Cooking with the Two Fat Ladies by Jennifer Paterson

(An enterprising producer put the two cooks together after a chance encounter and told them simply to be themselves - no sound bites, no script, no On camera, the two hefty middle-aged women do nothing - including cooking - by the book. In evidence from the American publisher (the book first appeared in Britain two years ago). Worst of all, little transcultural editing or recipe testing is

When the recipes are casually attributed to other food writers - like Paula Wolfert's Duck With Quinces - precise directions are diluted here, making them less useful. Little effort has been made to attribute the original source of many of the recipes, either to cook or country (a coffee and walnut cake that the authors 'think is a Polish receipt' is a variation on a Middle Eastern sweet, to cite The number of servings is never given even though it clearly varies from recipe to recipe. It is their rapid rise here, of course, that makes this careless effort at a cookbook so regrettable.Īs I tested these recipes, I ran into a staggering string of six out of six that did not work. In the blink of an eye, they developed a cult following among those who have an innate fondness for British eccentrics in the tradition of Miss Marple and 'Fawlty Towers.' When the Food Network began broadcasting their shows last year. Their career took off in the United States But after 10 minutes in the oven, the massive hedgehog, its almond prickles already burnedĪnd a-quiver, looked as if it had barely survived a brush fire.Īs the 'Two Fat Ladies,' Clarissa Dickson Wright and Jennifer Paterson are a triumph on British television, and the BBC says their two-year-old show is its most-watched cooking show ever. The instructions called for roasting at 450 degrees for 15 minutes, then reducing the heat to 350 degrees and cooking for an additional hour and a half. Over the loaf before putting it in a 450-degree oven. But I followed it to the letter, implanting a pound of almonds all The recipe in their new book, 'Cooking With the Two Fat Ladies,' seemed bizarre - like a lot of them in this misbegotten effort - and I should have known better. Offered by the wildly popular British cooking team known as 'The Two Fat Ladies.' FebruTelevision's Two 'Fat Ladies' Have Sung By SUZANNE HAMLINīy Clarissa Dickson Wright and Jennifer Paterson.Įeling playful, I badly wanted to produce an edible 'hedgehog,' a whimsical five-pound meatloaf with olives for eyes and almonds for prickles,

Cooking with the Two Fat Ladies by Jennifer Paterson