Season To Taste Television Cookery Progr

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Full and definitive version is

published in the special issue on Television and Seasonality (ed. Derek Johnston), Journal of Popular Television
5:1, pp. 11-29. Please cite from published version (not this one). 1
Season to taste: television cookery programmes, aesthetics and seasonality
Sarah Cardwell, University of Kent
Abstract
This article considers seasonality in relation to television and its more familiar context, food.
From the perspective of television aesthetics, moving beyond dominant evaluative
conceptions of ‘aesthetics’ often found in studies of TV cookery shows, it argues that
selected recent cookery programmes warrant and reward aesthetic attention. Specifically,
considering examples fronted by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Nigel Slater, this article
contends that such shows evoke ‘seasonality’ in myriad ways and by varied means, many of
which fall under the realm of the aesthetic. These programmes do more than offer cookery
instruction or educate the viewer with regards to when particular foods are in and out of
season. They stand as legitimate works of TV art which contribute to an aesthetic
appreciation of changing seasons. They contribute to the perpetuation of cultural seasonality,
offer vital and powerful reminders of our natural-world seasonality, and encourage the
audience to celebrate both.
Keywords
television aesthetics; seasonality; cookery programmes; food television; aesthetic attitude;
appreciation; evaluation
‘Seasonality’ is a concept more familiarly associated with food than with television. It is
therefore unsurprising to find allusions to seasonality in cookery programmes, primarily in
terms of ingredient choices but also, more broadly, via stylistic and temporal attributes. A
Please note: this is the final, submitted author’s copy, pre-proof and typesetting. Full and definitive version is
number of recent cookery programmes have noticeably heightened and deepened their
responsiveness to seasonality, proffering appealing and engaging evocations of the changing
seasons. In doing so, of course, they engage with a wider socio-politico-cultural context that
determines contemporary culinary, cultural and social trends, such as increased attention to
ethical food consumption (which promotes awareness of provenance, including seasonality).
Indeed, another article might valuably explore the extensive interconnections between recent
cookery programmes and this particular contextual framework. This article will limit itself
merely to indicating some of those correspondences and opportunities for further exploration.
Instead, herein I take what might appear a rather unorthodox approach to these
programmes, rooted in television aesthetics, proposing that in some cases it is highly
appropriate to take up an aesthetic attitude (Cardwell 2015) towards, and offer an aesthetic
appreciation of, cookery programmes: some examples of the genre entreat us to consider
them as (among other things) potential artworks, whose evocations of seasonality satisfy an
aesthetic interest.
The approach of television aesthetics has been overtly defined and delineated by
various scholars since the 2000s1; it is worth briefly outlining what is implied for the
particular analysis undertaken here. ‘Television aesthetics’ is sometimes misunderstood as
being entirely synonymous with ‘close textual analysis’: attention to and elaboration of
details of the programme in question. Yet many approaches in TV studies successfully utilize
close textual analysis as a methodology which can support all kinds of conclusions. In these
cases, textual analysis is employed to pursue pre-determined questions and concerns, rather
than as a means by which the work might be appraised in its own terms. In contrast, the
taking up of an aesthetic attitude (Cardwell 2015) enables and encourages an appreciative,
focused and sustained engagement with the programme under scrutiny, in order to offer a
critical appreciation of the achievements of the programme as an artwork – a potential source

of joy, illumination and value. In pursuit of this, scholars of television aesthetics exhibit a
particular interest in stylistic qualities. They are generally unafraid of evaluative criticism as
it pertains to the individual work being examined. Finally, they embrace the term ‘aesthetics’,
by which is connoted more than simply ‘style’ or ‘appearance’. 2 This is in contrast with the
long-standing anxiety and scepticism exhibited towards this word within media and cultural
studies, and which we will see echoed in numerous existing accounts of cookery
programmes.
In the spirit of television aesthetics as briefly defined above, therefore, this article
explores two examples of recent cookery series neither in socio-political terms, nor in relation
to food culture or food ethics, but as potential artworks, focusing on their evocations of
seasonality. It attends in particular to aspects of style, does not shy away from appreciative
evaluation, and offers an alternative perspective on the term ‘aesthetics’ as applied to cookery
shows, arguing that existing usage needlessly restricts our perception of this genre and its
artistic achievements.
