flashfried

The death of good living

Keith Floyd has hung up his hat and departed the kitchen. He is an ex-chef.

I have idolised this man since I was a wee nipper, which is maybe where my love of the stong stuff hails. But I’ll tell what else he inspired in me: the need for total honesty and a sense of the ridiculous. If it’s all going tits up in an unremittingly harsh terrain, and your sole au beurre has a touch of bonfire night about it -  tell it like it is. And then help youself to a large glass of the red stuff.

This man stands head and shoulders above the likes of Ramsey, Martin, even St Jamie and especially Wozza, that squashed ginger-faced troll from hell who would selll his own grandmother if he could find a culinary application for her. He was right to call them a bunch of cunts in Keith Allen’s brilliantly funny but achingly honest portrayal of the man in his dying days on C4 (see below). And the reason is this.

Cooking, whether on TV or in real life, is an activity in which there is only one star: the food. Everything else; the pantomime of preparation, the illusion of presentation, the pretence of competition, is just a shabby warm-up act for the main turn. As Mark Hamill said to Homer Simpson, “That’s my face up there next to the peppered steak, and don’t you forget it”.

Floyd knew this, and that’s why - ever the gracious guest, glass always in hand - he stayed at the top of his trade ‘til the very end.