Fanny Cradock Cooks Christmas

[Billydessert]

Just that really; I'm watching it on Iplayer on my day off and it's making me feel cosy, kitsch and festive!

Which festive foodie T.V shows do you watch every year to get you in mood for cooking up christmassy treats?

Delia's Christmas - love it! Thanks for the reminder.

I didn't know you could get that on iPlayer. But it makes me feel old.

Delia's - just the theme makes me feel all Christmassy!

Love watching Fanny, cracks me up and reminds me of late Aunt

I often used to make Fanny's mincemeat shoe buckles!

Heston's Perfect Christmas
The one where he goes off to find the elusive components of the Christmases he remembers ( gold wrapped builllion (sp) cube , goose fed with pine and the reindeer ice-cream)

Also love the Delia one with the wine/drinks recommendations, she practically spits the drink and throws it back (but not really , you can tell she wants to)

Nigella (though I'm not a fan), she does the dreamy cooking scenes

And I must find Nigel Slater's Christmas , I bet he gets all the foodie treats that are wrapped in greaseproof paper and eats it at his kitchen table (standing up)

It's not Christmas until I've watched Fanny make a trifle.

She is fabulous! Love the things she says, slap it on, dump it in etc.

Haven't seen the Heston one, I'll look out for that.

Nigellas programme always has lovely music and I like all the tea lights. Hers is sort christmas fantasy land and I can appreciate that.

I watched it last night and I found her mesmerising. She was certainly a one off. The choux pastries she made looked shite but she was wittering on about how they were as good as the ones you buy in France I also watched the ‘Gwen Troake episode’ which was shocking. She was vile!

Oh yes , the choux pastry . She hoiks out the soft pastry with a shovel spoon and keeps them for days/weeks in a tin. They must be as dry as bones .

And she covers them in the most sickly looking icing I have ever seen. She also talks constantly about how much they will cost a ‘housewife’ to make. The past really is a different country.

Fanny looks like my old cookery teacher who was a right cow! But I do like watching her at Xmas. The food looks bloody awful. She cooks a very stingy looking, pale turkey and her buns look like turds.

I like watching Nigella. She seems like she’d be fun to get drunk with at Xmas.

I also recommend the America ‘chef’ Sanda Lee who does ‘semi-homemade’ cooking - i.e. bungs a load of pre made shit together while getting drunk. She’s hilarious.

Well that is my Christmas YouTube viewing while I do Christmas lunch. Funny thing with Fanny Craddock is everyone knew her, I am not sure the same is true with today’s celebrity chefs.

This thread has made me watch it. I think it's possibly my new favourite Christmas cookery show. Although in the Christmas birds one it really bothered me that she kept going round touching all the raw meat and never washing her hands before touching all the tea towels and sticking her hands in jars of honey.

I have never quite got over watching her recommendation for using up left over mincemeat - simple - just put it in an omelette!
I am old enough to remember her first time round. She was considered a bit of a joke in our household even then. But still, I think she was the first real celebrity cook.

I well remember her the first time round, Lucisky. I have three of her cook books, well used, including the wonderful, "Coping with Christmas' . She kicks this one off with a chapter called "You for the Fray" and continues with a calendar for your Christmas preparations. These begin in January, when she exhort she you to make your Christmas pudding for next time. On twelfth Night, when you have taken down the decorations, you sit and and compile your Christmas file, with full notes on everything from cards to turkey.

It is a wonderful store of her and Johnnie's eccentricities and some excellent recipes. It was published in 1968. I had a look on Amazon books in case anyone else fancied acquiring a copy, but sadly none are available. I shall continue to treasure mine.

I just watched Fanny carve a chicken using garden shears. Don’t worry, she reassured us that she sterilised them. This was the result.

I need to get a piping bag so I can do fancy mash potato presentations.

I love the use of green food colouring to dye mashed potato. I'm sure in one episode she pipes it to look like a Christmas tree.

I never watched La Fanny, but definitely get the Christmas feels from watching cookery shows.
My absolute faves are Nigella and James Martin Christmas Comforts. For deeper nostalgia will plug in Delia's Winter Collection.
Going to take a look at Fanny's work now though.

“Lubricating the dry bird”
m.youtube.com/watch?v=kunuXThp51E

That turkey looks terrifying with the mushrooms shoved under its skin.

Watching some Xmas cakes now. Getting nostalgic for when my grandma used to make them with lots of plastic snowmen and about six inches of marzipan. Or royal icing, which is delicious and sickening.

Oh that turkey looked revolting. No wonder people say they don’t like turkey if that’s their reference point

Oh Sanda Lee looks funny, lots of American recipes seem to involve putting together of pre made rubbish.

Quite fancy a bit of green mash trimming! There's something about Christmas that makes me want to go kitsch even though I wouldn't entertain the idea at any other time of the year.

The James Martin crimbo shows are really good, his recipes are mostly simple but impressive. Plus it cracks me up that every other shot is of him pulling off hunks of butter with his fingers and plonking it into his cooking with no shame!

I know he isn't popular on here but I do enjoy Jamie's christmas shows too.

Kettle full of bone stock Eeek

Politely declines offer of Afternoon Tea at Fanny's

IPlayer! I hadn’t thought of that!

I was despondently going through the good food channel this morning looking for the Christmas food programmes. It irks me how they wait until mid December- that’s no good for me in menu planning or practicing!