Shooting the Cook

John was a true trencherman and like me had a ferocious appetite. Sometimes in the car driving back from filming in the New Territories, the country area by what was then the Chinese border, we would make up songs about how hungry we were. One day, John, in his soft Scottish burr told me about a restaurant he’d been to where the speciality was Peking duck. He described what he’d eaten: the soft pancakes smeared with plum sauce, the sweet crispy skin of the duck and the crunchy match-sticks of cucumber and spring onions. The way he described it, he had to take me to this restaurant now. Nothing else would do.

It was called the American Restaurant and it was everything John said it was. Although it was very early in the evening, the place was packed. Waiters wearing white gloves were carving huge golden brown ducks at the tables and the bamboo steamers they carried past us left a waft of sweet smelling dough in their wake. By the time a waiter came to take our order I was nearly passing out with hunger. John explained that we each wanted a duck and the full order of pancakes and the other accompaniments that go with it.

‘No,’ said the waiter, rather curtly I thought. ‘You cannot have one duck each. You can only have one duck for two.’

John looked at him and explained we were both extremely hungry and that one duck would not be enough. Unfortunately this only made the waiter angry.

‘One duck enough.’

He began to write the order down on his pad which upset my friend John enormously. ‘He want duck,’ he said, pointing to me, ‘and I want duck.’

I nodded appreciatively and tried to give the impression that one duck to us would be no more than a mouthful.

It seemed we had reached an impasse and I was beginning to think that we were about to get unceremoniously chucked out of the best Peking duck restaurant in the world.

‘Get me the manager,’ said John.

‘Why don’t we just have one duck and share it?’ I ventured helpfully. ‘And if we’re still hungry we could ask for another one.’

John gave me the kind of stare you get from the Scots when you unwittingly mistake them for Celtic instead of Rangers supporters and vice versa.

The manager arrived and was charm personified. He explained that the restaurant had been there since the war serving Peking duck and as far as he knew no one had ever ordered a duck each before. And so that evening John and I made history. They had to put another table next to ours to carve these enormous ducks which looked more like geese. I’m sure they found the two biggest birds in the kitchen to teach us a lesson. The waiters expertly separated the skin from the caramel coloured-flesh and left mountains of each before taking the carcasses away for the chefs to make soup.

‘Make soup?’ I said, looking at the piles of duck and the steamers full of pancakes.

‘Yes,’ said our grumpy waiter, but now he was smiling. ‘First you have duck with pancakes and then you have duck soup. That’s why one duck enough.’

Unfazed by this news, John showed me the art of making and rolling the perfect duck pancake: sauce first then a sprinklng of cucumber and spring onion, then equal portions of skin and meat, all rolled up like a cigar. Crunch. It was sweet and crispy with a lovely aftertaste of duck fat. Soon it became a race and by the time we had counted twenty pancakes each, a dogged silence prevailed. Over an hour later we were still eating. Our appetites had been sated long ago, but we both knew we must devour every morsel.

The pancakes finished, out came the bowls of soup, which were huge and challenging and eventually they beat us. However, the manager and the waiters seemed transformed and treated us with great civility when we eventually left the restaurant and wobbled out into the warm steamy night. Maybe, thirty years later, the staff still recount the story of the Englishman and the Scotsman who had one duck each but couldn’t quite finish the soup.

So that is why the opinion of my friend was so important to me. Not only did John understand the world of television but food is his passion.

Now, I sat on his houseboat dreading his verdict. He turned to me and said rather gravely, ‘We’ve just got enough time to buy another bottle of fizz before they close, because this is going to be a hit!’

Early next morning I caught the first train back to Plymouth and in four hours or so I was walking up the very same corridor that had seemed so gloomy yesterday. People were making their way to the canteen. I saw the usual faces grouped around their usual tables—engineers at one end of the room, journalists and features staff at the other. I recognized the four, or was it five, engineers who had painted such a bleak picture of my efforts. But that was yesterday. Such a very long time ago, and today I was happy and probably a little hung over from the night before. I was up in the world of sun-split clouds in my Spitfire again, the Merlin engine purring like a contented tiger, the wings full of ammo and down below me, clearly outlined against the silver sea, four, or was it five, Heinkel bombers, as fat as turkeys, were making their way home…or so they thought. I pushed the stick forward and flipped the safety off.

