Andrew Webb attended a BAFTA tribute to broadcasting legend Delia Smith and came away hungry.
Delia Smith first appeared on the BBC two years before I was born. So you'd have thought that after nigh on four decades in the business she'd have the patter, the anecdotes, and the experience to hold an audience enraptured.
But during a BAFTA night dedicated to Delia (which I attended), the interviewer Matthew Sweet was, at times, doing more of the talking than his subject. There were clips from Delia's various shows, as well as a lengthy description about set design which hardly had us rolling in the aisles. Indeed, perhaps the most enjoyable line of the evening was a clip from the mid-70s where she says, "This recipe features TWO cloves of garlic... well I did say it was French!"
How to cheat at cooking
She stiffened somewhat as Sweet moved on to How to Cheat at Cooking, which he referred to as 'Deliagate'. And after a few lacklustre yes and no's, we learned that she'd had lots of feedback from disabled viewers, who told her that using pre-chopped onions and the like was really helpful to them.
Then came the Q&A.
Audience member: "What's your favourite recipe?"
Delia: "I get asked this all the time and I'm sorry but I don't have one." Sweet attempted to salvage the situation by asking "What did you have last night?"
Delia: (after a short pause) "I was at the football so I had a burger."
Another audience member: "Who are your culinary inspirations?"
Delia: "I don't really watch other cooking programmes. I like the Hairy Bikers, and I want to eat what they make. Also Philip Harben, Elizabeth David, Robert Cerrier… I like Simon Hopkinson," she adds after a long pause.
Yet another audience member: "Who would be at your dream dinner party?"
Delia: "I don't give dream dinner parties really. I suppose I'd like to cook for the Pope. It would have to be something Argentinian I suppose."
As you can see, questions that really put Delia over the coals.
A different age
We live in the age of the story, the news angle, the life before and the multifaceted career after... but Delia just isn't built that way. A bit like Cliff Richard, she's never had another job, other than teaching the nation to cook. It's pretty much all she's done. She offered no opinions on the current food scene, didn't mention producers or wax lyrical about ingredients. Her culinary icons are, like the saints she venerates, all long dead.
She is what she says she is: a home cook. For journalists that's really boring, but the audience love her, and she was always going to be preaching to the choir here.
Yet the effect of Delia is indeed like that of a preacher, with one 32-year-old cooking virgin sat behind me saying, "I'm only here with my sisters-in-law, I can't even boil an egg! But I'm going to watch your online cooking course and learn to cook! You're so inspirational!" she adds, drowned out by applause and cheers.
Victoria Wood then took to the stage to present the "little golden one-eyed face" and flowers, and the faithful clapped again. As we shuffled out it felt like leaving church after a Sunday service, and I know as much about her now as I did before I set foot in the room with the ineffable Mrs Smith. Still, her recipes always work.
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