Is the nation finally ready to forgive Fanny?
FANNY is back on the menu. Hurrah! I’ll raise a glass of prawn Marie Rose to that.
Yes, Fanny Cradock, the fabulously monikered, flamboyantly dressed cookery queen will be on our BBC screens this Easter as part of a season looking at the nation’s changing food tastes.
Quite rightly so; that iconic image of her rustling up an ambassador’s cake in a Norman Hartnell ball gown is seared forever on our cultural retina.
Fanny and Johnnie, her sidekick husband, were the perfect double act; she was the brittle, bossy harpy, he played the henpecked husband, and together they were compelling.
There were television series and theatrical performances; even a column for The Daily Telegraph. She popularised pizza, showed us how to deep fry cheese and was gloriously liberal with the brandy and cream. Her downfall came when she encountered the beginnings of reality TV; a member of the public, Mrs Troake, had won a competition to prepare a naval banquet.
Fanny, ever the waspish doyenne, failed to grasp that public appetites were changing and poured withering scorn on Mrs Troake’s “amateur” menu.
With that, her TV career was over and the nation never forgave her. Not even in gratitude for pizza.