Yahoo News Delia at 80: what we've learned from the queen of home cooking
Delia; a name so familiar it has its own entry in the Collins English Dictionary. A noun, it reads, denoting “the recipes or style of cooking of British cookery writer, Delia Smith.”
One “does a Delia” or serves “a Delia dish”; the “Delia effect”, indeed, is a well-known phenomenon which sees hordes rush to buy her preferred products (ever since Britain was left bereft of lemon zesters after one appeared on her first television show, Family Fare, in 1973). And today, the doyenne of home cookery celebrates her 80th birthday.
As a nation which in that time has undergone a dramatic transformation in the kitchen (goodbye beef stew, hello hummus, laksa, jambalaya and moussaka), we owe a lot to Delia (like Kylie, Beyonce and fellow gourmet Nigella she doesn’t need a surname), the woman who had the brass to teach the country how to boil an egg.
Delia was born in Woking in 1941, left school at 16 without any O-levels and worked at a hairdresser’s, then later as a kitchen porter at a restaurant in Paddington. Spending her spare time reading cookbooks at the British Museum and trying recipes out on the family she lodged with, Delia switched her focus to food styling, making dishes to be photographed for magazines and – iconically – the cover of The Rolling Stones album Let It Bleed.
From there she began a career in writing and presenting, becoming a columnist in The Daily Mirror and regularly appearing on BBC East. But it was the launch of her BBC programme, Delia Smith’s Cookery Course, in 1978, that truly cemented her as a household name (the whole series is still on iPlayer, and it’s worth a watch for the fashion alone).
Since then, Delia has become the go-to source when looking for a reliable sponge cake, perfect Yorkshires or timings for your roast lamb. She’s the reason I grew up requesting my mum’s beef bourguignon weekly (and still do), which was lifted from page 153 of Delia’s Complete Cookery Course.
To seven-year-old me, Delia was an abstract, omniscient entity in our house. The large black bound book (the cover sleeve was lost before I was born) sat on mum’s cookbook shelf, ready to be lugged to the kitchen table and leafed through by my grubby fingers, looking for the Yorkshire pudding batter recipe that mum swore made better pancakes than the pancake batter recipe. When I was older and an occasion demanded a cake or a tart, mum and I would first browse the internet, flick through our latest cookbook purchase or food magazine, then give each other a knowing glance and reach once more for Delia.
Over 21 million copies of her books have been sold and proudly displayed, defaced, splattered and scrawled over, then passed down in the hope that the next generation will do the same.
She may have retired from all but her role as joint majority shareholder (with her husband, Michael Wynn Jones) in Norwich City Football Club, but to many of us she remains the last name in no-nonsense home cookery.
Delia in dates
1941 - Born in Woking, Surrey
1969 - Starts a recipe column in The Daily Mirror; her first creations include kipper pate, beef in beer and cheesecake
1973 - Debut cookery show, Family Fare, airs on BBC1
1975 - Marries Michael Wynn-Jones, her deputy editor at The Daily Mirror; they remain married to this day
1979 - Smith’s most famous cookery programme, Delia Smith’s Cookery Course, airs on BBC1, accompanied by a multi-series book deal
1995 - Delia Smith’s Winter Collection hits the shelves, selling 2 million copies and becoming the fifth biggest-selling book of the 1990s
1997 - Smith and Wynn-Jones become joint majority shareholders of Norwich City Football Club
2003 - Announces her retirement from television, though she returned to the BBC for a six-part series in 2008
2005 - Famously strides onto the pitch at halftime during a match between Norwich City and Manchester City, rallying the crowd with the words, “Let’s be ‘avin you!”
2009 - Awarded a CBE in recognition of her contribution to television cookery and recipe writing
To celebrate her 80th birthday, food writers, chefs and cooks share how Delia has changed and reshaped the world of food...
Nadiya Hussain
Cookbook author
“Growing up as a young child, Delia was like Disney: a world away from the world I was growing up in. Watching Delia was mesmerising and filled me with ambition to be confident in the kitchen.”
Claire Thomson
Cookbook author and Telegraph columnist
“Delia’s Complete Cookery Course was my mum’s bible when my brother and I were growing up. I may have, aged eight, Tipex’d a moustache and big eyebrows on the book’s cover – a joke, but my mum did not see the funny side of it one bit. I remember countless dishes: "it’s a Delia!" my mum would exclaim as she placed whatever it was on the table for dinner that evening.
“Then, from the age of 12 and given a little autonomy in the kitchen, I also would rifle through the pages, choosing something to cook for me and my mum. The book is still there on the shelf at her house, still with the moustache and eyebrows, much tattier now than it was back then and extremely well used. What more can a cookery book, or cookery writer, ask for?”
Tomé Morrissy-Swan
“Like in most households, Delia's books were in constant use when I was growing up, particularly the brilliant How To Cook series. I still dip in and out of it, but her best moment for me, the gold-standard Delia, happened far from the kitchen.
“On one cold winter evening, her beloved Norwich City were in a relegation scrap. Grabbing a mic at half time, she sensed an opportunity to rally the troops. Standing on the pitch, she bellowed an astonishing 28-word rant towards the fans, almost an accusation, in a (my favourite bit) progressively more working-class accent, before the unforgettable climax: "Where are you? WHERE ARE YOU? Let's be 'avin you. COME ON!" One of the greatest moments in Premier League history from a highly unlikely source. A whole new generation fell in love.”
William Sitwell
“The essence of Delia is that she is instructive and useful, two elements that in the constant whirlwind of the celebrity chef can be forgotten. She was a pioneer of cookery TV, the girl next door who could teach you to boil an egg or summon up the courage to make a souffle.
“Every student, if not just everyone, should be forced to watch her early series, to be given her books and to learn to just cook simply. We’d all eat better and the world would be a better place. Meanwhile I’ve always enjoyed the times I’ve worked with her and the occasional, very jolly, lunch. And when it came to her work, her power was expressed through her copy. The order would come from her long-standing agent: don’t touch it. Not a word.”
Shaun Rankin
Chef patron of Grantley Hall,Yorkshire
“Delia is, and has been, the home cook's national treasure. Her writing and cooking enabled busy families up and down the country to unshackle themselves from the kitchen: introducing us to the idea that cooking can and should be fuss-free, and that a proper supper can be made with ease after a long working day.
"That service was invaluable and is what inspired generations of chefs – from novices to professionals across the industry. My own copies of Delia's collection sit proudly next to the likes of inspirational chefs such as Elizabeth David and Thomas Keller, and my Delia's Christmas is dog eared, covered in gravy but comes out year on year – it never fails.”
