Delia says cheating is ok.

maypole

Nix143 wrote: »

I've just watched Delia's prog on bbciplayer. I think I understand where she is coming from but I think she has got it drastically wrong.

There are always trends in cooking and so much cooking is 'aspirational' - we aspire to a kitchen garden so we can be healthy, organic, it's all part of aspiring to a certain lifestyle. Or we aspire to cooking for ourselves and our families in a back to basics, OS to us, way. Some of us want to be able to waltz into the kitchen, throw our posh shopping bags down and rustle up something delish a la Nigella. Look at all the cookery programs around - they aren't just presenting food, they are wrapping it up in lifestyle, be that fast paced glamorous mum Nigella or back to basics Jamie. How many of us have a smallholding and animals reared for slaughter, yet we lap Hugh Fearnely DooDah up by the bucket load. Heston Blumenthal anyone?

However what part of the country aspires to an 'Iceland' lifestyle? We may not all cook with fresh veg grown in our own back garden but we watch cooking programs to believe that we could and to see what it's like. But who here aspires to buying frozen food then serving it up under the guise of real food? If she IS aiming it at the 'Iceland' frozen food market then she has again got that wrong - quails eggs anyone?

We may not all cook but an intrinsic part of watching a cooking program, to my mind, is the belief that yes we could do that and wouldn't it be lovely if we did. But throwing dip on some oven chips and calling it cooking? Who on earth is going to aspire to that?

You hit the nail on the head.

rosy

I'd videoed the programme and just watched it last night. It left me fuming ( I am one of the batch of us who learned from Delia's Complete cookery course in the 80s and the book is still in use falling to bits in my cookery book cupboard). If there's one person who might have persuaded the nation that it's not difficult cooking healthy, thrifty, cheap meals from scratch once you know how it was Delia - why on earth didn't she see that gap in the market? No brand names to advertise out of it, probably.

And Nigel Slater, you let me down there too - just being on there endorses the whole thing

If the main aim is to get people who haven't got time and would usually buy a ready meal, into the kitchen and then hopefully once they make the tinned mince/frozen potato pie start doing more, real cooking, then I don't think there's a remote chance of that succeeding.

IMHO - and what bothers me a lot and I hope I'm wrong - it could actually have the opposite effect - those non-cooks might even think if this is proper cooking forget it ( I don't think they'll be saying, 'yay, look what I made all by myself and it tastes brilliant!')

What she made would taste no better than a ready meal, take just about the same time as cooking something decent from scratch and be tons more expensive. Nothing wrong with using the odd prepared ingredient ( the likes of a tin of tuna for example) or the very occasional takeaway but this programme is not going to educate the British public in the right way at all, and it's definitely not environmentally friendly.

moneysavinmonkey

Has anyone bought or had already some of those frozen mashed potatoes.. what does it say on the ingredients label???
I tried looking up on the aunt Bessies website but they cunningly only give you the nutritional information and not the ingredients...

delia says... " 75% potato, 5% butter, 15% milk and just salt and pepper"
don't need my a-level in maths to work out we're missing something here.... unless the salt and pepper is 5%!!!!!!:eek:

jj171

I must admit, as I watched the programme, I was thinking about the number of packets that would be going into the recycling bin. It would need emptying every week, rather than every 2.

Like many others, I was also thinking about the expense, the additives, the salt content and so on. A weird programme indeed.

recovering_spendaholic

Surprise surprise Sainsburys have Aunt Bessies products on offer - any 3 for £2...........

Sweet_Pea_2

I watched it and I have to say I wondered where Delia had gone and who was the alien that had replaced her? I found the programme really bizarre.

The current ethos - a la Jamie - is OS through and through, cutting down on ready meals and cooking and preparing simple meals from scratch, stuff even a very novice cook could attempt. Delia is really flying in the face of all of that which is either a brave or foolhardy thing to do.

I really cant see the point in making that shepherds pie, if you are pressed for time then you would just buy a ready made shepherds pie surely?
I do cheat, I use ready made sauces and I confess I use Aunt Bessies yorkies - (I cant make yorkshire pudding, it never rises!) and I buy frozen roast potatoes too, but I try and cook from scratch as much as possible otherwise. I think all the ready made stuff Delia was using must cost a fortune.

I'm waiting for the next programme with bated breath to see what other wonders she has in store.

Debt_Free_Chick

The one thing Delia has been excellent at, through the years, and that's selling books & TV progs

With this one, she knows there's a whole generation who will never cook from scratch. Cue ..... a book and a TV proggie .... and a nice fat cheque.

I'm a huge Delia fan "of old" as any recipe of hers works. I often say "if you do exactly what she says, it will turn out to be exactly as she says".

I've not even looked at the book or the TV prog and I don't intend to. It's simply "not for me". I'll stick to the other stuff she does so well, but I can see that many, many others will love this "new" method. Only it's not new, is it? I seem to recall a few years ago that ...? M&S I think? sold their ready meals as something to serve up to guests and for the cook to pretend they made it. Apparently the ready meals "were that good".

It's all about hype ... and money.

When a man says "It's not the money, it's the principle" you know it's the money

Lyndsay_21

i bought the book before i watched the prog what a load of old carp there is in it, i DO buy frozen/instant mash as i can't make mash but i mean who 'jazzes' up potato wedges with a cold walnut sauce and tinned peppers oh yes boiled eggs!!!

i dont think i will be keeping the book (wish i could send it back). charity shop it will go.

blitz

moneysavinmonkey wrote: »

Has anyone bought or had already some of those frozen mashed potatoes.. what does it say on the ingredients label???
I tried looking up on the aunt Bessies website but they cunningly only give you the nutritional information and not the ingredients...

delia says... " 75% potato, 5% butter, 15% milk and just salt and pepper"
don't need my a-level in maths to work out we're missing something here.... unless the salt and pepper is 5%!!!!!!:eek:

Ive just checked on one of the supermarket sites & it states that its
Potato (76%), Milk (18%), Butter (5%), Salt, Pepper, so salt & pepper would be 1%. Its also got on the packaging "A Delia Cheat":rotfl:

rockie4

I tried her egg florentine recipe using bought cheese sauce, it sounded really nice but it was too saucy and it took me twice as long to make as my cook it from scratch recipe!