor while gulping down a large glass of red, which apparently goes perfectly well with seafood, whatever anyone else might tell you.

And to say thank you to the lady of the house for the use of her pots and pans (and sorry for the mess he’d made), he fed her a mussel, gave a big hug and planted a smacker right on her lips.

Before Keith Floyd, cookery shows were largely rather staid, purely educational affairs, but he was lively, unpredictable and always entertaining, whether you liked cookery or not.

And he whetted people’s appetites for more.

So when you turn on the TV to see yet another chef enthusiastically brandishing a spatula, you know who to blame.

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