This Months Queens of Camp Hall of Fame Inductee
Fanny Cradock(February 26, 1909 - December 27, 1994) born Phyllis Primrose-Peachy, in Leytonstone, London, was a British writer, restaurant critic and television cook.
Fanny Cradock was an extraordinary woman. She was the first celebrity TV cook. We remember her strange mask-like face on TV, ordering, monacle wearing, husband Johnnie about as she strutted between counter and cooker. She was ridiculous, rather glamorous, but frightening too. She made the current bad boy, of culinary television, Gordon Ramsay look like Mother Theresa. She introduced a new wave of sophisticated foods, including the prawn cocktail. (yes that really was considered sophisticated in the 70’s!) She is still among the most famous of TV chefs, in part due to her explosive personality, ball gowns,bouffant hair, laquered within an inch of its life and independent eyelashes.
Despite her bizarre appearance, she was reassuringly concerned with the budgets of her audience and would often make comments like, " Of course, if you can't stretch to butter, then dripping will do." As her hey day was in the 70's there was (quite rightly) no concession to political correctness. In one episode she recommended one recipe for those, "...poor, little, old people who are living alone." Her television programmes have not aged well when looked back on today and both the format and her style look wildly eccentric; not too many cooks would today try and cook in a ball gown and produce a roast chicken dish surrounded by swirls of green dyed potato mash! It was not without reason that one of her obituaries in the UK broadsheets began with the words, "Fanny Cradock was a preposterous character". That, she certainly was.
In her early career as a writer she published two science fiction novels. She published over 100 cookbooks and a 96-part magazine cookery course. She later thankfully returned to writing fiction and left the TV kitchens of the UK free of ball gowns and green mashed potato. But the kitchens of british television were a duller place without her.
As a sure sign of her enduring fame "Fanny Cradock" is now used in rhyming slang for "Haddock". Fanny craddock we salute you! a real queen of camp.
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More Rank & Bile
Earlier this month I voted Mariah Carey car crash of the month (see below) Partly becuse of her recent alarming forrays in to the world of hideous fashion, but mostly becuse of her yo-yoing weight gains which seem to have left her with a remarkable reseblance to the Hindenburg. This was particularly apparent at The Golden Globes where she wore a hideous dress that looked like its seams were about explode. (she was widely and unanimously voted worst dressed of the night)
