When untrained chef and failed restaurateur Keith Floyd burst onto the BBC in 1985, he changed the rules of TV cooking for ever. He turned it from instructional fare to personality-led travelogue – whipping up meals on the street, over open fires, or on the rickety decks of listing boats. He bantered with passersby, teased long-suffering cameraman Clive and punctuated sentences with a glug of the local grog. Bow-tied, poshly verbose and entertainingly half-cut, Floyd was made for TV. When he died in 2009, Anthony Worrall Thompson said: “All of us modern TV chefs owe a living to him. He spawned us all.” See him in action here Photograph: BBC
Not the original, Loyd Grossman-fronted daytime incarnation spoofed so brilliantly by Vic and Bob elsewhere on this page. We’re talking about the amateur cookery contest’s unexpected 2005 revamp into a primetime super-franchise. Narrator India Fisher breathily describes what the contestants are whipping up. Tension gathers as they run out of time and apply finishing touches with trembling hands. Presenters-cum-judges John “Toady” Torode and “Gregg the Egg” Wallace then shovel the results into their mouths, shouting excitedly about how “cooking doesn’t get tougher than this”. It’s spawned three offshoots, with its Celebrity, Junior and Professionals incarnations, and has been exported to 35 countries. Cooking doesn’t get bigger than this, more like. See MasterChef crown its 2012 winner Photograph: BBC
After several Naked Chef series of Mockney bish-bash boshing, riding mopeds and sliding down banisters, Jamie Oliver ascended to national treasure status with this five-part 2002 docusoap. It followed his attempt to train disadvantaged yoofs to work at his new London restaurant, Fifteen. The high-maintenance apprentices, along with the pressures of getting the business off the ground, frequently reduced Oliver to sweary sobs of frustration. Fifteen is now a charitable foundation and chain of four restaurants. Further Oliver crusades followed, notably for healthier school dinners, and St Jamie was born. Pukka. What happened next. Photograph: Channel 4
She’s lapsed into self-parody now (all lifestyle porn and eyelash batting), but Nigella Lawson’s first TV outing in 1999 was multiple award-winningly marvellous. The domestic goddess had a down-to-earth cooking style that was happy to cheat, all about making things easy and prepping in advance. She took infectious pleasure in food and spoke about it with sensual glee, dropping literary references and highbrow facts to flatter the viewer. Winningly charismatic, with an intimate manner, she came across like a glamorous friend, rather than a hyperactive brother (à la Jamie) or a disappointed schoolteacher (à la Delia). We all wanted to be in Nigella’s gang, just for the dinner parties. Photograph: Anzelle Wasserman/PR
The Observer’s much-loved food writer, initially a reluctant TV cook, has presented four primetime series of recipes. Last year’s BBC Four film Life is Sweets saw him investigating the importance of sweets in our childhood and the memories they unlock. Slater visited an old-fashioned shop full of Sherbet Fountains, Gobstoppers and Parma Violets. He pondered Cadbury’s Flakes and boxes of Black Magic. The story of how his emotionally distant, widowed father would leave a marshmallow next to young Nigel’s bed – his late mother’s favourite, and the closest thing to a confectionery kiss – is worth a place in this list on its own. Photograph: BBC
On paper, it didn’t look terribly promising: a dozen civilians making sponge cakes in a marquee. But against all odds, The Bake Off has become BBC Two’s top-rated show after Top Gear, with last October’s final watched by 7.2m viewers. That’s down to a number of factors: its innocent, quintessentially British nature; the souffle-light touch of presenters Mel and Sue; the chemistry between formidable judges Paul Hollywood (master baker, bad cop) and Mary Berry (septuagenarian cookery writer, good cop); the likeability of the contestants; but most of all, those spectacular cakes. The surprise hit also brought “good bake” and “soggy bottom” into popular parlance. Photograph: BBC
The finest culinary double act since Fanny and Johnnie Cradock, Clarissa Dickson Wright and Jennifer Paterson careered around the country on Paterson’s Triumph Thunderbird motorbike and sidecar (registration number: N88 TFL), stopping off to cook calorie-laden dinners in army bases, girls’ schools, stately homes and convents. They were a gloriously hedonistic antidote to new-fangled foody political correctness. Game was shot and cooked up. Everything was fried in lard or dripping. They had no truck with vegetarians. Episodes ended with Paterson huffing on a fag and guzzling booze. She died of cancer while the fourth series was on-air in 1999. Cheers, dear. Photograph: PA
Competitive eating and all-you-can-scoff buffet culture spawned this obscenely compelling cult series, which followed host Adam Richman’s travels across America to chow down on the country’s biggest, spiciest, greasiest and most ridiculous food. He gorged on a whole-hog barbecue in North Carolina, a 12-patty cheeseburger in Arizona, a 7lb breakfast burrito in Colorado and a metre-long bratwurst in Minnesota. Yet nothing beat Richman’s brush with "suicide hot wings” in his native Brooklyn. The chilli-doused chicken reduced our hero to tears. After four series, the score stood at Man 48 Food 38, and Richman retired due to fears for his health Photograph: Good Food
He’s largely forgotten now, but hotelier Graham Kerr was arguably the first celebrity chef and certainly a forerunner of Floyd. Back in the 70s, the cheesily charming Londoner was the Roger Moore of the mandolin, the Nigel Havers of the hob, the David Niven of the knife block. He flirted with the studio audience as he cooked, had a “quick slurp” of wine, and to finish, picked a giddy (usually female) punter to share the meal. His food was drenched in cream and clarified butter, but after Kerr’s wife and producer Treena had a heart attack in the 80s, he converted to a healthier style called "Minimax” (minimal cholesterol, maximum flavour). Photograph: PR
Well, we couldn’t resist slipping in one parody. That honour goes to Vic and Bob’s MasterChef spoof on The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer back in 1995, starring Reeves as a nightmarish, flatulent Loyd Grossman. He had a massive bulbous forehead, cutlery for fingers and floated across the studio to the sound of a tolling church bell, before tucking into delights such as a severed ear, sliced buttocks and a cakey shoe. Matt Lucas and Charlie Higson popped up in cameo roles. Vic and Bob later revisited “Mister Chef” on Shooting Stars, with Gregg Wallace portrayed as Shrek and John Torode as a werewolf. Photograph: PR
