Battle of the Cookery shows!
"Moi, overtly sexual? Surely not!" When lusty, busty Nigella Lawson first graced my TV screen I was rapt. Not by her curves, sexuality or pouting but by the fact a TV cookery show could be entertaining rather than instructional. Maybe it was the style of shooting with quick fire cuts, close ups, steady-cam movements and the urgent feel of her making it in real time. Kind of like an NYPD of cookery without the body count. (Although, saying that, Nigella was merciless when it came to high fat, meat, cheese, cream and sugary recipes. I'm sure she has single handedly raised the UK mortality rate with her calorific recipes. Maybe there is a body count!) The new format, the sexed up middle class temtress and the glutonous food made TV cookery appealing for the first time in years. There can be no doubt that the high fat, high sugar, artery clogging cuisine was a huge part of the appeal... The food wasn't healthy, it was decadent, desirable and yet entirely real...