Fanny Cradock

Was an English restaurant critic, television cook and writer who mostly worked with John "Johnnie" Cradock, whose surname she adopted long before they married.

Cradock's TV programmes were extremely popular in the late 1950s. 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 truly care for her audience. Regular catchphrases were; "This won't break you", "This is perfectly economical", "This won't stretch your purse". She insisted that "Everyone [was] entitled to a piece of really good cake at least once a year".

As time went on, her food became outdated. Her love of the piping bag and vegetable dyes meant that her television show began to border on farce. As she got older, she applied more and more make-up and would wear vast chiffon ballgowns on screen. Her apronless cry, both on screen and on stage, was that "cooking is a cleanly art, not a grubby chore". Using language that would never have found its way into her Bon Viveur columns, she spat: "Only a slut gets in a mess in the kitchen."

By this stage, when Fanny spoke, the world listened. She campaigned against artificial flavourings and fertilisers - the Cradock tomatoes were fed on a diet of tea and pee dubbed "Madam's Tonic" - and in 1974 she sent the Ayr fishing fleet into panic after revealing that monkfish was being widely used in scampi as a cheaper alternative to prawns. She had firm views, too, on what her viewers and readers should do at Christmas. In Fanny's book, there was no beginning or end to the preparations: Christmas puddings should be prepared a year in advance, although a batch Fanny made for Harrods in the early Sixties had to be returned when they went mouldy. Every month had its tasks: pickling walnuts, preserving angelica, making potpourri. Her fervour for DIY was also reflected in her accent on wreaths, flamboyant table designs and home-made decorations - an enterprise that she claimed could keep children "absorbed throughout the long winter evenings".

Fanny Cradock's last television cookery programmes should be Christmas-themed. Her series Cradock Cooks for Christmas is the only one of her programmes to have been shown in the past decade - enjoying an annual Christmas re-run on the UK digital television channel UKTV Food.

TV shows

• Fanny's Kitchen
• Chez Bon Viveur
• The Cradocks
• Dinner Party
• Fanny Cradock Invites
• Cradock cooks for Christmas

Cookbooks

• Cooking with Bon Viveur 1955 Museum Press Ltd (writing as John and Phyllis Cradock)
• Bon Viveur Recipes circa 1960 Daily Mail
• The Daily Telegraph Cook's Book by Bon Viveur 1964 Collins Fontana Books
• The Daily Telegraph Sociable Cook's Book by Bon Viveur 1967 Collins Fontana Books
• Fanny & Johnnie Cradocks' The Cook Hostess' Book 1970 Cookery Book Club
• Modest but Delicious 1973 Arlington Books/The Daily Telegraph
• Common Market cookery France (1973) BBC
• 365 Puddings by Bon Viveur Summer 1975 The Daily Telegraph
• 365 Soups by Bon Viveur Winter 1977 The Daily Telegraph
• Fanny & Johnnie Cradock's Freezer Book 1978 W H Allen
• A Cook's Essential Alphabet 1979 W H Allen
• Time to Remember - A Cook for All Seasons 1981 Web & Bower

Booklets

• Home Cooking 1965 BBC (TV Series April - June 1965)
• Adventurous Cooking 1966 BBC (TV Series April - June 1965)
• Ten Classic Dishes 1967 BBC (TV Series January - March 1968)
• Problem Cooking 1967 BBC (TV Series 1967
• Eight Special Menus for the Busy Cook-Hostess 1967 Gas Council
• Colourful Cookery 1968 BBC (TV Series Oct - December 1968)
• Giving a Dinner Party 1969 BBC (TV Series July - October 1969)
• Fanny Craddock Invites 1970 BBC (TV Series July - October 1970)
• Fanny Cradock's Nationwide Cook Book 1972 BBC
• Fanny Cradock's Christmas Cooking 1975 BBC (TV Series November - December 1975)