Let Fanny Craddock Make Mincemeat Out of Your Christmas Dinner

Let Fanny Craddock FINISH making mincemeat for you.

Her costume and insane makeup are perfect. You just know she now runs the fourth ring of Hell, which she keeps at a fast 435 degrees.

Fuck her!

I thought this was a spoof at first! Some drag queen...but no...

She is fascinatingly terrifying. Only cooking show with a slave (that I know about)

I don't know if she's a chef or cook but I hate Jacqui Malouf and I really hate Bobby Flay for foisting her on us.

Whoops, wrong thread.

Later in the mincemeat programme Fanny made the most horrid looking mincemeat omelet smothered in powdered sugar. Everything she cooked looked revolting.

Fanny drops a big steaming load of brown pudding on your festive Christmas table.

I think I am in love with her. I thought of Catherine Tate's Derek when I saw her.

Such a hate-filled, emasculating, drunken monster. As good a DL mascot as anyone.

Agreed R9 that she *is* Data lounge personified!

I thought Fanny in Britain means cunt though?

Will she make Pancakes Barbara?

No, but she made a mean Eggs Danny Thomas.

She was rather influential in the 50's and early 60's. Here's a short BBC clip on her and Graham Kerr.

Yes, R12. But she pretended it was a cut crystal "serving table."

Fanny proves that stirring spoons are for sissies as she whips up a holiday fruitcake with nothing but her bare hands and the help of her terrified assistant.

Fanny's Christmas Cookery book of 1975 is available on eBay for a cool seventy-five bucks.

I adore Fanny! I've never seen her before, and she's like the Concentrtion Camp Guard TV Chef! I swear she must keep that poor assistant in a cage. I hope there are lots of shows online because I want to watch all of them. She could entertain me for hours.

I love that one must have an official rolling pin without the handles, and that omelette was truly disgusting.

Fanny Cradock meets Gwen Troake.

Fanny makes mincemeat out of an omelet. Still wet in the middle?

I'd shit that thing out so fast, you'd hear a sonic boom.

.........

Poor Gwen Troake -- Fanny ruined what could have been her shining moment on one of the world's first reality shows.

I think we found Helen Lawson's British cousin. Love how she snaps her fingers at her helper who is wearing a nightgown/housecoat.

She's frightening.

LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUV HER!!!!!!!!!!!!

A DATALOUNGE ICON IS BORN!

That is all.

It's hard to believe that it's taken so long for her to achieve DL icon status. She has it all -- Gruyère ice cream, bigamy, tiaras, abandoned children, amphetamine/downer addiction, banana candles, etc.

It's about time!

Sarah's reactions make these horrid cooking shows amazing

In part 2 of the mincemeat show Fanny says : Everything in life is so easy when you know the way...it’s just a question of the pleasure that I get selfishly out of sharing the ways of the things that I’ve happened to discover...with you!

R26 = Roger Octopus

Does this make Natalie Dupree the "good witch"? She once did a segment on funeral catering, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out her friend's death was HIV-related.

R10 in the UK fanny is indeed another word for pussy - not as rude as cunt, more jocular. La Craddock's poor long suffering not-husband Johnny made a lot of people very happy when he signed off a show where Fanny had been baking ring doughnuts with "good bye, and may all your doughnuts turn out like Fanny's".

What would you rather: an egg omelette that is still wet in the middle or powdered sugar on top of a wet in the middle omelette ?

And why is she dressed like a trampy mother of the bride?

....

R32 her schtick was that she could cook a full three course meal in full evening dress without an apron and never get a speck on her gown. Why that would be important I don't know.

Glennie IS Fannie, I've always said that.

After seeing this thread yesterday, and discovering the fabulous Fanny, I watched some more of her shows. She was a guest on a talk show in which the host asked her about her interest in faith healing. She paused a bit, annoyed, and said she had been cured of cancer by faith healing, but wouldn't discuss it further.

She lived a 'varied' life, raised by a father who moved the famiy from place to place escape gambling debts, and her real name was Phyllis Nan Sortain Pechery. She was married four times, twice bigamously. She is considered to be the originator if the prawn cocktail.

