37 Facts About Fanny Cradock

Phyllis Nan Sortain Pechey, better known as Fanny Cradock, was an English restaurant critic, television cook and writer.

Fanny Cradock frequently appeared on television, at cookery demonstrations and in print with her fourth husband, Major Johnnie Cradock, who played the part of a slightly bumbling hen-pecked husband.

On this site until 1930 stood a house called Apthorp, birthplace of the famous TV cookery expert Fanny Cradock Craddock; born Phyllis Pechey.

Fanny Cradock's birthplace was named after Apthorp Villa, in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, where her grandfather Charles Hancock had been born.

Fanny Cradock's parents did not manage their money well; her mother, Bijou, spent extravagantly, and her father, Archibald Thomas Pechey, had sizeable gambling debts, many run up in Nice.

Fanny Cradock began the next ten years of her life in London living in destitution, selling cleaning products door to door.

Fanny Cradock later wrote passionately about the change from service a la francaise to service a la russe and hailed Escoffier as a saviour of British cooking.

Fanny and Johnnie Cradock began writing a column under the pen name of "Bon Viveur" which appeared in The Daily Telegraph from 1950 to 1955.

Fanny Cradock would cook vast dishes that were served to the audience.

Fanny Cradock wrote books under the names Frances Dale, Bon Viveur, Susan Leigh and Phyllis Cradock.

In 1955 Fanny Cradock recorded a pilot for what became a very successful BBC television series on cookery.

Fanny Cradock's food looked extravagant, but was generally cost-effective, and Fanny seemed to care about her audience.

Fanny Cradock had always included relatives and friends in her television shows.

Good Food occasionally broadcasts Fanny Cradock Invites You to a Cheese and Wine Party, one of a few surviving stand-alone episodes from other series.

Fanny Cradock appeared in twenty-four television series between 1955 and 1975.

Fanny Cradock's idea was that with seafood, water fowl and rum, the meal had a nautical theme, which would appeal to Heath's love of sailing and be an appropriate salute to the former Admiral Mountbatten.

Fanny Cradock, grimacing and acting as if on the verge of gagging, told Troake that her menu was far too rich and she would "never in a million years" serve a seafood cocktail before duck.

Fanny Cradock appeared not to be familiar with the term "bramble", and when told it meant a blackberry, was horrified that it would be paired with a savoury duck, remonstrated that a sauce like that should be brushed on a flan.

Fanny Cradock derisively declared that the jam in it was "too English" and that the English had never had a cuisine, erroneously claiming that "Yorkshire pudding came from Burgundy".

Fanny Cradock suggested that unless Troake were to serve salad and cheese afterwards, as is done in France, then she should use small almond pastry barquettes filled with a palate-cleansing fruit sorbet with spun sugar sails, as this was equally suitable for the naval theme.

Troake kept insisting that she liked her signature coffee pudding with "nautical" rum in it, while Fanny Cradock appealed to her to think of her diners' taste buds and stomachs, and try to achieve a balance in her menu.

Fanny Cradock wrote a letter of apology to Troake, but the BBC terminated her contract two weeks after the broadcast of the programme.

Fanny and Johnnie Cradock spent their final years living at Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex.

Fanny Cradock was legally married twice; two later marriages were bigamous and therefore void ab initio.

Fanny Cradock married as "Phyllis Nan Primrose Pechey"; "Primrose Pechey" was a form passed down her father's side.

Fanny Cradock left her son Christopher and husband Arthur for a new life in central London.

Fanny Cradock was given only a single line in Fanny's autobiography, Something's Burning.

Fanny Cradock married again on 26 September 1939 in Fulham, London, as "Phyllis Nan Sortain Chapman"; her husband this time was Gregory Holden-Dye, a daredevil minor racing driver, driving Bentleys at Brooklands in Surrey.

Gregory's mother had expressed a low opinion of Fanny Cradock, and ended up as a loathsome character in Fanny Cradock's first novel Scorpion's Suicide.

Fanny Cradock later concluded that as Arthur Chapman had not granted her a divorce, her marriage to Gregory was not lawful, and so never publicised it.

John Whitby "Johnnie" Fanny Cradock was a major in the Royal Artillery who was already married with four children.

Fanny Cradock soon left his wife, Ethel, and children to be with Fanny.

Fanny Cradock died following a stroke, on 27 December 1994, at the Ersham House Nursing Home, Hailsham, East Sussex.

Fanny Cradock was cremated at Langney Crematorium, Eastbourne, as was Johnnie when he died in 1987.

Fanny Cradock came to the attention of the public in the postwar-utility years, trying to inspire the average housewife with an exotic approach to cooking.

Fanny Cradock worked in various ball-gowns without the customary cook's apron, averring that women should feel cooking was easy and enjoyable, rather than messy and intimidating.

Fanny Cradock has been credited in the UK as the originator of the prawn cocktail.