Cookery programmes as potential artworks
It must be acknowledged that the idea of cookery programmes as artworks or works for
aesthetic appreciation is exceptional. Television aestheticians have not as yet paid close
attention to the cookery genre,3 prioritizing dramatic fictions which are ‘more easily
identified as artworks’ (Branco 2010: 5); conversely, scholars within mainstream TV studies,
influenced by cultural and media studies, have long embraced popular, non-fiction television
within their remit, noting its suitability for their brand of analysis. This article has no
objection to this instinctive, broad division of labour; it merely suggests that just as dramas
can be fruitfully examined within both traditions, so too can a range of other works be
considered aesthetically. Moreover, many current cookery programmes prominently

foreground stylistic and sensuous qualities, testing early characterizations of the genre as
above all informative and educative, and demanding more aesthetically aware critique.
Cookery programmes exist within a specific political, social and cultural framework,
but also within an artistic context. The seasons have inspired artists and poets throughout
history: why would they not also inspire works of television art, offering them for our
aesthetic appreciation? This article considers two specific instances of recent television
cookery series fronted, respectively, by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Nigel Slater,
selected by virtue of their considered and artistic portrayals of seasonality. It does not offer an
account of the figuration of seasonality within the genre as a whole. It is an unapologetic
appreciation of the peculiar achievements of two works that, whilst performing their
instructive and educative function and remaining firmly within the cookery show genre, also
attain a level of aesthetic sophistication in their own right; pertinently, this bounded but
distinct achievement relates particularly to their evocations of seasonality.
These programmes move beyond conventional generic tropes to elicit engagement
with the seasons as aesthetic experience. They raise viewers’ awareness of ‘seasonality’ in
myriad ways. Yes, they educate the viewer with regards to when particular foods are in and
out of season and they successfully communicate developments in food culture, including
food ethics. But they also work on an aesthetic level, negotiating the relationship between
what I will define as cultural and natural seasonality via individual and often innovative
means. To varying degrees, these programmes offer powerful aesthetic evocations which
perpetuate cultural seasonality, offer vital reminders of our natural-world seasonality, and
evoke sensuous and aesthetic pleasures that encourage us to engage with and celebrate both.
They utilize TV’s specificities and conventions to create new excitement around seasonality,
cookery and food.

Seasonality, food and culinary culture in Britain
Strictly speaking, ‘seasonality’ is defined as ‘the quality of being seasonal’, where seasonal
means ‘according to the seasons; available only in certain seasons’ (Chambers 1993). The
etymology of the word season bespeaks its inherent relation to nature and, specifically, to the
growing of food: the word derives, via Old French and Latin, originally from the Latin verb
‘serere’ – to sow. Unsurprisingly, therefore, seasonality is most often encountered with
reference to food and cookery. Seasonal food is that which is at its peak at the specified time;
mostly, though not always, this means the moment of its harvest. Generally, food that is in
season is at its freshest and cheapest. One could term this ‘natural seasonality’. Although our
grasp of natural seasonality may be culturally inflected, it nevertheless has a firm basis in
actuality, deriving from the rotational tilt of the Earth’s axis in relation to its orbital plane.
Today, we tend to use the word seasonal in a somewhat broader sense, incorporating
the separate notion of ‘seasonable’, which means ‘appropriate to the particular season;
timely’ (Chambers 1993). This ‘seasonability’ I shall designate herein as ‘cultural
seasonality’: the marking of changing seasons via customs, rituals and traditions particular to
a culture or community. Both kinds of seasonality (natural and cultural) are nationally
specific, and the latter especially is often regionally inflected. Mainstream broadcast
television tends, understandably, to address more often the national, rather than regional,
context. This article focuses on British examples.
Even in a country as uneasy about its national identity as Britain, cultural seasonality
endures as a determining constituent of the national culinary context. The cooking of certain
dishes and ingredients in accordance with shared festivities or the changing seasons is a
cultural practice accessible to all, allowing for variation and development, yet maintaining
long-standing customs. Many ‘Christmas’ foods, in particular, have endured for centuries,
even if they are ‘tweaked’ along the way, and the abundance of literary and televisual
material dedicated to Christmas perpetuates such traditions. In contrast, interest in natural
seasonality in Britain has ebbed and flowed over time; cookbooks, magazines and television
cookery shows offer indicative contemporaneous reflections of the somewhat tenuous,
mutable status of natural seasonality within popular culinary culture.
