2009 saw the sad death of Keith Floyd. TV presenter, author, businessman and lover of good food, he left a public legacy of how to get the best from life through culinary devotion, amongst other things.

He was a devotee of Spanish cuisine, fascinated by the provincial subtleties of local cooking and regional dishes. The natural agricultural products were a joy for him to hold to camera, arbitrarily slice, and sling in the pan. He was also of course, a connoisseur of Spain’s world class wines!

His attraction was that he broke the rules.

He smoked on TV; he fried emu steaks in Australia in a field with a flock of emus looking over his shoulder (animal rights protectors went berserk as if he was promoting some form of cannibalism); his first bistro in Bristol had customers forcibly sharing tables; he introduced corn on the cob to a nation familiar with sweet corn only in tins and calling it maize. He swore on BBC prime time.

He wrote a book on hangover cures (an expert on both the cure and the cause); he cried on camera after losing a four-hour heartfelt battle with a hooked marlin at sea. He taught us how to throw food ingredients into a pot in frivolous abandon with just a vague verbal guide as to quantities (you never saw him with a set of scales).

He was a serial husband, a loser and creator in business (his various restaurants and pub all went bust), and trod the boards in leather loafers long before the now-fashionably feted and much less amiable Gordon Ramsays and Marco Pierre Whites.

His gregarious character, obvious love of life’s pleasures, business risk-taking, extroversion, and above all natural instinct for food creation and great cheffing, were his endearing marks.

He travelled the world with captivating TV series: barbecueing, casseroling, sautéing, baking in clay, seeking the core of international cooking traditions.

You would never have associated Floyd with ‘nouvelle cuisine’. Too prim. He was a foodie to the last and would have eschewed coiled tomato skins and coin-sized steak roundels. To him, steak was a treat to be greedily devoured in fork-full lumps, succulently cooked, preferably sourced from Argentina and sliced by a beefy-armed butcher.

And, of course, a glass of robust red wine with everything - ´just a slurp´ being a TV catchphrase.

His cigarette-fuelled gravelly-voiced presentation will be sorely missed. Unfailingly bow tied, his lived-in face, grated cackles and arm-floundering gestures were a lighthearted joy to watch.
He was a natural entertainer. He had Parkinson in stitches on more than one occasion, recounting his self-disparaging human pitfalls and faltering business success ratios.

An instinctive lover of wine, women and song, he added food to the list. He adored bringing the art of cooking to his viewers and readers. He was a natural connoisseur of good produce and how to get the best from it.

In essence, Floydie was an old-style fatherly forerunner of Jamie Oliver, taking great uncomplicated ideas to a plate state that all of us non-culinary genii could lust over and devour, knowing that domestic preparation is likely do-able, and not the unique province of the gourmet elite.

I was lucky enough to dine at his first bistro in Bristol during the 1970s, and will never forget watching a meticulously dressed woman further down the table attempting corn on the cob with a knife and fork. Her fellow guests (and smirking me) were bemused as to how long it was going to take her to finish it. Unfortunately Floyd was not there on that occasion, but if he had been he would likely have said: ¨Madam, please try it like this¨, and rammed two six inch nails into either end of the cob.

What a guy.

By Rupert Wilson