Oh, I love Fanny! She was an original! An original what, I'm not sure, but she was original!

[post redacted because independent.co.uk thinks that links to their ridiculous rag are a bad thing. Somebody might want to tell them how the internet works. Or not. We don't really care. They do suck though. Our advice is that you should not click on the link and whatever you do, don't read their truly terrible articles.]

The freakishly fascinating Fanny isn't revived on DL as much as say, 'Meet Me In St. Louis', or the 'Christmas Party 1925.' She has though been incredulously saluted here before; and her re-appearance at the most wonderful time of year might perhaps become a DL tradition. In the sprit of Pantomime.

Her huge gift to drama has been explored just the once on film, in 'Fear of Fanny' (2006).

Fanny makes me think of the equally batshit Dorothy Squires, who's also never truly got her due here at Datalounge.

Fear of Fanny, in all its pixelated glory, is on YouTube.

That Gwen Troake programme was from a series which devoted each programme to a talented amateur getting a shot at stardom. It's how we got Sheena Easton, though how she lasted so long is beyond me.

IIRC, that prog was what finally killed Fanny's career, people hated how she treated that lady.

The BBC cancellled Fanny's show because of the outrage from people who watched her completely torture poor Gwen Troake.

[quote]It's how we got Sheena Easton, though how she lasted so long is beyond me.

I think "faces to the camera" like this had something to do with it.

And here I thought Sandra Lee was the worst cook to ever appear on TV! Little did I know.

Gawd, that mincemeat program... look, I genuinely love mincemeat, I love the sweet-tart fruity flavor of it, I like mincemeat pies and I make these delicious mincemeat bar cookies every December. But her mincemeat looks disgusting! Mincemeat is really a fruit compote, but hers is discolored and chunky and full of big yellow lumps of suet or turnip or something, and looks like somebody already ate it. And the way she slams things about and barks at her assistant, it's like watching a dominatrix try to cook without breaking character.

Also, how did they record sound in those days? She doesn't seem to have a personal mic, but you can hear every little glutinous gloop of the mincemeat and even the crinkly noises of the foil going into the oven at the back. I guess it was just a big boom turned up to 11, which caught everything and all at the same level.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Knowing Fanny, R46, it's probably a Bundt pan propping up the turkey and hiding beneath a veneer of piped mashed potatoes that have been colored green.

And what the fucking holy hell is this thing? It turned up on a google search, and appears to have grass growing out of the bread part.

Wow. I intend to go home tonight and YouTube-binge on Fanny.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

It's like they gave Baby Jane Hudson a cooking show.

Everything on this thread, not least R50, makes one lament that Louis Theroux didn't make a documentary about Fanny and Johnny in their late no-longer-prime.

She knew she was 'in disgrace', not that she'd care a hoot, and would have been batshit vain enough to think she could claw back some sort of reputation, and run rings round young Louis. A might-have-been to ponder!

That "fanny" has a different meaning in the British sense than it does in the American, basically destroys all the meaning of my favorite nursery rhyme from childhood, "Back Door Annie," which begins: Back Door Annie, she likes it in the fanny..."

She's riveting!

She truly is riveting. Might I suggest that she was Martha Stewart's inspiration?

Brilliant intro to the redacted post @R37:

[quote]She had mad glittering eyes, the face of a supercilious horse, the maquillage of a French clown and the demeanour of a woman in constant search of an argument. She was rude to everyone: BBC colleagues, helpers, members of the public, fellow cooks and her long-suffering partner, Johnnie. Much of her life was a lie, a cover-up, a delusion, from her date and place of birth to her marital status. It’s not even clear that she knew much about cooking – about which ingredients blend most harmoniously together – though few people felt disposed to confront her. One look at the way she prepared a Christmas turkey on TV, plucking irritably at little folds of breast to loosen it until she could slide mushrooms under the skin, and you get a shuddery sense of what Johnnie had to endure.

How in the seven circles of Hell did a godawful cook like Fanny Craddock end up on TV?

Did someone at the BBC assume that audiences were nostalgic for the dreadful bland foods of their post-war childhoods? Or was she giving someone in charge of programming the kind of paddling he remembered from boarding school?

