Cooking today? It’s all become so ‘poncey and cheffy’, Delia grumbles at the Palace
It’s dapper Sir Mo... cutting a real dash in top hat and tails
WITH her simple no-nonsense recipes, she has been the queen of wholesome home cooking for more than four decades.
So it perhaps isn’t surprising that Delia Smith isn’t a fan of experimental chefs who go for style as well as substance.
Yesterday the 76-year- old didn’t hold back when she expressed her distaste at modern cooking – declaring it ‘very poncey, very cheffy’.
Miss Smith complained that chefs now strive to turn dishes into ‘theatre on a plate’ rather than just focusing on cooking delicious meals.
She made the comments after she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to cookery at Buckingham Palace, where a string of stars also received honours including newly knighted Sir Mo Farah.
Miss Smith released her first cookbook How to Cheat at Cooking in 1971 and became a household name with her TV cookery shows. She has
‘Trying to be theatre on a plate’ Have you tried my recipe for coronation chicken, Ma’am?
since sold over 21 million copies of her recipe books and has seen her name become synonymous with home cooking – with ‘Delia’ entering the Collins English Dictionary in 2001.
She said yesterday: ‘ Cooking has become very poncey, very cheffy – if I get one more plate put in front of me with six dots of sauce on it, I will go mad. I can’t do it, I just can’t do it.
‘The joy, years ago, of going to a really special restaurant and having a really special meal, has gone. It is very hard to find one that isn’t trying to be theatre on a plate... I don’t like it at all.’
Miss Smith and Heston Blumenthal signed a three-year deal with Waitrose in 2010, but Miss Smith was dropped. Blumenthal, who remains in partnership with the chain, gives customers a map rather than a menu at his threeMichelin starred restaurant The Fat Duck, which a restaurant guide described as taking customers on a ‘theatrical, multi-sensory journey’.
For one seafood dish they must listen to the sounds of the seaside on an iPod presented in a conch shell. For a ‘counting sheep’ course the dish is presented on a pillow made to float above a plastic cloud using hidden magnets.
Miss Smith also said she did not intend to release any more cookbooks because the internet has made them redundant. She added that food quality is suffering because of mass production. Miss Smith, who was awarded a CBE in 2009, said she was ‘deeply honoured’ to receive her latest award.
Sir Mo, meanwhile, received his knighthood for services to athletics. The distance runner, a fourtime Olympic gold medallist, said: ‘As an eight-year-old coming from Somalia and not speaking a word of English, to be recognised by your country, it is incredible.’ The father of four, 34, who was accompanied by his wife Tania, looked dapper in full morning suit including a top hat, which he donned after receiving his award to do his famous ‘Mobot’ pose outside the palace. He revealed he told the Queen he plans to run the London Marathon next year and that she told him it was ‘marvellous’.