Keith Floyd: the lasting legacy of the quick slurp

With this weekend marking 15 years since his death, db looks at how Keith Floyd pioneered drinking on the small screen.

“I like cooking with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food” – W.C. Fields

It is fair to say that Floyd lived a life that was somewhat fuller than his depleted cellar.

His so-called ‘Last Supper’ on 14 September 2009 offered an enviable range of wines, including Pouilly Vinzelles 2006 and Nature Perrin, Fils Côtes de Rhône 2007, and a Hix Fix cocktail consisting of Champagne served with a cherry soaked in apple eau de vie.

Mere hours after the meal, which was held to mark his all clear from a bout of bowel cancer, he died of a heart attack at the age of 65 – just as he had sat down to watch the broadcast of a Channel 4 documentary about himself.

Having tried his hand as a soldier, exporter of antiques, and restaurateur, Floyd’s media breakthrough came with the 1985 broadcast of Floyd on Fish – an opportunity he was given by one of his customers, television producer David Pritchard.

His signature move was the “quick slurp” or “quick snifter” between recipe steps – whether he was on a fishing boat in choppy waters off South Africa, or in the midst of a rainstorm in Central Italy. It was the kind of behaviour that seemed truly anarchic in the context of the staid, prim and proper cookery programmes that British audiences were used to.

Floyd was certainly not a poster boy for moderate drinking, and he was more than happy to play up to his reputation for living well to the extreme. In Keith Floyd on Hangovers, he offered a series of remedies for the aftermath of a night of excess – perhaps unsurprisingly, many of his solutions for a thick head in the morning that he presented in the book aligned with the ‘hair of the dog’ school of thought.

Floyd Uncorked

Though certainly true that Floyd drank in front of the cameras as much for his own enjoyment as for the viewer’s entertainment, beyond the character of a louche hedonist, he did know his Vougeot from his Vosne-Romanée.

Wine was an ever-present aspect of Floyd’s programmes, but it was not until a decade into his career that he had the chance to have a series entirely devoted to the stuff.

Jonathan Pedley MW co-presented the 1998 series Floyd Uncorked and co-authored the accompanying book.

“It was great fun working with Keith all those years ago, and I learnt a lot,” Pedley shared with db. “We did a pilot in 1997 (a gift pack of four single serve varietals and an explanatory VHS tape). The following year Channel 5 commissioned the eight episode Floyd Uncorked series, which saw us trundling around France: tasting the wines, discussing their production, and with Keith cooking up some of the local dishes. The year after we did a Christmas special in a kitchen in Fulham.”

“Throughout our time working together, Keith was incredibly supportive. In my experience he was the consummate professional: we showed up, filmed the scene, largely unscripted, then moved on. The schedule was pretty gruelling but we stayed on track – this included writing the book that accompanied the series in the evening after a day’s filming.”

Pedley, who stayed in touch with Floyd right up until his death, suggested that the celebrity gourmand’s legacy lives on today in ways that we might not appreciate.

“Believe it or not, I am not sure Keith fully understood what an incredible influence he had on cooking in Britain, both professionally and domestically. He made it ‘cool’ for a man to get excited about food and to work in a kitchen, whether it was at home or as a career. His nonchalant presenting style, responsible for a lot of his popularity, hid from public view the research and care he took in preparing the myriad dishes that were part of a country’s gastronomic heritage. He knew his French wines as well, and in a way his ‘glass in one hand and frying pan in the other’ approach may well have done a lot to normalise the pairing of food and wine in the English-speaking world.”

This writer does wonder though if, with what seems to be increasing prudishness surrounding drinking alcohol, especially from younger generations, Floyd’s heavy lifting, so to speak, to show the wonders of wine may have been in vain. Then again, while medical advice would suggest that we don’t try to emulate his consumption habits, there is an awful lot that we members of Gen Z could learn about the enjoyment of life from Floyd – a glass of something delicious certainly helps to wash down even the most disastrous of dishes.

Floyd’s words on wine

“I am against these stoppers. There’s only one way to look after a bottle, and that’s to empty it.”

[When tasting sweet wines] “The trouble with this is that most of us can only afford it every now and again, but today we’re not paying, so here’s to Sauternes!”

“If it’s not good enough to drink, it’s not good enough to cook with, so you better taste it first.”

[When visiting Cantine Florio in Marsala] “I asked the man what is the best time to drink this stuff, he said from 10 to 11 – well, it’s 10 to 11 now.”

“Let’s start our acquaintanceship as we mean to carry on and have a quick slurp of your wonderful wine.”

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