Timeline of Television Cooking Show Personalities

Television studio kitchen. Robert Yarnall Richie / 1951 / Public Domain

This is a timeline showing what television cooking personalities appeared when, and where. If a star made a debut in more than one country, that is counted as a separate entry for him or her.

This list is constantly being updated. For a detailed timeline of all of an individual personality’s television shows, please see their separate biographies linked to below.

The first audiences

Scottish food television researcher Kevin Geddes raises an interesting point about audiences for the earliest television cooking programmes. Radios were becoming affordable in that era, and so people actually doing the work in kitchens could realistically have had access to radios to hear radio shows on food and home economics. Televisions, however, were astronomically expensive. People who had access to them would not have been actual kitchen workers:

“The audiences in the first few years of television were not likely to have been the same audiences who tuned into radio talks on food, or indeed had any interest in or experience of the preparation of food, as they were affluent and in the main employed domestic servants.” ^[1]Geddes, Kevin. For the Housewife? From ‘The Singing Cook’ to ‘Common-Sense Cookery’: The First (Disrupted) Twenty Years of Television Cooking Programmes in Britain (1936-1955). In: Dublin Gastronomy Symposium: Food and Disruption. 2020.

For the early affluent television crowd, the interest in televised cooking shows may have been one more of general culinary cultural education, or entertainment, rather than hands-on how-to.

The Early Years: 1930s England

Possibly the first depiction of cooking by a cook on television occurred on 18 November 1936 on BBC. It was part of a magazine programme called “London Characters” showcasing a selection of “interesting people”, among them “The Singing Cook”: a woman named Rosina Dixon shown singing as she rolled out pastry. An actual cook, Dixon said that singing while cooking helped to “keep the pastry light.” She sang the lied “My Dear Soul”. The programme was broadcast live, and not recorded, but a few weeks later she repeated her appearance for film, now preserved on British Pathé. ^[2]Geddes, Kevin. For the Housewife? 

Three weeks later, on 9 December 1936, a Moira Meighn appeared in a dedicated, standalone cooking spot called “Quarter of an Hour Meals”, promising “an example of what can be done with simple equipment in the preparation of good food.” ^[3]Radio Times. Television. Quarter of an Hour
Meals (3 p.m.). 9th December 1936. Issue 688. p.82. Accessed July 2022 at https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/page/430dc6f89edd4098968dcb3eee45ec88?page=82

Radio Times. Issue 4 Dec 1936, #688. p.82.

Starting on 9 January 1937, Xavier Marcel Boulestin was given air time for a cooking programme called “Cooks Night Out”, a series of five fifteen-minute episodes. Each episode covered making a dish that, when all put together, would constitute a five-course meal.

There were several other televised short cooking spots between 1937 and 1939, featuring cooks and chefs such as a Mrs Arthur Webb, a B.J. Hubert, M. Dutrey and M. Clafour. ^[4]Geddes, Kevin. For the Housewife?

On 1 September 1939, BBC’s nascent television broadcasting in England was shut down for the duration of the Second World War, putting an early to this early experimentation with cooking shows.