Our recurrent neglect of natural seasonality is, on the face of it, bemusing. British
seasons – the four demarcations of each annual cycle – are more marked than many in the
world. Before modern methods of food production, storage, preservation and transportation,
natural seasonality decisively determined the British diet and shaped home cookery. Dorothy
Hartley, in her thorough account of food in England, explores domestic cooking (and related
household practices) from King Canute to the nineteenth century: she notes that whilst
mediaeval cooks ‘did enjoy the enforced variety of the seasons!’ (1954: vi), many people’s
connection with and understanding of the land and food production was lost in the Industrial
Revolution. Nicola Humble (2005) explores the more recent development of cookbooks in
Britain, offering insight into contemporary culinary fashions, developments and concerns. In
her account of the last fifty years, one can trace the roots of current trends, such as the
interest, from the late 1960s into the 1970s, in self sufficiency, vegetarianism and food ethics
(especially in relation to meat production). It is striking that despite burgeoning support for
local and national foods, and curiosity about utilizing gluts and foraged foods, seasonality per
se is rarely mentioned.
Since the 1980s, the expansion of the global food market and changes in production
practices have meant we have a huge variety of foods available to us all year round.
Supermarkets call this profitable development ‘permanent global summer time’ (PGST). This
cornucopia militates against a previously vital awareness of natural seasonality, to the extent
that a survey in 2014 discovered that fewer than one in ten Britons could accurately state
when a range of common foods were in season (despite the vast majority averring that they
considered seasonality important, and that they shopped accordingly).4
However, since the early 2000s, in response to environmental, health, economic and
ethical concerns, there has been renewed emphasis upon green food politics and food ethics,
which have returned to popular attention both the provenance of food and its seasonality.
Newspapers, particularly broadsheets and the Sunday supplements; stylish, glossy new
cookbooks and reviews of said books; restaurateurs and food producers; farmers’ markets and
even some supermarkets have worked to raise awareness of the importance of caring about
where our food comes from. There is increased interest not only in organic food but also in
local and seasonal food, visible in the growth of farmer’s markets and veg boxes, which have
in turn spurred demand for recipes which use previously unpopular – now fashionable –
home-grown vegetables such as beetroot, chard and turnip. This counter-movement that
proselytizes for localism and seasonality originated in the upper-middle class sector of the
market, but can also be observed in broader, national campaigns such as ‘Love Food Hate
Waste’ and in helpful websites such as ‘Eat the seasons’ and the inaccurately named ‘Eat
Seasonably’.5
Scholarship focusing specifically on cookery shows in relation to seasonality is thin
on the ground. However, there is a wealth of scholarship concerned with food ethics and
ethical consumption, only a small proportion of which relates specifically to television (see
Hulme 2015), but much of which can be mined for our purposes. Tania Lewis and Emily
Potter’s authoritative collection on ethical consumption defines it as ‘a convenient catch-all
phrase for a range of tendencies within contemporary consumer culture today’ (2011: 24),
distinguishing ethical consumption from ‘political consumerism’ by its close links with
‘people’s ordinary domestic lives’ (2011: 6). The centrality of everyday, lived experience is
developed within Lewis and Potter’s collection by Wendy Parkins and Geoffrey Craig, in
their engaging account of ‘slow living and the temporalities of sustainable consumption’
(2011: 189–201). Whilst there is no sustained exploration of seasonality per se in these
accounts, nevertheless they offer insights into how it might be figured within contemporary
culinary culture (including cookery shows). First, an appreciation of seasonality goes hand in
hand with an awareness of temporal change, of the slow but insistent cycles of everyday life
across a year. As we shall see, the cookery programmes of Nigel Slater, despite the
constraints of their format, successfully evoke a lived experience of the everyday which is
sensitive to the rhythms and cycles of life (daily, weekly, seasonal, annual).
Second, and relatedly, such scholarship recognizes the rise of a more holistic
approach to food, cooking and eating, which when applied to seasonality goes beyond
choosing seasonal food for reasons of cost or environmental politics and moves us closer to
the realm of the sensuous and the aesthetic. Christopher Trotter, in an online article
persuading readers to eat seasonally, argues that eating thus ‘enhances our sense of place and
participation’ and that in doing so ‘we are celebrating all of life itself’ (2013). Humble makes
an interesting point:
[Eating seasonably] is about eating foods at their best, but it also reflects a spirit of
self-restraint, a sense that things are more pleasurable if enjoyed only occasionally,
that it is somehow more right to eat asparagus only in May and June and swedes only
in the winter. (2005: 255)
In these terms, seasonal food offers up a fascinating and varied set of pleasures: not only the
satisfaction of eating food at its freshest, cheapest and tastiest; not only the assurance that we
are supporting sustainable, ethical, environmentally friendly practices; but also subtler,
enduring pleasures, such as balancing abstention with indulgence as a route to greater

appreciation, and embracing our connection to the natural world and its seasons via the food
we prepare and eat.