‘I think I’ll have a nice cup of tea, Mrs Boggis, and one of your finest cheese scones, a nice warm one straight from the oven please.’

David believe me, cooking’s the new rock ‘n’ roll

Floyd’s Bistro in Bristol had a real touch of class. It was 1982, before the days of open-plan kitchens, white walls, washed wood, and chrome. Floyd’s little restaurant smelt right, rather like those wonderful cafés du commerce that adorn any self-respecting market town in France. As soon as you opened the door you were greeted with a waft of good coffee, hot butter with a touch of garlic, and just a hint of Gauloise, Floyd’s cigarette of choice. It even had a real grumpy French waiter, who looked like a consumptive Bryan Ferry. On one wall was a mounted head of a huge antelope or it might have been a gnu, its long horns festooned with hats and umbrellas. The Bistro was packed when we got there and we were shown to our table in the middle of the room.

I’d been tipped-off about Mr Floyd by Andy Batten-Foster, the presenter of RPM, which had been running for four years now. Andy had met Floyd before, in a Berni Inn, which might sound strange but there was nothing wrong with a Berni Inn in those days: a prawn cocktail, a decent steak, and black forest gateau, thank you. He really liked Keith and thought he’d be good to have on the programme. However, the thing that most impressed him was that a waitress had spilt a glass of red wine over the brand new Burberry trench coat that Floyd had bought that day and worn for the first time that evening. He was clearly proud of it because he didn’t want to take it off. But he didn’t bat an eyelid. Staring at the red stain he just said, ‘Gracious me my dear, I wouldn’t worry about that—all it needs is a damp cloth and it’ll be fine.’ But deep inside, Andy knew he was crying.

Andy had been talking to me for ages about Floyd’s Bistro. Apparently he’d been once before when Floyd sent a table of four packing because they insisted on ordering well done steaks. In so many words Keith told his wide-eyed audience that his entrecôtes were of the finest quality, from pedigree cattle reared on lush Somerset meadows blessed with crystal streams and he was fucked if he was going to cook them well done thank you very much. He showed them the door and suggested if they hurry they might just make the Wimpy before it closed.

On another occasion a regular customer complained that his Wiener schnitzel, a thin escalope of veal dipped in egg and breadcrumbs, was really tough. Floyd came out of the kitchen, personally apologized to the man and took his plate away saying as he retreated that the most perfect Wiener schnitzel would be coming up any minute. Down in the kitchen Floyd was reputed to have cut a couple of beer mats roughly into the shape of schnitzels, soaked them in a little white wine to soften, rubbed them with garlic butter, seasoned them and dipped them in egg and breadcrumbs, and popped the lot into hot olive oil. The man ate it uncomplaining while Floyd, glass in hand, watched him joyously devour every mouthful. Such was the reputation of the man. Floyd offered a little bit of theatre in a rather staid part of Bristol. No wonder the place was packed.

On the night I went for dinner I can’t remember who I was with but, such are my priorities, I do remember what I ate. We had clams followed by steak frites and a bottle of the house red. Because we were late arriving, it wasn’t long before Keith made an appearance from his hot kitchen. He walked among the tables like an adjutant surveying the recruits’ canteen, asking the occasional customer if everything was to their liking. He started chatting to an expensively dressed couple sitting at a table underneath the gnu or ibex or whatever it was. They had parked their new Porsche on the pavement outside and were spending much of their time admiring it. Without asking, Floyd helped himself to a large glass of their wine and then in a loud voice apologized for not having any scampi in the basket left because the Bristol Estate Agents Fine Dining Club had been in at lunchtime and scoffed the lot along with all the Blue Nun he had in the house. They thought this very funny and so did the rest of the diners. Who would he pick on next?

