Floyd On Film: How Keith Floyd Inspired a New Generation of Food Broadcasting

Rifling through my well-thumbed copy of Floyd on France, it’s easy to see why recipes such as these are out of fashion. Butter, cream and copious amounts of red wine (most of which was destined for the cook, rather than the pot), it’s a relic from an almost lost world of cholesterol laced hearty fodder. Even at the time it was at odds with contemporary eating trends, indeed, in many of his cookbooks Floyd laments the proliferation of takeaways, and their corrosive influence upon traditional dishes. Though he circumnavigated the globe in search of fine dining and finer wines, he always returned to Gallic food, though nouvelle cuisine wasn’t to his taste. But the stubbornly authentic recipes he revelled in are somewhat at odds with the unorthodoxy of his presenting style. His was a personality unsuited to the confines of a studio, whipping out pre-prepared dishes, instead he was most comfortable when cooking in real time, preferably somewhere windswept, be it an Atlantic trawler or up the side of a mountain. Anything that went wrong in the process was simply good television. 

His incredible on-screen charisma occasionally faltered, usually resulting in him bickering with the crew, indeed, he seems to have delighted in being as caddish as possible. In later life this bitterness appears to have consumed him, souring many personal and professional relationships. His final interview, from 2009, reveals a lonely, frail and vindictive man. Financial recklessness, drinking and smoking and failed marriages had all but crushed him. He used the interview to attack the latest generation of TV cooks for putting themselves as the focus, rather than the food – an irony richer than any of the French dishes he adored, as it was he, and his excessive personality, which set this precedent. Just as Saturn devoured his own children, it is the fate of embittered cooking show presenters to criticise their successors. 

What had set Floyd apart in the 80s was that he deconstructed the genre, only to reconstruct it in his image. In a world of dreary, sanitised studio shot cookery programming he lit up the sky of gastronomic entertainment like a blazing meteorite. There was something quaintly punk about his style, fitting given his association with The Stranglers, who scored many of his works. Though he favoured tweed to studded leather and was too much of a bon viveur to subscribe to nihilism, his chaotic, unpolished approach was a breath of fresh air. Being a caustic cook was nothing new, Fanny Cradock herself was notoriously abrasive, but Floyd used it to create a new dynamic, one with the director and cameraman on one side, and he and the viewer on the other. Using his rambling narration to allow us to peek behind the wizard’s curtain, we feel as if he has no time for making a show, all he wants to do is cook and have a good time. This isn’t to say that he was camera shy of course: he revelled in the attention, flirting and slurping everywhere he went, from Bristol to Bangkok. Though Floyd was a born performer, much of the credit should go to his early director/producer/handler, the late David Pritchard, who saw the entertainment value in Floyd’s boozy buccaneer persona. 

Like any rock star, Floyd was volatile, and his falling out with Pritchard undoubtedly had a detrimental effect on his programmes – though still entertaining, a certain spark was missing. The strain of a hedonistic lifestyle and globetrotting had clearly taken its toll in his last few series, he was not quite himself, or perhaps this was the real Floyd, fragile and tired, rather than the flamboyant Englishman abroad who had charmed millions with his early works. However, brushing these foibles aside, and ignoring his prickly personality, the truth is that I still derive more pleasure from Floyd’s work than I do from most of the shows which have tried to imitate him. Despite playing the role of someone who was often ignorant about the cultures he was immersing himself in, his language had a florid, poetic quality to it, which, when paired with his dry humour, made him one of the great accidental orators of the century. And, of course, the mishaps, be they with the food or the locals, are as funny now as they were three decades ago. The young Floyd considered becoming a journalist, and this streak of curiosity shows when he converses with the people in whichever bar or kitchen he has foisted himself upon – fluent in French, and competent when dealing with most other peoples, he understood that food transcended language. In an age when discussions of food and identity preoccupy so much of modern discourse, Floyd was ahead of the curve in acknowledging that the greatest act of culinary diplomacy was to cook a regional speciality for people from that very region to judge, usually resulting in them acknowledging that it was a nice try, but imperfect. 

As unappetising as many of his recipes seem, it cannot be denied that Floyd was an intrepid ‘gastronaut’, to use his term for his audience. He boldly went where so few English cooks had gone before, venturing to South East Asia in Far Flung Floyd (1993), and then to Africa a few years later. Of course, these places were not entirely unfamiliar to the British television-viewing public, but they were rarely seen as places of culinary significance. Now Thai food is as prolific in Britain as Indian and Italian. Likewise, in his first major series, Floyd on Fish (1985), he was campaigning for the sustainable consumption of seafood, a practice which seems to become increasingly relevant with each passing year. Obviously, he wasn’t solely responsible for these trends, but it would be foolish to ignore how he used his broadcasting platform to influence culinary culture, no matter how inadvertently. Though he wasn’t a trained chef, he knew his craft, learning it the hard way by surviving through the failure of multiple restaurants, as well as a brief stint as an army cook. Floyd’s passion for good food was infectious, and even if the dishes don’t always appeal, the experiences shown in his programmes were usually enviable, particularly at a time when international travel was still relatively exclusive. 

It’s a shame he’s seldom seen on the small screen now, save for the occasional clip on Saturday Kitchen, indeed I only discovered him a few years ago when my mother, noticing my overlapping interests of drinking and cooking, suggested that I may appreciate his work. Whenever I’ve shown friends, their typical response is ‘how did he get away with that?!’ The truth is that these series are somewhat dated now, the culture of eating has changed substantially – in many ways what we see in Floyd’s work are the death throes of the old school. The food may be less relevant, but the style is not – upon his death the obituaries from various ‘celebrity chefs’ (most of whom he likely detested) poured in, stating his profound influence in making food television entertaining, and how ultimately they owe their media careers to him. After severing ties with Floyd, Pritchard worked with a young chef who had appeared in some of Floyd’s programmes: Rick Stein is still the BBC’s go to travelling gourmet. It has also been suggested that Floyd’s occasional feistiness and swollen ego popularised the character of the ‘bad boy chef’, embodied by Marco Pierre White and Gordon Ramsay. Though he never took it to their extremes, favouring quips over tirades, the blueprint was there. Perhaps the closest we’ve come to having a direct successor was in the figure of the late Anthony Bourdain, whose cynical, occasionally snarky, commentary on television’s distortion of reality mirrored Floyd’s style. Of course, both men also had troubles they hid from the cameras. 

Recently, Floydian slip ups have undergone something of a resurrection with James May’s Oh Cook!, in which he drinks profusely on camera, argues with the director, and exposes the secrets of food television, mainly that the presenter rarely actually cooks the dish shown at the end. Furthermore, the accompanying cookbook contains the same wry commentary as Floyd’s texts, the actual recipes themselves range from the bland to the God awful. It’s certainly a valiant effort, but without the travel aspect it feels somewhat hollow – though perhaps lockdown has renewed my desire for escapism. Floyd’s programmes appeal so strongly because it’s as if he’s taking us on holiday and happens to be cooking us a nice meal – the comfort comes from the surroundings, rather than the food, and the joy of watching a man in a bow tie bumbling around markets and restaurants in search of a top up. He may have been gone for almost twelve years, but there is still much to be said for watching extracts of his exploits on YouTube and raising a glass to the man who made modern food television.  

Louis Thomas

Louis is a recent graduate with a passion for all things Italian and a penchant for offal. Some of his musings on food, art and travel can be found at theoutwardbound.co.uk.