This biography of a living person needs additional delia smith christmas book recipes for verification. English cook and television presenter, known for teaching basic cookery skills in a no-nonsense style. One of the best known celebrity chefs in British popular culture, Smith has influenced viewers to become more culinarily adventurous.
At 21, she started work in a small restaurant in Paddington, initially washing dishes before moving on to waitressing and eventually being allowed to help with the cooking. Her next job was at Carlton Studios in London, where she prepared food for studio photography. In 1969 Smith was taken on as the cookery writer for the Daily Mirror’s newly launched magazine. Their deputy editor was Michael Wynn-Jones, whom she later married. Smith’s first television appearances came in the early 1970s, as resident cook on BBC East’s regional magazine programme Look East, shown on BBC One across East Anglia. Following this, she was offered her own cookery television show, Family Fare which ran between 1973 and 1975.
Smith became a recognisable figure amongst young people in the 1970s and early 1980s when she was an occasional guest on the BBC’s Saturday morning children’s programme Multicoloured Swap Shop, giving basic cooking demonstrations. Her 1995 book Delia Smith’s The Winter Collection sold 2 million copies in hardback, becoming the fifth biggest-selling book of the 1990s. In 2003 Smith announced her retirement from television. However, she returned for an eponymous six-part series airing on the BBC in Spring 2008. The accompanying book, an update of her 1971 best-seller How to Cheat at Cooking, was published in February 2008, again becoming a best-seller. In 2005, Smith announced that she was supporting the Labour Party in the forthcoming election. In 2010 she appeared in a five-episode series, Delia through the Decades, with each episode exploring a new decade of her cooking.
In March 2010, Smith and Heston Blumenthal were signed up to appear in a series of 40 commercials on British television for the supermarket chain Waitrose. In February 2013 she announced that she had retired from television cookery programmes, and would concentrate on offering her recipes online. Britain and her use of ingredients such as frozen mash and tinned minced beef and onions, or utensils such as an omelette pan, could cause sell-outs overnight. From 1993 to 1998 Smith worked as a consultant for Sainsbury’s. Smith has developed other business interests outside of her culinary ventures, notably a majority shareholding in the football team Norwich City, with her husband.
Both Smith and Wynn-Jones were season ticket holders at Norwich and were invited to invest in the club, which had fallen on hard times. In February 2005, Smith attracted attention during the half-time break of a home match against Manchester City. 20 million in the club, but wanted Smith and the other shareholders to relinquish their holdings. In August 2011, Smith announced that, anticipating her 70th birthday, she was stepping down from her catering role at Norwich City’s Carrow Road football ground: “It is now time for a fresh approach and a younger team who, I am confident, will take the business even further. 2017 Birthday Honours for services to cookery. In 2012, Smith criticised atheism, claiming that “militant neo-atheists and devout secularists are busting a gut to drive us off the radar and try to convince us that we hardly exist.
Television chefs stir appetite for culinary change”. First Team Staff – Norwich City”. Profile Delia Smith: Simmer gently, do not boil”. Delia Smith: Television cook and food writer”. Who’s backing whom at the election?
Delia Smith and Heston Blumenthal to star in Waitrose ads”. Delia Smith steps down from Norwich City catering role”. New faces on Sgt Pepper album cover for artist Peter Blake’s 80th birthday”. Archived from the original on 16 March 2012. For the atomic model, see Plum pudding model. Christmas pudding is sweet dried-fruit pudding traditionally served as part of Christmas dinner in Britain, Ireland and other countries to which the tradition has been exported.
A traditional bag-boiled Christmas Pudding still showing the “skin”. Many households have their own recipes for Christmas pudding, some handed down through families for generations. Essentially the recipe brings together what traditionally were expensive or luxurious ingredients — notably the sweet spices that are so important in developing its distinctive rich aroma, and usually made with suet. Christmas puddings are often dried out on hooks for weeks prior to serving in order to enhance the flavour. This pudding has been prepared with a traditional cloth rather than a basin. Prior to the 19th century, the English Christmas pudding was boiled in a pudding cloth, and often represented as round.
Initial cooking usually involves steaming for many hours. Most pre-twentieth century recipes assume that the pudding will then be served immediately, but in the second half of the twentieth century, it became more usual to reheat puddings on the day of serving, and recipes changed slightly to allow for maturing. To serve, the pudding is reheated by steaming once more, and dressed with warm brandy which is set alight. An example of a Great Depression era recipe for Christmas pudding can instead be made on Christmas Day rather than weeks before as with a traditional plum pudding, although it is still boiled or steamed. Given the scarce resources available to poorer households during the depression, this recipe uses cold tea for flavouring instead of brandy and there are no eggs used in the mixture. As techniques for meat preserving improved in the 18th century, the savoury element of both the mince pie and the plum pottage diminished as the sweet content increased. People began adding dried fruit and sugar.