He reminded me of Graham Kerr of Galloping Gourmet fame. This was an imported series from New Zealand shown on the BBC in the early Seventies. Old ladies in the studio audience would be doubled up laughing as Mr Kerr leapt over chairs, simultaneously quaffing a glass of wine without spilling a drop. He’d gallop back to his kitchen area and fold in the béchamel sauce for the moussaka he was making. Then suddenly he’d dash off with a spoonful of seasoned minced lamb to another part of the studio and stuff it down the throat of some poor unsuspecting old dear. People weren’t watching it because they wanted to learn how to cook, they were watching because the man was funny and having a good time—surely what entertainment and cooking are all about?

Well, of course, the inevitable happened. I think Floyd was saving us to last. After pouring himself a generous glass of our red wine, he started to tell us how much he disliked people who worked in television. As far as he was concerned they were all liars and cheats. ‘They come into my restaurant pissed out of their heads, promising me the earth with my very own series. I break open my very best brandy, then they piss off and I never see them again.’

I couldn’t help but notice he had eyes that one minute twinkled with merriment, and the next looked like they were on fire as if he was about to burst into tears, rather like a small boy who’s had his fishing rod confiscated.

I told him I thought he was a very funny man who cooked well. I’m not sure whether he appreciated the word ‘funny’, but he went on to explain, in his sixty-a-day voice, how he had prepared the clams we’d had earlier. He talked passionately about his long love affair with Provence: the red wine, the olive oil, the fields of sunflowers and lavender, the soft golden light and the colour of the buildings, the spicy sausages and the salt cod with aioli. To him it was heaven and he yearned to get back there.

I think it was his voice that convinced me that he had something special about him. There was definitely a hint of danger about the man too. He reminded me of Richard Burton with a touch of Peter O’Toole. I wasn’t quite sure whether he wanted to punch me in the face or pour me another glass of wine (sadly we’d run out). I said I’d really like him to make an appearance on RPM. My idea was for him to cook a main course for a dinner party for less than a pound a head. He told me to bugger off.

Undeterred, the next morning I drew up a little contract which included a small payment for him to appear on the programme and drove round to his restaurant. He opened the sash window upstairs, cigarette in hand, and I think he must have thought I was an over-enthusiastic customer, as he looked completely bemused. I reminded him of our conversation the night before and said I’d be round the following day with a camera crew to film him creating a culinary masterpiece on a shoestring.

When we arrived the next day there, on a crowded kitchen table, were four rabbits the size of whippets, bottles of Pouilly-Fumé, cognac, saffron, bunches of fresh purple garlic, large chunks of Bayonne ham, and a wicker basket full of apricot-coloured mushrooms. There must have been over a hundred pounds’ worth of food in all, enough to feed at least twenty people, and I was paying for it.

So what happened to my wonderful idea of creating a meal for less than a pound a head? The short answer, as put by a slightly irritable Mr Floyd, was ‘bollocks to that’. He told me he saw the filming as a God sent opportunity to show off his formidable culinary skills and to create a flavour of his beloved Provence. He thought my suggestion of cooking a dinner party menu for less than a pound a head quite tiresome and typical of some left-wing television producer who knew nothing about food. (He called me left wing. I felt quite proud. I’d never been called that before.) I should have seen the warning signs then.

That was how our first filming session started. The rabbit dish was superb and there was loads left over. Was there rabbit with wild mushrooms, simmered gently in white wine, on the menu that night at Floyd’s Bistro for a modest twelve pounds or so? I wonder. The filming wasn’t terribly good, but Floyd did say one thing that day I’ll never forget—that cooking was the new rock ‘n’ roll.

‘Cooks on television,’ he pronounced, ‘could be as famous as rock musicians and racing car drivers.’

I didn’t believe him at the time, but I do now.

Twenty-five years ago no one could have foreseen the incredible popularity commanded by food programmes on television today. Now we have a whole army of chefs representing virtually every personality trait. Sexy, aggressive, posh, young, practical, not so young, pioneering, grumpy, scientific, philosophical, funny—and then, of course, Delia.