I guess sweet omelettes have fallen out of food fashion, but FYI she didn't invent them. Some have a filling of fruit or jam, they're sometimes dusted with powdered sugar, and I first heard of the thing in a murder mystery written in the 1920s.

Perhaps they were more popular in the early 20th century, before people became aware of the dangers of eating uncooked eggs.

Now I'm becoming obsessed with her.

Here, look at this and ask me why I'm getting a freak/domme vibe from her.

[quote]Here, look at this and ask me why I'm getting a freak/domme vibe from her.

Oh, I got a freak vibe from the story about "Madam's Tonic" (eww). Bet she used it for more than fertilizing tomah-toes!

Fanny teaches dumb cunt Janet to cook on a proper gas cooker:

I'm alarmed by the tackiness of the kitchen set for her cooking show. A bare set, lots of negative space, shoddy looking appliances, big expanses of empty wall space, neutral colors. Boy, they really didn't want to put any kind of money into that TV production.

I'd love to read an interview by the downtrodden helper. She looks like she just rolled out of bed and is helping her demented granny in the kitchen.

Did she ever appear on TV with Jimmy Saville and Hughie Greene?

I know some of you loathe Britain but the likes of Fanny are why I love those mad fuckers.

[quote]Might I suggest that she was Martha Stewart's inspiration?

Martha would rather be torn apart by wolves than wash her hands in a bucket on camera.

[quote]I'd love to read an interview by the downtrodden helper. She looks like she just rolled out of bed and is helping her demented granny in the kitchen.

Sara and her husband were the ones who took care of Johnnie when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. They had a falling-out with Fanny over her actions while he was hospitalized and they escaped her as soon as his estate was settled. He had trusted them enough to name them as executors.

I can't understand a word that she's saying in the mince clip. Were boom mikes not introduced in the UK until the 60s?

This is the best thing I've found on DL! Thanks OP.

[quote]Sara and her husband were the ones who took care of Johnnie when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. They had a falling-out with Fanny over her actions while he was hospitalized and they escaped her as soon as his estate was settled. He had trusted them enough to name them as executors.

Fanny begged off visiting Johnnie in the hospital on the grounds that she was afraid of illness. After his doctor told her that Johnnie's death was imminent, she visited him for five minutes -- long enough to steal a signet ring off his finger. She also skipped his funeral.

[quote] After his doctor told her that Johnnie's death was imminent, she visited him for five minutes -- long enough to steal a signet ring off his finger

My kind of girl.

Forget KRAMPUS... they should've made CRADOCK.

"Fanny Cradock might be in your attic...do you dare serve your coffee pudding for dessert?"

I understand her epitaph was:

"It's all in the booklet"

I watched about eight of her episodes last night. Not sure why she hasn't been canonized for DL sainthood, but it's an oversight worth rectifying.

And I know all cooks use their hands to mix, but when Fanny does it (usually in a cheap plastic bowl), it's the least appetizing thing ever. After mixing her Christmas cake ingredients, she blithely pulled a plastic mop bucket from under her workstation and scrubbed off the dough in that.

[quote]Her costume and insane makeup are perfect. You just know she now runs the fourth ring of Hell, which she keeps at a fast 435 degrees.

"At gasmark 6. I HATE electricity!"

Imagine a "Fanny Craddock Meets the Two Fat Ladies"?

[quote]Imagine a "Fanny Craddock [sic] Meets the Two Fat Ladies"?

Again, a documentary to rival Buckley vs Vidal ('The Best of Enemies'), or Ali vs Frazier ('When We Were Kings'). UK TV production companies should hang their heads in shame that the beyond-John Waters-camp of late Fanny wasn't better celebrated. (Mae West in 'Sextette' would have been a useful guide, though obviously way too tame by comparison.)

I imagine Jennifer and Fanny would bond over their hand hygiene standards.

Was fanny simply trolling the audience when she goes on and on about how much she scrubbed her hands before going on the air?

I had a festive mincemeat strudel earlier.

Why, oh why, did the Brits stop using that kind of accent?

