Fanny Cradock Cooks For Christmas

Fanny Cradock Cooks For Christmas

Our friend Andy Davidson has a regular Christmas project going by the memorable name of 'Festive Fanny' in which he presents some of the more memorable things cooked up by Fanny Cradock.

Perhaps inspired by this the BBC have made the series 'Fanny Cradock Cooks For Christmas' available on iPlayer and it's really quite fascinating, if not always for the right reasons.

There's no sign of Johnnie in this one, but she is aided by the enigmatic Sarah, who isn't allowed to speak.

If you want to make cakes and puddings likes Fanny's, this is well worth watching and as we've now entered the era of colour television, the recipes generally involve all the shades of the speculum.

There was a booklet available to accompany the series at a nice round 50p, though we suspect it's a bit harder to track down these days.

I've never been gifted at cookery and all this talk of 'Gas Mark 4' leaves me utterly confused as where I grew up we were not on the mains gas supply. Mind you, we never had mains drainage either, which gives you an idea of how things were in rural Dorset in the 1970s.

To be honest, the end results aren't that appealing, but Fanny's an old pro and doesn't stand for any nonsense. If you wrote in to tell her that you were less than impressed with something after following her instructions, you'd be sure of getting a reply...

And I guess you have to respect that.

Our video about 'Fanny Cradock Cooks For Christmas' can be seen here.

Andy's Festive Fanny can be found on Twitter @FestiveFanny.

(Written by Andrew Trowbridge)