In the late Seventies and early Eighties there were many programmes about food and cookery on television but they were mostly huddled together on BBC2. Fanny Cradock and her poor downtrodden husband Johnny, along with her young traumatized assistants, were on our screens for years doing mind-boggling things with coloured piped mashed potato. I found it impossible to think of her as a happy fulfilled woman. She looked as if she’d spent the night crying her heart out and had hurriedly and, not too expertly, applied some extra makeup before walking into the studio. I watched her not so much for the culinary tips, but because I liked seeing her berate her monocle-wearing husband for getting in the way.

Then there were the mellifluous tones of the highly respected Derek Cooper introducing the viewers to his world of cooking. Marguerite Patten popped up from time to time. I regard her as the matriarch of all television cooking shows. Madhur Jaffrey hit the gastronomic bull’s eye by teaching us how to make a proper curry using fenugreek and tamarind. Ken Hom did more for the wok-making industry than Chairman Mao and the exotic Robert Carrier taught us about tagines and couscous from his home in Morocco. Glynn Christian, a direct descendant of the famous Fletcher who cut the intolerant Captain Bligh adrift in the South Seas, entertained us for a while before drifting off himself somewhere I know not where. It was a pretty crowded house but through it all Delia’s star got brighter and brighter. And years later, even when she boiled an egg, over three million people tuned in to see it wobbling around in a saucepan of simmering water—hoping, no doubt, it would be as hard as rock when she cracked it open. Like many a male viewer I found her quite sexy, but a bit schoolmarmish (maybe that was the attraction), and her food looked appetizing. Clearly she was someone the viewer could trust, like the sensible girl next door who does shopping for elderly neighbours. Inexplicably I had an overriding sensation that she was standing on casters and being pulled around the television studio on a long piece of string by a member of the production team, and that as soon as she stopped filming she’d crack open a bottle of white, open up the Silk Cut and put on Led Zeppelin.

There were so many cooking programmes in the early Eighties that journalists started to get quite cross about them. ‘Not another one!’ they would cry. ‘Surely enough’s enough?’

But Floyd was different. Until then, cookery on television was really aimed at women. When Floyd came on to our screens he gave men a clear and open invitation to get into the kitchen and have a go for themselves. Forget about exact ingredients, pour yourself a glass of wine and relax. Peel a couple of cloves of garlic and make the whole cooking experience far more enjoyable than going out to a restaurant.

Floyd made it OK for blokes in pubs to have conversations about chillies and coriander, and what’s more, he cut down the fences that surrounded this relatively safe field of TV cookery shows, letting in what was to build up into a stampede of new, strange, and sometimes dangerous animals. Now cookery shows have spilt over from BBC2 onto Channel 4 and ITV where a healthy dollop of testosterone and foul language make them ‘showbiz’. Add to that a smidgen of threatened violence, and it becomes almost gladiatorial. The boundaries are being shifted every few weeks with the likes of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver highlighting the unsavoury practices of factory farming and alerting the nation to an epidemic of fat schoolchildren. These TV chefs have become more effective and powerful than a roomful of MPs, and I’m talking about a pretty big room here.

I read somewhere that the excellent Anthony Worrall Thompson said that we all got our TV careers because of Floyd. I know that it was Keith Floyd who inspired a very young Jamie Oliver to be a chef. Floyd was right. Cooks have become as famous as racing drivers and rock musicians, probably even more so.

But none of this had happened yet. The programme with Floyd and his very expensive rabbit dish was shown on RPM sandwiched between a Stranglers’ concert and a Sixties guide to the West Country presented by that wonderful writer and broadcaster Ray Gosling; a world of Teddy Boys, street parties, frothy coffee, mini skirts, skiffle and scooters, interspersed with a host of curious and quirky items from the BBC’s treasure trove of old news films. It would be an understatement to say Floyd didn’t fit in terribly well, and many people told me so, including my boss.

‘What on earth has that idiot cooking a rabbit got to do with the programme?’ he asked.

I thought about it for some time, but I couldn’t really come up with an answer. It was nearly a year before I was to meet up with Floyd again.

In the meantime, I went off around Britain with that eccentric Liverpudlian Beryl Bainbridge, following in the footsteps of J. B. Priestley’s English Journey. I learnt a lot from her; not least how to drink large ‘Rusty Nails’, a mixture of whisky and Drambuie.