This powerful strand of contemporary food culture thus appeals to all our senses. Eat
seasonally, we are entreated, and you will derive greater, deeper pleasure from your food, and
gain fuller sensuous and aesthetic appreciation for the living world around you, and its
seasons. As we shall see, recent television cookery programmes offer us a purview of those
potential pleasures which are ‘aesthetic’ in the original sense: sensuous pleasures, of taste,
feel, sight, smell and sound. Moreover, they meld the seasonal with the seasonable to proffer
a broader appreciation of seasonality, beyond food and cooking. Unfortunately, dominant
strands in TV studies militate against a full aesthetic appreciation of these programmes’
achievements.
The problem of the ‘aesthetic’ in the analysis of TV cookery programmes
As suggested above, most studies of culinary culture tend, oddly, to ignore the existence of
television cookery programmes. Stephen Mennell (1995) takes a developmental approach to
the topic of eating and taste in England, yet despite consideration of the influence of
gastronomes, women’s magazines and cookbooks, he makes no mention of television.
Dedicated work on cookery programmes tends to be found instead mostly under the aegis of
cultural and media studies – an understandable locus, and one which has shaped the foci of
scholarship on the topic. There is extensive work on social concerns, representation and
ideology, especially in relation to gender (Matwick 2015), ethnicity and nationality (Strange
1998); on the role of celebrity chefs in shaping culinary culture (Brownlie et al. 2005); and on
the intricate crossover between cookbooks, TV programmes and other materials (Bonner
2009).
That is not to say that the realm of the aesthetic is entirely ignored. Niki Strange, for
example, in her renowned analysis of four types of cookery programmes – Cookery-
Educative (instructional), Personality, Tour-Educative (travelogue) and Raw-Educative (the
food’s journey) (1998: 301) – observes that programmes in the last category attend to the
origins of ingredients, and often emphasize ‘the sensual beauty of food and landscape’ (1998:
299). However, generally speaking, where attention is paid to ‘aesthetics’, it connotes only a
narrow understanding of the term, referring to close textual analysis employed as a
methodology to advance pre-determined concerns. Isabelle De Solier (2005), for example,
writing about TV cookery, purportedly addresses aesthetics, but only in the context of the
social, educative and cultural functions of the programmes. David Bell et al. (2015) utilize
some textual analysis to explore, via selected programmes, the genre of campaigning culinary
documentaries within the specified context of neo-liberalism.
Some scholars have attempted to foreground aesthetic concerns more particularly.
Anne Marit Waade and Ulla Angkjær Jørgensen (2010), in their study of the cookery shows
of Keith Floyd and The Hairy Bikers, state, in a curious mix of language drawn from
television aesthetics and media studies, that ‘our analytical approach is textual analysis and
aesthetics with a focus on how the viewer is staged and reflected in the specific media texts
and artworks’ (2010: 85). In the event, most of their essay straightforwardly examines textual
details, contrasting the chefs and their surroundings, with a brief consideration of camera
movement and shot size (2010: 89–94). They do not conceive of the programmes as artworks
– and indeed conclude by counter-posing ‘television or a work of art’ (2010: 98, emphasis
added).
Nevertheless, Waade and Jørgensen advance the study of the genre by writing
unapologetically about its emotional and sensuous pleasures and attempting to construe a
positive notion of ‘aesthetics’, which counters prevailing previous practice. Usage of the
word ‘aesthetics’ in accounts of cookery shows more often reflects the broadly sceptical, if
not antipathetic view of aesthetics within mainstream TV, media and cultural studies.
Specifically, the aesthetics of cookery programmes tend to be framed in terms derived from
Claude Lévi-Strauss’s observation that cooking marks the ‘transition between nature and
culture’ (between the raw and the cooked) (1970: 164),6 which has led to a preoccupation
with the ‘transformation’ of raw, plain ingredients into a polished, decorative, finished dish.
