Have wok will travel

Cookery to Keith Floyd is the result of religion, geography and war. Mathures Paul marinades his career

When satellite television arrived in India, two personalities inspired men to enter kitchens — Keith Floyd and Martin Yan. While some men lost a finger or two trying to outdo Yan, others went a bit tipsy watching Floyd sip wine and rustle up delicacies in natural surroundings. After all these years, Floyd, with his bow tie and smooth talk, remains a favourite among television viewers.
Floyd’s definition of cooking is best described in A Feast of Floyd: “Cooking is an art and patience a virtue... Careful shopping, fresh ingredients and an unhurried approach are nearly all you need. There is one more thing — love. Love for food and love for those you invite to your table. With a combination of these things you can be an artist — not perhaps in the representational style of a Dutch master, but rather more like Gauguin, the naïve, or Van Gogh, the impressionist. Plates or pictures of sunshine taste of happiness and love.”
Born in Somerset in 1943, he has written more than 20 books and hosted 19 “Floyd” series for television viewers across the globe. Floyd’s stint in the army, which the film Zulu made him undertake, shaped his future. “When I was based in Germany, I had a copy of Elizabeth David’s cookery book. I persuaded our mess cook to change the boring old style of cooking to a more innovative one. Corporal Feast, who was our mess cook, willingly adapted my suggestions. So, instead of boring old roasts and stodgy soups, we introduced things like jugged hare, coq au vin and on special nights, but not to do with Elizabeth David, curry nights. In those many long years ago, we fried our popadoms, instructed the mess cooks to prepare naan bread and made wonderful mutton curries served with natural yogurt, fresh herbs and spices. But, I was not an army cook, I was a lieutenant in the Royal Tank Regiment, I just had an overwhelming interest in cooking,” says Floyd.
Once his Army days were over, he worked in London and France as a barman, dishwasher, vegetable peeler and in other capacities. By 1971 he owned three restaurants in Briston, which he later sold to buy a boat called Flirty. “I still prepare a rich, red wine sauce chicken casserole with baby onions, mushrooms and little pieces of bacon or pork. It is an enduring dish. It can, of course, be prepared without the bacon or pork,” he adds, recalling his yesteryears.
An adventurer, Floyd constantly bought and sold restaurants. In 1991, he bought Floyd’s Inn Tuckenhay Devon, which he sold in 1996 and moved to Kinsale in Ireland. In 1997, he shifted base to Marbella in Spain and, finally by 2000, he was settled in the south of France.
The Indian summer has always mesmerised the bow-tied chef. Unlike most visitors to India, he doesn’t have inhibitions about street food. “Gosh, I have travelled from Kerala, to Goa, to Kolkata, to Mumbai, to Jaipur and Amritsar and more. I have travelled throughout India and enjoyed the street food, the restaurant food, the subtleties of coconut milk and oil in south India and the mustard seed oil in Kolkata. It is a dazzling country with an exquisite range of food.”
Leaving behind treacle tart, Irish potato cakes, Lancashire hot-pot and pigeon pie, he is game anytime to sample Asian cuisine. “In all my travels, and I have been almost everywhere, I was passionately inspired by the various preparations of Asia, in this I have to include India as well as Thailand and Vietnam, for the flavours and diversity. I do, however, have a love for Mediterranean cuisine… When I visited India, I loved the fact that there were so many varieties of vegetable dishes, but no one was referred to as vegetarians. It was just part of the huge choice of superb dishes. But if you are going to be extravagant and stupid and fill yourself with meat, you are a fool. Eating must always consist of a balanced diet.”
Cookery to him is the “result of religion, geography and war. The spice wars influenced the gastronomic landscape of our current day life. I had the most magnificent journey throughout India four or five years ago when I filmed a television series. The experience opened my eyes to the dazzling diversity of Indian cuisine, whether it was a smart restaurant or a street hawker, I just enjoyed it all.”
And what does he have to say about wine? After all, when BBC first aired him to Indian audiences, the glass was his good friend! “In European cuisine, wine has a particular place in its cold climate to simmer stews. Wine in India and Asia is totally inappropriate. Chillies, ginger, cumin, star anise, garlic and beautiful little red shallots give the excitement to Asian dishes. It is more appropriate to drink salted lassi, sweet lassi, spiced lassi or freshly squeezed lime juice than it is to drink wine. It is a geographical thing.”
Floyd’s first show on television was called Floyd on Fish and it was about cooking fish, catching fish, explaining how men worked hard to catch them. Ever prepared with an exotic recipe, saucepan and warm smile, Floyd is ready to take on a new challenge. “At present I have just written three books, and from April I will be concentrating on my award-winning one man show, which is a countrywide tour of theatres in the UK,” he concludes without divulging much about the show.