"Bon Viveur" at the Royal Albert Hall (1956)

A cookery demonstration at the Royal Albert Hall: Fanny Cradock, the forerunner of today's celebrity chefs, makes French onion soup, honey coated goose, roast turkey and Peche Melba - wearing an evening gown.

[@hunkhk]

Fanny is totally under rated what an amazing trail blazer she was - hard working and such a fascinating character. The likes of which we seldom see these days, and the glamour

[@productplacement39]

wow, they are both natural as demonstrating the dishes. They worked so well together!

[@Tenortalker]

I suspect that they had rehearsed over and over. They had years of cookery demonstrations behind them when they did this show which explains their complicity. This is the most she ever let Johnnie speak I think and he even puts her in her place at one point. I am sure he was wanting to laugh at that turkey head . They certainly had style.

[@MerleOberon]

I watched an old Julia Child show and she mentioned Fanny, now I'm hooked watching her.

[@garycolton6522]

The post war years were a drab desert that was parched for glamour.

[@peekachoo2083]

Thank you so much for uploading this. Very entertaining..

[@RollaArtis]

Don't forget that this was just after rationing - and most people did not know what haute cuisine was...

[@stephenguppy7882]

After watching Fanny, they STILL didn't know. She used to make up most of the terms she used and most of her concoctions were awful.

[@weaponofmassconstruction1940]

That was funny when Johnnie was preparing the turkey, quickly went through what seemed a complicated 30 steps, then said "Now we can really get to work!" *Yay, cooking!*

[@simonjones7727]

Who needed mind altering drugs when you had this? Equally, the relief of leaving the drab world of Post War Britain that audience must have felt is imaginable even now.

[@M15Guys]

I am delighted that you have been able to find and post this - I remember Fanny so well and have recently been addicted to the book Fabulous Fanny .... I am amazed that the audience here were happy to experience the show, which is unbelievably amateurish even by the standards of the 1950's .... having said this, it is a fantastic piece of culinary history - thanks so much for posting.

[@jantralee6828]

very entertaining ! Thank you

[@simon2k4]

The way they presented food and the way they carved food was so strange

[@th8257]

You have to remember this was the best part of a century ago now. Rationing had just recently ended in Britain and life had been incredibly drab. People wanted something "exotic".

[@653j521]

Is this unique in the annals of civilization? I can't imagine this entertainment taking place anywhere else or at any other time. (She had eyebrows in 1956. I wonder when she lost them.)

[@OofusTwillip]

In the 1960s-70s, when the overplucked & pencilled eyebrows of the 1920s & 30s came back into fashion. As she did with everything else, Fanny took them way too far.

[@soneil7745]

Music-hall cooking demonstrations were popular from the 1930s (if not earlier) until at least the 1950s. Of course, most of them were in much smaller theaters than Albert Hall.

[@jamieburridge1498]

Fanny whisks it in!

[@scottmatheson2390]

This is great! Look at these two upper class weirdos doing a cooking show at the Royal Albert Hall of all places. Imagine cooking in jewels and a ballgown with him swanning about in a monocle! wonderful.

[@653j521]

Scott Matheson Definitely NOT upper class. :)

[@emilychb6621]

They most definitely weren't upperclass. her parents were middle class, but her mother like to spend and her father had huge gambling debts which caught up to them eventually. She was a 'minimum wage' worker for years before becoming the first celebrity cook.

[@scottmatheson2390]

@@emilychb6621 interesting info!

[@MrDavey2010]

A bonkers couple!

[@th8257]

@@MrDavey2010 they reflected the era. Britain was incredibly drab in the 1950s and still recovering from the war. Rationing had only just been abolished. The people were absolutely desperate for some splash of colour and fun.

[@bubbam20]

Mmmm scrambled eggs in onion soup. Wtf? Been to France several times and seen lots of onion soup recipes and never have I heard of beating an egg in before the soup.

[@marclegarreta3359]

Don't forget the port! LOL

[@OofusTwillip]

Upper-class Elizabethans ate roasted peacock or swan, served that way. Not mere turkey. The BBC show "The Tudor Feast" (on KZbin) re-creates an authentic Elizabethan feast, complete with a roast peacock, presented as though alive, with a flaming torch in its mouth.

[@soneil7745]

Well yes, but how many people in the audience could go out and get a peacock or swan from the butcher?

[@multimill]

What the hell was that abomination with the suckling pig, frankfurters and the champagne?!?!?!?

[@stephennelson7884]

Visit Alsace sometime....or anywhere down either side of the upper Rhine valley....I'd be delighted to send you a list of fine establishments that serve a bewildering variety of abominations.

[@maxtotten7337]

No Johnny! ... not at The Albert Hall .... hilarious

[@Jimmy_one67]

That was pleasant

[@unaadair2137]

Will the Christmas pamphlets be reprinted for next Christmas.

[@davids8449]

HERE'S JOHNNIE

[@GohAhweh]

💋

[@flappospammo]

Thank god for Keith Floyd

[@jamieburridge1498]

It’s driving stuff..

[@luccharbonneau9382]

Escoffier wife Was Delphine Not Jeanne Wtf

[@soneil7745]

She said Jeanne was his home cook, not his wife.

[@lnteIIigence]

0:33 Lisa Simpson!

[@luccharbonneau9382]

What a marvelous lie Escoffier wife was never named Jeanne Escoffier .... But Delphine

[@soneil7745]

She said Jeanne was his home cook, not his wife.

[@silversurfingsid2633]

I saw Echo And The Bunny Men at the Royal Albert hall. No sign of Fanny then.

[@Jimmy_one67]

I too have seen other acts at the Albert hall . I wish I’d seen Fanny though she’s mental

[@readthisnotthat273]

Elizabethan Turkey???

[@OofusTwillip]

Upper-class Elizabethans ate peacock or swan served like that, not turkey.

[@davids8449]

I WOULD SOONER HAVE CHIPS AND EGG AT MORRISONS

[@gasgas2689]

Double Egg and chips at Morrisons is one of my favourite treats. And their fish and chips is not only cheaper than the chip shop, but fresh and hot.

[@glamdolly30]

Ewww YUK! A whole baby pig, ripped from its mother and spit roasted, then a turkey roasted and its poor head re-attached for thew entertainment of the public. REVOLTING!

[@MrDavey2010]

Dear oh dear! What pretentiousness. Appalling.

[@th8257]

You have to remember that this was the best part of a century ago. Britain was a very different place. Rationing had just ended and the country was drab and dull. Things were just starting to recover after the war and there was an increasing interest in food and the "exotic". Of course, Britain was also still absolutely paralysed by the class system then too.

[@CanadianMonarchist]

Pretentious British people? What a shock!

[@OofusTwillip]

Such pompous caricatures! No wonder Benny Hill spoofed them. Twice.

[@charlietrone4761]

The fuuuck is this??

[@Benzknees]

Charlie Trone - Imagine you’d been on rations from 1940-1952, in a grey war ravaged country with only dreary traditional British meat & two veg, then suddenly it ends, lots of colourful foreign produce appears and Fanny Cradock introduces you to exotic French cuisine dressed in evening dress. People at the time also thought WTF but in a good way!

[@MrDavey2010]

Pretentious crap! They’d really no idea about cooking. Just outrageous flamboyance used as smoke & mirrors to a totally mesmerised and trusting post rationing audience. What’s with the hot champagne?