TV Food Show Timeline

1946 — Philip Harben. “Cookery” (U.K.) It was broadcast in the United Kingdom on the BBC on Wednesday, 12 June 1946 at 8:55 pm. The programme was 10 minutes long. In this very first episode, he showed how to make lobster vol-au-vents. Harben had previously done food programmes on BBC radio.  ^[5]”Cookery (from 12 Jun 1946) — One of television’s singular creations which introduced Philip Harben as the television chef, on 1 Sep 1947.” — Currie, Tony. A Concise History of British Television, 1930-2000. Kelly Publications. 2004. Page 33. Currie further clarifies: “Philip Harben made his first appearance in the programme billed simply as “Cookery” on 12th June 1946. (The show went out at 8.55pm and ran ten minutes: he made lobster vol au vent.) It was on 1 Sep 1947 that his appearances were billed as being by ‘the television chef’ and it was from that date that he was described as such in his own programme.” [Correspondence with Cooksinfo.com on 19 October 2013; on file at Cooksinfo.com]
1946 — James Beard. “I Love to Eat”. (U.S.)  Friday, 30 August 1946. The show was 15 minutes long from 8:30pm to 8:45pm.
1947 — Alma Kitchell. “In The Kelvinator Kitchen”. (U.S.)
1947 — Marguerite Patten. Cooking expert on “Designed for Women”. (U.K.)
1948 — Dione Lucas. “To The Queen’s Taste” / “The Dione Lucas Cooking Show”. (U.S.)
1949 — Joseph Milani. “Chef Milani Cooks”. (U.S.)
1955 — Fanny Cradock. “Kitchen Magic”. (U.K.)
1959 — Graham Kerr. “Entertaining with Kerr”. (New Zealand)
1963 — Julia Child. “The French Chef”. (U.S.)
1966 — Joyce Chen. “Joyce Chen Cooks”. (U.S.)
1968 — Graham Kerr. “Galloping Gourmet”. (Canada) ^[6]1969 in the U.S.
1972 — Justin Wilson. “Cookin’ Cajun”. (U.S.)
1973 — Delia Smith. “Family Fare”. (U.K.)
1982 — Jacques Pepin. “Everyday Cooking with Jacques Pepin”. (U.S.)
1982 — BBC Two. “Food and Drink Programme.” (U.K.)
1982 — Madhur Jaffrey. “Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery”. (U.K.)
1983 — Jeff Smith. “The Frugal Gourmet.” (U.S.)
1986 — Martha Stewart. “Holiday Entertaining with Martha Stewart.” (U.S.)
1993 — Food Network starts in the United States, with cooks such as Emeril Lagasse (U.S.)
1994 — Gary Rhodes. “Rhodes About Britain”. (U.K.)
1996 — Sara Moulton, Gourmet Magazine. “Cooking Live”. (U.S.)
1996 — Clarissa Dickson Wright and Jennifer Paterson. “Two Fat Ladies”. (U.K.)
1997 — Emeril Lagasse. “Emeril Live.” (U.S.)
1997 — Ainsley Harriott. “Ainsley’s Barbecue Bible”. (U.K.)
1997 — Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. “Cook on the Wild Side”. (U.K.)
1998 — Gordon Ramsay. “Boiling Point”. (U.K.)
1998 — Nigel Slater. “Nigel Slater’s Real Food Show”. (U.K.)
1999 — Alton Brown. “Good Eats.” (U.S.)
2000 — Nigella Lawson. “Nigella Bites, Series 1.” (U.K.)
2001 — Rachel Ray. “30 Minute Meals.” (U.S.)
2002 — Anthony Bourdin. “A Cook’s Tour.” (U.S.)
2003 — Rocco DiSpirito. “The Restaurant.” (U.S.)
2005 — Gordon Ramsay. “Hell’s Kitchen.” (U.S.)
2005 — Gino d’Acampo. “Chef v Britain” (partnering with Claire Sweeney), “Too Many Cooks”. (UK)
2007 — Guy Fieri. “Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives.” (U.S.)
2009 — Marco Pierre White. “The Chopping Block.” (U.S.)

Radio Food Show Timeline

1924 — Betty Crocker. (U.S.)
1926 — Aunt Sammy. 15 minute programmes for the USDA. (U.S.)
1930s. Katherine Caldwell Bayley. “The Ann Adam Cooking School of the Air”. (Canada)
1933 — Mary Ellis Ames. “Cooking Close-Ups” (U.S.)
1942 — Philip Harben (U.K.)
1944 — Marguerite Patten. “Kitchen Front” (U.K.)

Sources

Collins, Kathleen. The Origins of the Cooking Show. Retrieved October 2013 from http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/08/02/magazine/20090802_COOKING_INTERACTIVE.html

Further reading

Geddes, Kevin. For the Housewife? From ‘The Singing Cook’ to ‘Common-Sense Cookery’: The First (Disrupted) Twenty Years of Television Cooking Programmes in Britain (1936-1955). In: Dublin Gastronomy Symposium: Food and Disruption. 2020.

Tominc, Ana (Ed.) Food and Cooking on Early Television in Europe. New York, NY: Routledge. 2022.