Looking Back: Doesn't everyone create the Taj Mahal out of potato?

It’s amazing how cookery programmes have been popular on the television for decades. Even though many people find it difficult to manage in these days of price rises, they are mesmerised by the expensive pieces of fish and meat used in shows like Masterchef and which would feed a family for a week, sometimes a month! Money certainly seems to be no object.

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Celebrity chefs have become top stars. In the 1950s my mother loved watching Fanny Cradock together with her henpecked husband Johnnie. Often wearing a chiffon ball gown, Fanny would assure viewers that ‘This won’t break you’ or ‘This won’t stretch your purse’ whilst creating a replica of the Taj Mahal out of French fondant and Duchess potatoes which she had coloured with green food colouring.

Keith Floyd, described as an inspiration by other top chefs was a true eccentric. Cooking usually with a glass of wine in one hand he had successfully moved from top restaurateur to television personality. Alas, his heavy drinking and smoking caught up with him and he died at the age of 65.

Chef Madhur Jaffrey, also an actor, was credited with bringing Indian cuisine to the Western Hemisphere with chicken tikka masala now considered our national dish!

Married to Saheed Jaffrey of My Beautiful Laundrette fame, she acted in many of the films of her friends James Ivory and Ismail Merchant.

Jamie Oliver was the king of the cookery shows. The second-best selling author in the UK after JK Rowling, he was credited with affordable family food through his Feed Me Better campaign. With many awards, charity work and more television shows than any other chef in history he managed to amass a fortune of over £240 million.

Delia Smith taught basic cooking on our screens for many years with Gordon Ramsey as well known for his bad-tempered outbursts as his cooking.

Mary Berry, Queen of Cakes was everyone’s favourite gran, and Nigella Lawson, an unwitting sex symbol called ‘The Queen of food porn’ with her saucy innuendos and double entendres, gave many men an interest in cooking.

I once bought one of her books called How to be a Domestic Goddess but I’m not sure what went wrong.