The Impact Of Today's Chefs On Food Choice

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The Impact Of Today’s Chefs On Food Choice

Food choice is investigating why we chose the foods we do, and there are many factors that influence our food choice these days, for example the increase in foreign holidays, longer work breaks, advertising and many more. However, as I am going to explain in this article, the impact of celebrity chefs has been huge, ever since the 1950s with Fanny Craddock, through to Delia Smith, and right up to today with Jamie Oliver.

 

Fanny Craddock was one of the first “celebrity chefs” of our time. In the 1950s the role of cooking was primarily aimed at the women, and even though this now seems a rather sexist approach, it wasn’t seen as appropriate for a male to do the cooking, as they were the full time workers. The women’s main job was to look after the children and to cook for the family i.e. to be the housewife. It was seen that a women needed to be a good cook to keep the husband happy and even faithful. In the 1950’s, as women never worked, it seemed appropriate to spend vast amounts of time over the meals to ensure the husband would be completely satisfied. Fanny Craddock targeted herself at these married housewives. She created elaborate dishes aimed to please the males. Her cookery shows took place in the Royal Albert Hall, and to go with the grand venue, she often wore fancy and glamorous dresses whilst cooking. Even though this is obviously very impractical, it was all part of Fanny Craddock’s style. Instead of focusing her attention on teaching her audience, she tried to entertain them. This introduced the whole concept of fun in the kitchen. She encouraged women to see the role of cooking daily to become an adventure. This is why she became so popular, and even fashionable.

In the 1950s there were very little supermarkets, barely even a resemblance to what we have now. The food was extremely basic, and people did not have the money to buy unnecessary goods that were not part of their day-to-day diet. The equipment and skills they had were also very basic so Fanny Craddock had a huge influence in the way that she encouraged and produced lavish dishes from very little and basic ingredients, equipment and skills. She was the first major influence on many young women in this era and made a huge impact, but she certainly wasn’t to be the last celebrity chef the nation were to adore.

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Delia Smith was the second huge celebrity chef, who made name for herself in the 1970’s. She was not humorous or glamorous like Fanny, but she had a more normal, sensible approach to cooking. Delia appealed to the working generation, as she was not “fancy” with her work. The way she cooked was easy and simple to follow; however they were often very time consuming. By this, she encouraged people to take time over cooking and again to enjoy it. However, this proved to be a problem as there was an increase in the amount ...

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This is a very well written assignment. Its reads well and is very informative. The writer has clearly understood the aims of the report and has made some interesting points within the whole assignment. A weakness of this report however, is that there is little evidence of research or reasoning which is always important within any GCSE coursework. *****