Masterchef is back. Repackaged, renamed Masterchef Goes Large, and headed by Gregg Wallace and restaurateur John Torode, the veteran show returns to a TV schedule already stuffed with cooking programmes.
It's a far cry from the Masterchef's first incarnation. Combining the eccentric presence of Loyd Grossman (1990-2000) with a lean competition format, and authenticated by the judgements of a chef in whites, Masterchef seemed an appropriately stiff and reverential offering for culinary anoraks.
But Britain has had cooks on TV for almost as long as it's had TV. Fanny Craddock, the tyrannical 1950s housewife who presided over her kitchen in evening dress, doggedly aided by her long-suffering spouse, was followed by Graham Kerr, the Galloping Gourmet. Kerr seemingly took his cues from cabaret culture, plucking smitten women from his live audience to nibble on his finished creations.
By the 1980s, the small screen hosted Delia Smith, Madhur Jaffrey, Ken Hom and Keith Floyd. The booze-fuelled Floyd's spontaneous, often unscripted, everyone-can-do-it style was the ground-breaking precursor to that of Jamie Oliver, whose The Naked Chef aimed to demystify cooking.
As British food culture started and stalled, each chef reflected something about their era, be it Craddock's class snobbery, Floyd's love affair with France (and its grape), or the hesitant beginnings of Britain's taste for ethnic cuisine.
Today's TV cooking culture is more crowded. And it is less and less about food. The cult of celebrity chefs runs parallel to all the other cults of celebrity that permeate modern Britain. And while it means that Britons may be talking about food, and eating better and more unusually, it also means that food has become more about lifestyle.
The fetishisation of food - epitomised by the infamous M&S TV adverts, in which a cooing voice (echoing that of Nigella Lawson) softly name-drops ingredients as if they were designer labels, over full-frontal shots of the product - has made it into just another accessory. Only in Britain would you get Ready, Steady, Cook, a game show about food. And only in Britain does the curious contradiction of the gourmet ready-meal sell in great numbers.
Unlike those great eating cultures whose easy, everyday approach continues to seduce us - France, Italy, Spain, India, China - Britain does not have food culture; it has celebrity food culture. Nonetheless, Masterchef returns at an interesting time. Other people may still be doing the cooking, but now it appeals to more than food nerds.