[quote]Was fanny simply trolling the audience when she goes on and on about how much she scrubbed her hands before going on the air?

Yes, you can see the permanent nicotine stains on her fingers.

[quote] Why, oh why, did the Brits stop using that kind of accent?

Ben Elton.

There is an episode of Two Fat Ladies where Clarissa quotes Fanny (my approximation) "Fanny Cradock had a saying that you should rub salt into the pork as if into the face of your worst enemy" and Jennifer starts laughing and says (approximately) "Well, she was a little over the top. That poor husband of hers."

One of her books, which radiates her joy of cooking.

The Whole Fanny Cradock Experience has been a wonderful Christmas gift!

Banana Candles & Green Cheese Ice Cream for all, and for all a good night!

Holy shit. That cover is PRICELESS. The glower. The pencilled-on eybrows. The red lipstick. The hunched posture. The bow not doing a damn thing to soften or feminise her.

What would Julia Child have said about this bitch?

From Fanny's 1970 cookbooklet for children -- a recipe for "Angry Chinese Egg Men."

[R88] Perfect! I'll serve these at the next state dinner for Hu Jintao.

There's a whole "Cooking With Fanny" blog!

Anyone here want to take credit?

The fuck is that @ R9?

^ Ugh ... R90

Here's another blog:

Fanny looks like SHE was put in at gas mark 5 for an hour!

Re: link @ R84. Consider what Johnnie woke up to every day, before the tribal warpaint was applied. I imagine the tactical absence of his monocle was of small comfort.

Re: link @ R90. Looking at it is bad enough, but daring to partake would surely be the fastest possible route to Accident and Emergency.

Oh dear GAWD...

To be fair, link @ R97 can't be attributed to the unique genius of Fanny. The small-print credits Robert Carrier, who might have been something of a DL icon himself: Swinging Sixties London cooking queen, a staple of lifestyle magazines, had a place in Morocco.

As a larger-than-life theatrical American, Carrier too would have had no problem in standing up to the troubling force-of-nature who was Fanny. One wonders if indeed they ever met, and quite how it went.

THIS

Of all the many gifts datalounge has bestowed upon me in the decade+ that I've been here, I am - and most likely always will be - most grateful to it for introducing me to this fabulous creature. I am beyond smitten.

I'm mesmerized by her.

The commercial for her cookbook--thanks R99--is one of the most sinister-sounding plugs I've ever seen.

To me she seems to border on friendly and upbeat in the commercial. Which obviously meant lots of takes and direction and explanation of foreign concepts such as "warmth" and "relatability."

The line, "Would you like to impress that Mrs Jones next door?" has the tone of, "Would you like to stab that Mrs. Jones next door? You can do it!"

Love that Johnnie's accent in R99's clip is so lower-middle, gamely trying to be upper-middle. Especially given that the gruesome little clip is attempting reassurance for the pointlessly aspirational lower-middles.

From what little I've gleaned thus far about Johnnie, The Vatican would seem to have a fairly plausible new candidate to assess for canonisation.

R105, did you catch the lower-middle because of the "mother-in-law"?

I'm hopeless with Brit accents.

Wasn't Johnnie actually very much U, if not monetarily? He went to Harrow, which would seem to suggest it.

Fanny cutting a chicken...she knew how to cut a bitch up alright

R108 I love the way she says "potato" at 2:18.

Bette Davis was robbed of her own 80s "Mommie Dearest" vechicle. She's have relished a turn as Fanny

OK, so Johnnie went to Harrow. Might have been a short career. Maybe there was some biographical airbrushing Born in Lambeth, one notes.

It's just that his accent in this clip, bless him, doesn't sound echt RP:

"Kin yew truss a chickin?" "Das yaw mather-in-law eoutshoin yew?" "Make perfick creckling?" Nice try, please don't try harder.

Fanny had a diction coach on retainer and forced poor mute Sara and Paul into lessons. A couple of their gay friends as well.

I love terrifying people and she's terrifying!

Can you imagine her as Rose in GYPSY?!?! Tyne Daly and Roz Russell could barely sing a note, so who cares if she could sing.

[quote]Can you imagine her as Rose in GYPSY?!?!

