Jeff Smith
You might not remember Jeff Smith by name, but you’ll certainly recognize him by his beard. Anyone who tuned in to PBS from 1988 to 1997 will probably recall a Santa Claus–like character in a black-and-white striped apron, peeling and chopping his way through an episode of his popular show The Frugal Gourmet.
The United Methodist minister’s culinary career started with a local cooking class in Tacoma, Wash. That led to a show on a local PBS affiliate, which eventually led to a national show on PBS. Smith favored international cuisine and filmed his shows straight through, without stopping to reshoot if he made a mistake. For a while, he had the most watched cooking show on television.
But that changed in 1997, when seven men sued the television chef, claiming to have been molested by him when they were children. Smith was never charged with a crime, but his show was canceled and he lived in the shadow of the scandal until his death in 2004.
Next: Delia Smith
Delia Smith
Delia Smith was the British equivalent of Rachael Ray, long before Ray made yummo a word. With no formal training as a chef, the former hairdresser learned various recipes by reading cookbooks at the British Museum and writing food columns, then pitched to the BBC her ideas about a TV show that taught cooking basics. The hugely successful Delia’s How to Cook ran from 1998 to 2004. Over that period, she became a first-name-only brand among her dedicated viewers, not unlike Oprah, and also shares the Winfrey-esque quality of being able to make a particular ingredient sell out just by using it on TV. When it was reported that Smith was giving up cooking and recipe-writing to focus on football — she and her husband are majority shareholders in the Norwich City Football Club — the news was met with a public outcry. Fortunately for her fans, she was never able to completely give up; Smith started a new show in 2008 called How to Cheat,explaining useful shortcuts in the kitchen.
Next: Rachael Ray