The further influence of continental philosophers Bourdieu and Foucault have profoundly
affected the dominant perception of ‘aesthetics’, how the term is employed and what it
signifies.
It is striking how often the term ‘aestheticisation’ crops up in studies of cookery
shows – a reflection of the popular understanding of aesthetics as ‘style’, rather than a sub-
field of philosophy. It is argued that cookbooks are ‘sites of aestheticised consumption’
(Brownlie et al. 2005: 7), and that ‘culinary television aestheticises food’, valorizing the end-
product – the ‘stylised dish’ (De Solier 2005: 467). This view is echoed in food studies.
Joanne Finkelstein’s fascinating analyses of food served in a local cafe, art gallery and
museum equates ‘aestheticization’ with the ‘stylizing’ of food, arguing that ‘presenting food
in accord with fashion bestows upon it a multiplicity of functions, making it seem a
plaything, an aesthetic object, a status symbol, entertainment and more’ (1999: 130). Food as
‘aesthetic object’ is altered, fussed over and separated from its natural state; there is no
suggestion that food ‘in the raw’ may have aesthetic qualities. Finkelstein concludes:
Food is about cultural performance; it is variously a narrative of class divisions,
gender differences, political correctness, taste and the display of symbolic status. And
in recent years, it has acquired a further dimension […] it has become an aesthetic
object and a performative practice in the canonical sense. (1999: 136)

In such existing accounts, ‘aesthetics’ is a synonym for appearance, ‘stylization’ or
spectacle, and ‘aestheticization’ is more often than not considered a detrimental process,
prettifying an essential part of life – food – abstracting it from its original content, and
offering it up for disinterested appreciation. This is cooking as ornamental work of art, the
triumph of form over function, prioritizing the individual over the social, private over public
sphere, the personal over the political (De Solier 2005: 474–75). Finally, via this undertaking,
cookery programmes endow their viewers with cultural capital, reinforcing hierarchies of
taste and social distinction (De Solier 2005: 470–71). No wonder these authors share an
uneasiness regarding food and aesthetics; ‘aesthetics’ thus conceived provokes an attitude
most often sceptical, distrustful and somewhat condescending.
Yet this depends upon a diminished notion of aesthetics far removed from that found
in analytic philosophy or television aesthetics. Indeed, within philosophical aesthetics,
increasing attention is being paid to food. Since the late 1990s, interest in everyday and
environmental aesthetics has flourished, with scholars arguing that sustained, appreciative
engagement in ordinary, routine experiences can be considered aesthetic (Light and Smith
2005; Irvin 2008). As part of this, some have insisted that tastes and smells can be included
within the aesthetic domain, available for aesthetic appreciation (see Sibley 2001; Brady
2012). By contrast, in some studies of TV cookery shows, an understanding of the proper
realm of the aesthetic has become so impoverished that any basic distinction between the
sensuous and the sensual all but vanishes, and the cookery show is unhelpfully caricatured in
terms of ‘gastroporn’. Initially a light-hearted, childish, popular term for stylized cuisine and
glossy, slick food shows, ‘gastroporn’ now acts as a further barrier to a coherent aesthetic
appreciation of food and cookery shows. As Krishnendu Ray, in his persuasive analysis of
food and aesthetics on American TV, argues: ‘to dismiss the visual, performative delight
people take in watching cooking as “porn” is, I think, narrow-minded and misguided’ (2007:
58). He sagely pinpoints the problem as rooted in a misunderstanding or – or mistrust – of
aesthetics: ‘Perhaps there is something about food, which is both so essential to life and still
unavailable to so many […] that makes any playfulness, any degree of aestheticization, open
to the charge of excess and moral decay’ (2007: 56–57). Ray’s work lends support to a more
open-minded, positive approach, arguing that we might judge TV cooking shows not only by
their recipes, but also by their ‘aesthetic potential’ (2007: 57): ‘We have to begin the
discussion by conceding an aesthetic dimension to food – beyond literal taste – and only then
can we decide whether what we see on TV is good, bad, or ugly’ (2007: 58).
In this spirit, let us consider how a growing interest in seasonality has begun to be
reflected in the aesthetic choices and development of some examples of the genre – and how
those examples in turn might enhance our aesthetic appreciation of the seasons.