There was a memorable moment when we arrived in her home town and she led us down a street where the houses were all boarded up, ready for demolition. She looked up at one of them and said, ‘David, that’s where I was brought up.’

We had to film this poignant moment, I thought. So we pulled the corrugated iron off one of the windows and climbed into this scene of devastation. There were daubings on the wall and unmentionable things on the floor; some of the boards had been ripped up to make a fire. I could see she was moved to tears as we walked through the house, through the front room where, she said, her mum and dad used to argue, while she would be upstairs listening. We climbed the stairs, looked into her bedroom, and her eyes were welling up. She lit several cigarettes and stared wistfully out at the backyard, all tumbled down and covered in stinging nettles and overgrown weeds. Eventually we climbed out of the window and she stood there looking back at the house. I found the whole thing terribly moving, and I told her so.

Then she turned to me and said, ‘David, it wasn’t that house. It was the one next door.’

The owl and the pussy cat went to sea—eventually

From time to time at the BBC you were encouraged to apply for another job. I think it was a measure adopted by large organizations to avoid complacency. Jimmy Dewar, my irascible and generous boss in Bristol, thought it the most sensible thing to do.

‘Look at it this way,’ he said, pouring me a large gin and tonic. ‘You’ll be seen as someone who wants to get on in life and to develop other skills. And, anyway, there are quite a few applicants for the Plymouth job so the chances are that you won’t get it.’

‘What if I do get it and say I’ve had a change of heart?’ He gave me one of those looks that Captain Mainwaring usually reserves for Private Pike.

It was a bit of a shock leaving Bristol to move to Plymouth and take up my new job as features editor there. I remember Alan Clark, the diarist and MP, saying the best view of Plymouth was in the rear-view mirror of his Porsche as he went hell for leather back home to Kent. The centre of the city is improving now and promises to be a mini version of Barcelona in five years’ time—both cities have the sea in common—but back in the early Eighties it was depressing. The city centre, apart from a couple of large department stores, was a pedestrianized zone of cheap low-rise buildings, the result during the last war of the Luftwaffe bombing every structure that had some architectural merit. While it had been uplifting to spend a lunch hour in Bristol, walking down the lovely Park Street, here all I saw were swathes of people dawdling along the pavements, dressed in track-suits and munching on Cornish pasties from paper bags.

The best bit of Plymouth by far was the Barbican, and the best bit of the Barbican was the fish market, right next to the old harbour where the Mayflower sailed to the New World. Plymouth has a new, much smarter fish market these days, where members of the public are not particularly welcome, which is an enormous pity, but in the early Eighties Brussels and all its Health and Safety brigades hadn’t put Plymouth on its list of things to do. Most of the fish merchants had cigarettes stuck in the corners of their mouths as they slid their filleting knives swiftly over the framework of bones.

Hogarth and his sketchbook wouldn’t have looked too out of place in the old fish market. I’d very often see a man inspecting the fish, dressed like Sir Francis Drake in doublet and hose, with a well-trimmed beard and a natty little hat. He looked quite at home among the glistening cobblestones. Apparently he would take groups of schoolchildren around the narrow streets that led down to the harbour and he’d bring to life those days of the Armada, pox, and rum. Occasionally I’d see him in Sainsbury’s with his flashy rings and buckles and a large cutlass swinging from his hip. It was an odd sight to see such a figure reading the small print on a pot of yoghurt.

I loved that fish market, awash with water and ice and disdainful looking seagulls strutting around the fish boxes looking for a tasty morsel. In the winter I ’d buy the finest lemon soles for supper. They were firm and thick and landed just a few hours before and they smelt sweetly of the sea itself. In the summer I’d buy turbot and red mullet and it was on one of those fish-buying trips that the proverbial light bulb went on and completely changed my life for ever.

The fish merchants were true artists of the knife, leaving not a scintilla of wasted flesh behind as they filleted their fish; but they tended to be grumpy until they got to know you. One day when I was shopping there, Fred Brimmacombe, a fish merchant who wore a sailor’s hat with so many badges on it you could hardly see the cloth, was having a bit of a rant.