Product Description

As the producer behind the phenomenally successful Keith Floyd and Rick Stein BBC cookery programmes, David Pritchard tells the tale of the ascent of the chef celebre. Twenty five years ago, no one could have foreseen the incredible popularity commanded by food programmes on television today. Now we have a whole army of chefs representing virtually every single personality trait from sexy to aggressive, to young and experimental. But back then, charismatic, erratic, always happy to have a slurp of wine or two, and not afraid to say exactly what he thought on air, Floyd was a revelation. This was a chef that television had not seen the like of before. Freed from the constraints of studio filming, Floyd brought us the idea of cooking on location, but most importantly, he simply invited viewers to have fun and enjoy being in the kitchen.

Shooting the Cook divulges the stories of what went on behind the scenes to the groundbreaking television that inspired the event of modern television chefs as we understand them today. David Pritchard shares the overwhelming excitement that went into making the early Floyd series - from sitting down to a silver service dinner aboard a tiny fishing trawler heading out of the Plymouth Sound, to attempting abortive hot-air balloon adventures over Alsace.

Tangled up amid the tales of the bust-ups, the botched camera shots and the exquisite regional food are reminisces also about the David's life growing up in ration-starved, post-war Britain. Also containing snapshots of life behind the scenes of Sixties television making and spanning the era from when avocados were virtually unheard of to a time where the term 'foodie' has gaining an almost cult-like status, this is an outstanding memoir from the producer who single-handedly changed the face of food as we know it today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15079 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

Review
Chosen by Kate Colquhoun as Book of the Year
--Telegraph

Customer Reviews

shooting the cook
Great as I knew it would be. Brought back lots of memories as I worked at Southern TV and lived in Southampton. Have watched most of the Keith Floyd programmes in the past as well as Rick Steins and it was interesting to have some insight into the making of these. Thoroughly recommend it.

Shooting the Cook
Excellent read about David Pritchard's early life and his development of TV cookery programmes from their early static kitchen base to the Keith Floyd experience, and then Rick Stein. Really honest, entertaining about how these programmes were made. He doesn't even mind recounting stories that question his judgement. If you would like to know what went on, read this.

Shooting The Cook
What a clever marrying of title and artwork, `Shooting the Cook', a pulp fictionesque cover featuring, to me anyway, a morphed image of both Keith Floyd and Rick Stein, complete with the distressed damsel, gazing in horror as the `Frankenstein Monster' of gastronomy keens it's blade ready to release retribution on an unsuspecting world, which has for years sat idly by, silently watching the average `Brit' being force fed a daily diet of grey blandness. It's reminiscent of the `adult' type paperbacks I would see (but never dare read) ,when as a youngster I would spend my pocket money on Superman comic's at the second hand bookstore.

This book dishes no dirt, it's a straightforward, albeit charmingly naive account of how David Pritchard didn't set out to change the world of food forever. Starting from his childhood David takes us on trip through his life, never quite leaving that childhood innocence behind, the innocence that believed two boys could survive a two hundred mile route march with nothing but a packet of custard creams, his adolescent fumblings as he attempts to negotiate the erogenous zones of television production, to the eventual realisation that the monster he had created was beyond his control, through a period of loss and despair, until eventually regaining the tiller and sailing into a sea of serenity and renewed creativity.

I love this book immensely, it's not and doesn't attempt to be a latter day `War and Peace', it's simply a, `darned good read'. So my advice to you dear reader, if you are contemplating buying this book, don't procrastinate, ignore all of the negative reviews, tick the box, order it, and when you relax with it in your favorite chair, unable to put it down, have a good `slurp' of your preferred wine,give a thought or two to poor old Keith, and enjoy.