The TV cookery programme and seasonality
Frances Bonner notes of television that ‘for what is so solidly a technological phenomenon,
the seasons might seem an unlikely influence, yet they do impact [on various genres]’ (2003:
40–41). Since their inception, cookery programmes have attempted in limited ways to exploit
the capacity of broadcast television contemporaneously to reflect the cycles of viewers’ real-
world time, including the seasons. British programmes have tended most often to correspond
with cultural seasonality, with Christmas being the highlight of the calendar. As early as
1925, a radio programme from Sheffield offered advice on how to prepare for Christmas
dinner, while a demonstration of Christmas dinner preparation was broadcast on television in
1946. Most Christmases still see a range of celebrity chef TV specials, some new and some
repeated from previous years.

Television cookery shows have also regularly, if less frequently, addressed the natural
cycle of the seasons. One early example is daytime programme Mainly for Women (1957–
1959) which incorporated a monthly item ‘The Season’s Best’, highlighting the flowers, fruit
and vegetables currently best value. However, early technological exigencies – in particular
the limitations of studio production – tended to militate against fuller representations of
natural seasonality. The cookery programme was historically separated from the natural
world: recorded in a studio, non-temporally specific, and conveniently available, therefore,
for broadcast and re-broadcast at any time of year. As television technology developed,
outside broadcast became more important to the genre, allowing an apparently closer
correspondence between the season of filming and that of screening.
A necessarily cursory glance at the work of two long-standing television cooks –
Delia Smith and Mary Berry, who both began their TV careers in the 1970s – exemplifies the
observations above. Both Smith and Berry offer reassuringly traditional cookery instruction,
presenting recipes that are easily reproducible by the domestic cook. With an eye on
commercial as well as pedagogic aims, these phenomenally successful cooks are
unembarrassed multi-platformers, typically complementing the release of a new cookbook
with a television show, and each responds thoughtfully to trends and developments in the
changing television landscape. Smith in particular has often shown enthusiasm for
seasonality, from her hosting of Family Fare (1973–1975), in which she presented recipes in
accordance with the changing seasons, to her famous Summer Collection (1993) and Winter
Collection (1995) published in Spring and Autumn, respectively, which were accompanied
by TV series. In the hibernal book, she expressed ‘a sense of magic in the changing Seasons.
For me this sense of change and the fact that nothing ever remains quite the same gives our
everyday life that joyful quality of anticipation’ (Smith 1995: 7).
The oft-repeated Delia’s Classic Christmas (2009) is an archetypal example of the

cookery show’s interest in cultural seasonality. Here, seasonality is less about exploring
ingredients that are in season, and more about using ingredients that are traditional to the
season. Such programmes place cookery instruction at their core, but also appeal to the
viewer’s recognition of certain high points in the traditional British calendar, and share in our
real-world celebrations. Of course, what is traditional is also likely seasonal, whether British
or foreign (e.g. root vegetables and imported oranges, respectively), but cultural and
communal seasonality is prioritized over natural seasonality.
Comparably, Mary Berry’s recent summertime series Mary Berry’s Absolute
Favourites (2015) and the springtime Mary Berry’s Easter Feasts (2016) focus on seasonal
entertaining (picnics, garden parties, afternoon teas). Berry cooks seasonally appropriate
food, using readily available ingredients, though the dominant emphasis is again on cultural
seasonality, as she reproduces dishes that are ‘traditional’ or nostalgic for childhood summer
holidays or Eastertime. The programmes expand their boundaries beyond interior shots,
adopting the trend for incorporating the outside world within the genre. Berry is filmed in her
garden, and visiting the beach and an allotment – and as the series was broadcast in summer,
these common seasonal experiences forge a connection with viewers’ own contemporaneous
reality, and allow a brief glimpse into the natural aestival world.7
There are still some cookery programmes – especially those with competitive
elements – which use a traditional studio setting, and which foreground gourmet food: the
heavily franchised MasterChef (1990–2001) and Celebrity MasterChef (2006–) are prime
examples. However, by the early 2000s, even well-known television chefs and restaurateurs
were beginning to move away from this model of cooking, and to talk afresh about
seasonality. Gary Rhodes, in his book Cookery Year: Spring into Summer, described a ‘new
experience’: ‘my mind was opened to a sense of seasonality I hadn’t consciously thought
about for a long time’; he argued that in restaurants, where the widest range of ingredients is
always available, ‘you can lose sight of the joys closer to home’ (2002: 9). In 2008, Gordon
Ramsay argued that restaurants should be fined for serving non-seasonal food (Anon. 2008),
and later that year Valentine Warner presented his book and TV series What to Eat Now
(2008–2009). The contemporary concerns outlined earlier have impacted noticeably on the
agendas of cookery and food programmes: they more often encourage us to regard our
cooking and eating in a more holistic way, exhort us to buy local, in-season produce when
possible, and propound a strong ethical perspective.