Everything's coming up rosettes of piped mashed potatoes dyed purple.

I am at once drawn to and repulsed by this woman. I am also afraid to watch the videos.

I can't stop following her eyebrows try escape her face.

Do the British cook in their pyjamas?

[quote]I can't stop following her eyebrows try escape her face.

A brave but doomed attempt. If Johnnie couldn't escape her, mere eyebrows stood no chance.

Last night, after a couple of glasses of Christmas cheer, I watched Fanny's 1963 featurette "Kitchen Magic," produced for the Gas Council. In it she shows a young bride how to make several dishes using gas burners and ovens.

Johnnie also makes a special appearance showing his "mixed grill."

All of it was delightfully revolting, and the special effects were pure camp.

[quote]Bette Davis was robbed of her own 80s "Mommie Dearest" vechicle. She's have relished a turn as Fanny

Since that opportunity is long passed - somebody needs to write Tilda Swinton a Fanny Craddock movie to star in now! I see Jude Law as Johnny.

British food IS revolting

Naw, Judy Davis is the only actress alive who could play Fanny Craddock! She can bring the camp like nobody else, and she looks more like Mistress Fanny than Swinton does - a longer, narrower face with a high forehead. Imagine her with her eyebrows shaved off and a ridiculous little mouth drawn on...

Damn, we need to make "The Fanny Craddock Story" happen, even if it's only on LOGO. Let's start on the outline!

I vote Helen Mirren

Really, with the right makeup, Judy Davis would look a hell of a lot like Fanny Cradock.

And she works cheaper than Helen Mirren.

Did Fanny's fanny squeak at 1:09 on the video posted at R108?

What about me?

Fanny is so quotable....I've already integrated some of her expressions into my lexicon already.

"It's dee-VINE, of course!"

"Yes dear, but NOW you're among professionals."

"But sweetie it's TOO sickly!"

"Well I'll tell you my dahling the English have never HAD a cuisine!"

Why does everything look undercooked?

Yeah, why is the chicken at R108 pale yellow and mushy-looking, instead of a proper appetizing golden brown?

I can live with green mashed potatoes, but that chicken looks so undercooked it'll give you salmonella poisoning.

The only person who should play Fanny is Tanmie Brown.

Fanny Cradock IS Helen Lawson...AND Neeley O'Hara!

New research into the life of Fanny Cradock suggests, however, that her explosive, unpredictable personality was largely due to an addiction to appetite-suppressing and mood-enhancing amphetamines.

Sources close to the late cook have revealed to the writer of a forthcoming TV drama about her that she was addicted to the pills - known among her inner circle as her 'uppers and downers' - for most of her adult life.

'A number of people who worked with her said she kept a basket of pills by her bed which they used to call Fanny's hundreds and thousands,' said Brian Fillis, writer of the drama who spoke to many of Cradock's 'associates and helpers'.

It's a real-life version of Karen Walker's Mood Elevator Party Mix!

Tammie Brown, BTW, is too sweet to play Fanny.

I think you need a vicious tongued drag queen to play The Divine Fanny. Someone who drops acid with the bon mots.

I can't believe none of you have suggested Faye!

Frances Barber!

Madame!

Hard-boiled swans with aqua mashed potatoes and pipe cleaners

For all her airs and pretensions Fanny really was very tacky and declasse, wasn't she?

R138 - while I was scrolling, the image was hidden, so I thought you were just making a joke - and then I scrolled down, and no, of course it's fucking real.

They're just as real as blue deviled eggs and lemon pigs eating from a pastry trough, R140.

Sweet dreams to you!

....

Judy Davis, per that switch-in-a-second nerviness she showed as Garland, and in Allen's 'Husbands and Wives', would be perfect.

Johnnie's casting is more of a challenge. Gatiss was OK in the TV drama, but obviously too young. The resonant horror of the Cradocks requires the weight of age. Gambon or Broadbent perhaps.

Is this real?

Her cooking show is straight out of a David Lynch movie! It's mind blowing for a contemporary audience

Anthony Hopkins as Johnnie.

