British food is not as boring as you might think
The cult of the television chef started in the 1960s when Fanny Craddock presented her BBC programme ‘Adventurous Cooking’. Each week she would teach the viewers a newrecipewhich they could later make at home.

Since then many more chefs have becomehousehold namesby teaching the UK how to cook. Their impact on the nation’seating habitshas been highly significant. Almost six out of ten people in Britain claim that TV cooking programmes have changed the way to cook.

There are now so manycelebrity chefson our screens that it is hard to remember who is who. Chefs have different specialities – some are seafood geniuses, others focus on cookingon a budget, one chef, Ken Hom, specialises in Chinese food.

What makes a good TV chef? Obviously, he must have highly-developedculinary skills. However, to capture the public’s attention as a celebrity chef it is necessary to have anengaging personality. Some TV chefs are as well known for their personalities as they are for their cooking.

Gordon Ramsay, for example, is famous for hisfiery temperandfoul-mouthed outbursts. The UK’s most famous TV chef, Jamie Oliver, is, by contrast, a likeable,happy-go-luckyfigure.

Jamie Oliver’s television career took off in 1999 with the BBC series ‘The Naked Chef’. He made two more series with the BBC before beinghead-huntedby Channel 4.

Jamie Oliverbroke the mouldfor making cooking programmes with his two most recent series. In ‘Jamie’s Kitchen’ he trained fifteenunder-privilegedteenagers to become chefs in his London restaurant. And in ‘Jamie’s School Dinners’ he set out to improve the quality of food in Britain’s schools by getting rid ofjunk foodin the canteen.