Delia Smith takes parting shot at BBC as she retires from cooking on TV

 
5 February 2013
The Weekender

Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for exclusive competitions, offers and theatre ticket deals

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Delia Smith today revealed she will no longer be making any more TV cookery shows and accused programme makers for sacrificing education for entertainment.

The cook, who first appeared on television more than 40 years ago and has sold millions of cookbooks, said she will continue teaching people to cook using online lessons.

She told the Daily Telegraph: "This is the future for me and the population. It's miles ahead. If you do a TV programme now, it's got to entertain.

"When I started, there was further education in the BBC; now you have to entertain. You have someone telling me I haven't got time to show this or I haven't got time to show that."

Ms Smith said she had turned down a recent approach from the BBC which marked "the end" of "Delia on the telly".

Her lengthy career has seen her acquire the nickname "Saint Delia" for her reliable and easy-to-follow recipes that have proved a hit at dinner tables across the country.

Her cookery books - including Delia Smith's Complete Cookery Course and How to Cheat at Cooking - have sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.

Such is her influence that supermarket bosses talk of "the Delia effect" when sales of products featured on her shows go through the roof.

She is credited with causing a national cranberry shortage in 1995 and transformed the fortunes of a small Lancashire firm when she described their omelette pan as a "little gem", prompting sales to leap by thousands in the space of a few months.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in