Judy Davis is too serious and strident. There's an ultra camp aspect about Fanny in which Judy wouldn't be able to "understand." Fanny is truly like a demented, super haughty drag queen cooking the most revolting food ever.

Thanks to DL, last night I watched both "Fear of Fanny" and a BBC documentary on her life.

Julia Davis was Fanny in the movie, and she was tolerably TV-movie good, but my first thought was Judy Davis as well.

The documentary had the full recipe for the blue eggs: soak hard-boiled eggs in vegetable dye, cut off the tops, pipe a ton of mayonnaise on top in a rosette, replace the top. As one of the commenters said, it was mid-century, middle-class attempt-at-snobbery food, the kind of thing an insecure wife would prepare for the husband's boss at a dinner party.

One of the funniest things was actual footage of Fanny serving a seafood platter to a TV interviewer at her home, and some of the prawns or crabs were so undercooked they were still alive! He was laughing as they crawled off the platter and Fanny looked like her face might crack in half.

In that "Fear of Fanny" TV movie, they portrayed the uncooked shellfish on the platter as being a sabotage effort by a fed-up assistant.

[quote]Fanny places a large amount of emphasis on eye contact when trying to convey a message at the dinner table, stating “When the hostess decides she wishes her woman guests to leave the table, she has to contend with the tricky business of catching her women guests’ eyes”. She continues “The hostess then rises, the men rise too, she turns towards the door and follows her women guests out into the sitting room”. And she doesn’t stop there; Fanny then adds that as the hostess rises the male nearest to the door must open it for her. So make sure you keep your eye on the ball, or more appropriately the hostess!

Pity the poor Aspie who had the misfortune of being invited to one of Fanny's dinner parties.

An earlier version of the eyebrows; before the upturned tails made a run for it.

I've just realised who should direct the DL-produced biopic about Fanny: Mike Leigh. The film would be 'Abigail's Party' x 100, with desperate upper-middle pretensions.

Peter Morgan for the screenplay. Eddie Redmayne is regrettably too young to play Fanny, so Judy Davis it remains.

Why does her food always look like the shit my grandmother tried to serve us in the 1960s? That overly faw-faw ptomaine harbouring shite?

Just a guess but maybe your grandmother was a fan of Fanny.

yummy

...............

She would have been great on [italic]Celebrity Big Brother.[/italic]

She's glorious!

How did I never hear about this woman(?) ??

I like to imagine her without Johnnie, but cooking WITH other showbiz relics of the time.

A Fanny Craddock-Coral Browne episode would have been a spectacular epic of cunting.

I didn't realize Aunt Phoebe had a cooking show!

I found 'Fear of Fanny' on YouTube and watched it. It was pretty good. I wonder if she and Mary Berry ever crossed paths?

hysterical. like the old DL. love you cunts.

A biopic should star the infinitely talented Michelle Gomez. She can do that thousand yard stare to a T.

How...VERY DARE...YOU, r8!

Damn, R163, Mrs Davenport is looking hot.

I'm reminded of Margot Ledbetter myself.

[quote]Margot Ledbetter

Without whom Hyacinth Bucket would never been possible.

I saw Penelope Keith (Margot Ledbetter) in "The Norman Conquests". She was fantastic,

bump

It's like when Lucy went to London and went mod.

new link...I think

Yes love, lubricate that dry bird.

"HERE is a CAPON that you can LOOK at while I'm TALKING TO YOU about THIS."

"NO-body wants those NAHSTY paper-thin slices they give you in RESTAUH-RAWNTS."

I want to make her theme song my ringtone.

Help us, Fanny Cradock, you're our only hope!

If I don't see a Fannie C biopic or mini -series on Lifetime or OWN or some such, heads will roll.

This has to happen. I mean it.

Some wonderful soul has uploaded [italic]Fear of Fanny[/italic] to YouTube in watchable quality.

Our own Sandra Lee is an even worse cook, with worse taste and more cocktails, and she's more fun!

Still, there's only one absolutely terrifying TV cook, and that's the immortal Fan. RESPECT.

Fucking terrifying. I saw this cunt on the UK Gogglebox Christmas Special and talk about a Christmas horror story. She was scarier than The Signal-Man.