Natural seasonality and the campaigning cook (Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall)
Thus a number of recent television programmes have begun to explore the provenance of
food, interrogating its production, supply chains and marketing. 8 David Bell et al. (2015)
pinpoint the rise of ‘campaigning culinary documentaries’ such as Jamie’s School Dinners
(2005) and Hugh’s Chicken Run (2008). These programmes are not cookery programmes as
such, since they do not offer cookery instruction, but they do indicate the crossover between
food programmes and the wider sociocultural context. Jamie Oliver has targeted his
campaigning towards socio-political matters, addressing institutions, corporations and
government, and focusing primarily on public health issues. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, in
contrast, has tended to explore ethical consumption as defined above: the import of everyday
choices for the domestic cook, with regards to healthy eating and environmental
sustainability. With a long history as a ‘real food’ campaigner, via his many books and
television series he has advocated foraging in hedgerows and the cooking of road kill, and
championed self-sufficiency, food ethics (especially in meat and poultry production), a more
vegetable-based diet, thrifty home cooking and seasonality. His smallholding ‘River
Cottage’, initially founded in the pursuit of self-sufficiency, is now a large enterprise growing
and raising food to supply its on-site cookery school and restaurants across the south-west.
In 2003, Fearnley-Whittingstall directed his attention specifically to seasonality: ‘it is
time we embraced the seasons […] I believe passionately that those who shop and cook in
harmony with the seasons will get immeasurably more pleasure and satisfaction from their
food than those who don’t’. Condemning Nigella Lawson’s book and TV series Forever
Summer (2002) as ‘cynical and reckless’, he observes that ‘she might as well have called the
book Fuck Seasonality’. He decries the extremes of PGST, countering that ‘I think we have
one of the richest experiences of the seasons of any country on earth’. He is inspired by
seasons and the changing natural world.
Across 2008–2009, Fearnley-Whittingstall dedicated an entire year of television series
to seasonal growing, harvesting, cooking and eating: River Cottage All Seasons, comprising
‘Spring’, ‘Summer’s Here’, ‘Autumn’, and ‘Winter’s On The Way’. Each series was
broadcast at the appropriate time of year, giving the viewer a chance to appreciate the seasons
from the perspective of not only a cook but also a food producer. The programmes’
contemporaneity is part of their distinctive appeal: although the programme is not live, and
there are temporal gaps between filming, broadcast and viewing, Hugh repeatedly marks the
present moment, whether the time of year (‘It’s late May’) or the particular instant to be
savoured (‘That is the first spud of Spring for me’).
The summer-broadcast series shares with Mary Berry’s Absolute Favourites a
celebration of the season and its food, with traditional seasonal events (a summer barbecue,
the harvesting of garden vegetables and fruit, etc.). But through a dramatic abbreviation of
the journey from garden/field to plate, and the transition from raw to cooked, natural
seasonality is foregrounded: every dish has at its centre an ingredient picked only minutes
previously (or recently killed). Moreover, the programme’s aesthetics differ markedly from
Berry’s. Outdoor settings are actively incorporated to a degree that noticeably surpasses
routine examples of the genre, for the natural world is of course the most powerful and
familiar marker of seasonality. There are long shots of River Cottage – an idyllic rural
dwelling fronted by a traditional country cottage garden – and lingering, seductive shots of
maturing vegetables and fruits.
Lyn Thomas observes that ‘the pleasures of the programmes seem to be visual rather
than narrative: there are close-ups of flowers, pastoral views, and interiors with wood-burning
stoves, log fires, and heritage sinks, pots and pans and paintwork’ (2008: 690). As she
suggests, interior shots reflect contemporary design trends, especially that for ‘modern
rustic’: a pared-down, artisan-inspired, lived-in look which celebrates the utilitarian beauty to
be found in rural working life.
