Floyd on France

'Floyd on France' (1987) is a recipe book and television series from the same year by the late British chef, Keith Floyd (28 December 1943 – 14 September 2009). I am not sure which came first, but I suspect the TV show, which spanned two seasons.

Keith Floyd has been hailed as the original celebrity chef, known for his flamboyant, eccentric and charismatic style of presentation. Perhaps his most recognisable trait was his penchant for sipping wine whilst cooking – something I am quite fond of myself! I love cooking with wine, sometimes I even…you get the idea. Well, he was the original guy for that.

I must admit I was a little apprehensive to work my way through this book with Mum. A British TV chef from the 1980s attempting to cook authentic French cuisine – I was expecting a distinct lack of garlic (an ingredient I hear was rather foreign to much of the Commonwealth in the ‘80s), poor to no acknowledgement of regional differences, and a generally bastardised, pale simulacrum of the real thing. However, having watched the TV series when it was first broadcast, Mum convinced me otherwise. I was pleasantly surprised!

Floyd’s general advice and approach to cooking still holds true today – select the best, freshest ingredients you can, take the time to do things right, and do so with passion. He clearly cared deeply about representing the cuisine of France respectfully, filming and developing his recipes in the kitchens of real French people, from chefs in the cities to housewives in the rural countryside.

As we cooked from this book, I watched a few clips from the TV series, which I found highly entertaining. His jovial and exceedingly honest style of presentation was genuinely some of the funniest stuff I’d watched in a long time. In one clip, cooking a Perigord omelette with ceps, he refers to his non-English speaking host housewife as “the old dragon peering over my shoulder;” on another he tries with his broken French to fend off a glamourous, sardonic older French lady as she tears strips off him for his attempt at piperade. Translating on her behalf, Floyd relays, “she has no real interest in eating it, because the way I cooked it was so off-putting that she knows already that it’s going to taste absolutely awful…in brief, it’s absolute rubbish.” Still, he didn’t let his ego get in the way and took criticism on board – I would often watch clips of him cooking the recipe Mum and I just had, noticing pointers from the French people alongside him had been incorporated into the recipe we’d just made. Trial by fire!

Generally, what we cooked from Floyd on France was tasty and worth the time and effort, and there were a couple of recipes I typically never would have batted an eyelid at that turned out to be delicious that I would definitely make again.

On the other hand, there were times when both Mum and I were unsure if the recipes were tested properly, or at all. Perhaps he didn’t have time between filming and travelling, or maybe the wineglass that accompanying him on every set made remembering measures a little difficult. After this happened a couple of times, Mum and I gave up on this book - at least for now.

Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed discovering Keith Floyd. I can’t think of any celebrity chef who can combine humour, passion and a straightforward approach quite like he does. In his words, “Cooking is an art and patience a virtue. Careful shopping, fresh ingredients and an unhurried approach are nearly all you need. There is one more thing - love. Love for food and love for those you invite to your table. With a combination of these things, you can be an artist.”