Nigella, Come For A Meal

I don't often find myself tuning in to listen to Woman's Hour, for no particular reason, but I did recently. I think maybe I caught a tweet or two saying that Nigella would be on, alongside Diana Henry, Bee Wilson and Cara Nicoletti all chatting about food and feminism - it sounded fun. They'd be discussing if we all should just 'ditch the guilt' and just enjoy the 'many pleasures that food and cooking offers'. So it had to be worth tuning in. Woman's Hour began in 1946 and dear old Fanny was a regular contributor back in the 60's and 70's - she would have been a fantastic addition to the line-up of today I think! I wonder if those shows were much different to today?

The BBC produced a handy booklet in 1966, encouraging listeners to cook, eat and make others happy. They asked 12 Woman's Hour contributors to design a menu each. It's all a bit Come Dine With Me, except they called it Come For A Meal. You get the idea. Each menu was for a different occasion, and surprise surprise there was even a Vegetarian Dinner. If you fancied Tomato Soup followed by Stuffed Marrow and Lemon Sorbet you were sorted! A Vegetarian Dream. Fanny of course had much grander ideas...

Fanny's menu was for those times, that we can all relate to, when you have four guests staying the whole weekend, and you need to plan an entire menu for six from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon. Fanny provides her ideal menu to 'sustain them', "someone has to" she says with a knowingly resentful glance to the radio listeners. You really get the impression these guests are not welcome at all. Best of all Fanny says, you should be able to make all this 'without help' which must've been such a boon for the ordinary housewife listener. Perhaps the domestic is away for the weekend, or worse still your very favourite assistants have the weekend off? Eeeew! Surely not...

Each dish of course is presented with it's very fancy French name, and features a mix of cold dishes ready to 'dish up' as well as others ready to pop into the oven or steamer to 'take care of themselves'. You don't want to neglect your guests while nourishing them. Easy peasy. Your weekend guests will be simply thrilled with Scallops with Cheese Sauce, Jacket Potatoes with a 'difference', Pork and Cider parcels, Ice Cream with Citrus Fruits, Pate Pie, Chicken with Cheese Fondue Sauce, and an untranslatable French Flan, a recurring favourite, which Fanny calls Tarte Fleurette.

So, flash forward to 2015, Nigella is busy cooking Poached Salmon, Avocado, Watercress and Pumpkin Seed Salad, from her new Simply Nigella book. Different ingredients, but perhaps the same sentiment? Nigella urges us to eat good, wholesome, real food. "Cooking is an act of love, whether that's expressed to yourself or others". So whether its 1946, 1966 or 2015, the Woman's Hour message is the same, relish cooking and revel in entertaining. Fanny's additional and unique message was still to fancy it all up in French, naturellement.

I was fortunate enough to meet Nigella at her "An Evening With..." with my friend Karen in Edinburgh not long after her Woman's Hour appearance, squeeeeel. It was a joy to hear her being interviewed and talk about her love of all things food. I can't imagine Fanny releasing a simply stripped back book like this, but both 'home cooks' are linked through their passion for cooking, eating and sharing with readers, listeners and viewers alike. Fanny was all frills, Nigella, well, was Simply Nigella. Next time Nigella, come for a meal, I'll pop the radio on and we can flick through Fanny's books...

How to Jug a Bon Viveur

I'm not sure how Fanny Cradock would feel about sharing the page with others, even other food writers. Especially other food writers? Were there other food writers? After all, why would one need to read anyone else's words when her own guidance, knowledge and expertise was freely available to be absorbed and put into action in exactly the way she describes? Fanny, and Johnnie, wrote regular columns in The Telegraph under the moniker of Bon Viveur to reassure, and inadvertently perhaps, reprimand, housewives across the land with their words. They were not alone however. There were other food writers. Many of those also wrote for The Telegraph. Do you think Fanny knew that at the time?

I practically ran down to my local booksellers on publication day when a collection of food writings originally published in The Telegraph were recently collected together and republished in one volume. I couldn't wait to snap up a copy. How To Jug A Hare has been compiled and edited by Sarah Rainey, with a foreword by Bee Wilson. What a lovely job it must have been to dive into those archives and discover the delights of culinary craftsmanship to share again with us hungry foodies. And what a lovely job they have done!

Fanny features heavily throughout, naturally, which is a real treat for us all. A selection of sixteen sublime articles, scooped up from storage and presented again for us to chortle along with. Let's not forget though, it's not all Fanny, many other fantastic food writers from history are expertly laid side by side. Fanny sits comfortably, almost dizzyingly, beside Egon Ronay, Clement Freud, Elizabeth David, Elizabeth Craig, Claudia Roden, Robert Carrier, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Josceline Dimbleby and many others. All brilliant names from through the years, and all brilliant pieces of food writing to show off. Fanny arches proudly across them all, she even receives the ultimate accolade from the editor - a whole chapter dedicated to 'Cranky Cradock'.

Whether Fanny is telling readers how to plan for 'the years most indigestible meal' (Christmas Dinner), how to 'put a wronged casserole to rights' or sharing the delights of Aunt Meg's flower-pot loaves, she does it with her usual humour and forthrightness in equal measure. Food writing columns are uber-seasonal but the skill of the editor in this collection is to position writing from 1899 alongside selections from 1959 and the more modern day, arranged by season not chronology. As a reader you often have to turn back to the given date to check - some themes seem so very modern. I guess food fads come and go, but it's fascinating to read about fashionable issues that seem like trends in this way. It provides a very pleasing perspective.

Fannys final entry in this collection is her 'Pet Hates of 1971' (although later columns do appear earlier) which so easily could've been published today. Fanny is cross about the endless cellophane 'over-wrapping' which often results in her struggling and breaking her nails trying to gain access to various products. She's fuming that manufacturers are disguising less product in larger packets. She's raging at marketing speak misusing the English language with frightful phrases like 'Fresh Frozen'. 'Fresh is one thing, Frozen is another, both can be very good but like male and female, they cannot be the same', Fanny tells us. The whole collection is a magnificently enjoyable read, wisely combined and wonderfully compelling. Whether or not Fanny would have preferred the whole volume to be dedicated to her and her alone remains unknown. Fanny Cradock can so often be overlooked in culinary history as simply a figure of fun. She undoubtedly was, but for me to see her re-placed in history as one of the great food writers is as reassuring and reprimanding as she herself was back in the day.