But the dominant aesthetic is plainer, muddier and messier than Thomas implies, in
keeping with the realities of food production. In River Cottage Spring (2008) an untidy
wasteland converted by a group of novice smallholders into useable growing land remains
surrounded by scrubby brambles and discarded junk: there is no ‘before and after’
transformative aesthetic offering us bucolic perfection, but merely the satisfying reality of
seeing soiled vegetables pulled from the ground and happy pigs rolling in mud, alongside
straggly, newly liberated ex-battery chickens. Scenes of livestock slaughter deliver an honest
brutality not usually found in cookery programmes. In eschewing prettiness and
decorativeness, River Cottage All Seasons offers a thoughtful, intimate perspective on natural
seasonality, deepening our appreciation of the changing natural world and our reliance upon
it.
These bold aesthetic choices are careful and considered. They form part of an
overarching rejection of many of the typical tropes of the cookery show, including the
transformative aesthetic and valorization of the finished dish, in pursuit of its celebration of
the seasonal, the raw, the uncooked. Every detail contributes to the programme’s homage to
the rustic and the ‘natural’: simple food is prepared at a dinted, scrubbed oak table, centred in
a disarmingly ascetic room which bears closer resemblance to a bare scullery than a modern,
fitted kitchen. Dishes are served in slightly battered enamel or ceramic bowls, and are
sampled by the cook as he perches on a stone windowsill or a weathered outdoor bench next
to the vegetable patch, which supplied his ingredients. Unpretentious, rough-and-ready, spare
(yet simultaneously deeply fashionable and aspirational), these details encapsulate visually
the ideas of self-restraint and abstention which act as necessary counterfoil to the idea of
simple, fresh seasonal food as an indulgence – a celebration of life.
River Cottage All Seasons entreats us to cook seasonally not only through verbal
persuasion, but also by seducing us visually with images that persuade us of the value – and
the pleasure – of growing, cooking and eating in a way that is more in tune with the natural
cycle of British seasons. Seasonality here is not simply ‘food that is in season’. It takes on
ethical and aesthetic dimensions that constitute part of the pleasure of cooking and eating,
fulfilling Fearnley-Whittingstall’s aim to remind us ‘what seasonality looks, smells and tastes
like’ (River Cottage Spring). The cookery programmes of Nigel Slater extend these sensory
qualities to evoke how seasonality might feel, integrating cultural and natural seasonality, and
expressing the vitality of cooking which attends to the particular, present moment.
Sensing seasonality and the instinctive cook (Nigel Slater)
If River Cottage offers us a rural vision of the seasons, Nigel Slater’s work celebrates a
defiantly urban experience of seasonal appreciation. Slater’s programmes are, in a loose
sense, adaptations of his extraordinary ‘cookbooks’, which are actually deeply personal,
reflective accounts of his intense fascination with food, cooking and eating. Whilst Slater is
not a campaigning cook like Fearnley-Whittingstall, his work is driven by a lifelong passion:
a desire to persuade us of the virtue, sense and, above all, pleasure to be had in engaging
fully with food – which includes appreciating what is available, savouring it, and making the
most of every last piece of it. Seasonality is integral to his philosophy. Slater does not lecture
us on buying home-grown, seasonal food or set out environmental or political arguments. He
manifests a more sensuous, instinctive, ‘felt’ seasonality which respects and integrates
cultural and natural seasons within a broader rationale: that cooking should arise instinctively
and intuitively from the particular moment. Slater’s dishes are appreciative encapsulations –
celebratory observances – of each moment, and of the rhythms of everyday life, including its
specific seasonality.
As Susan Leonardi observes, even in the most straightforward cases, recipes are ‘not
simply a […] list of ingredients and the directions for assembling them’ (1989: 340). Twenty-
first-century cookbooks are often stunning works of pictorial beauty, with luscious
photography that exploits contemporary food and design trends, designed to be admired and
appreciated. Slater’s books are no exception, but in addition they are unique literary works,
containing threads of autobiography and personal reflection, and often taking diary or
epistolary form. Kitchen Diaries I and II (2005, 2012) and Tender I and II (2009, 2010) are
essentially narratives of the changing seasons – the former overtly so, the latter indirectly:
although Tender is organized by ingredient, each section contains a detailed description of
growing, harvesting and cooking the ingredient in question. As both gardener and cook,
Slater is necessarily keenly aware of seasonality; for him, ‘growing, cooking and eating great
food’ go hand in hand (Simple Suppers 2, 2010), and he cannot ignore the cycle of growth
and decay in the natural world, manifested via his garden and allotment. His writing conveys
a profound personal connection with seasonality: his feelings about the time of year,
enjoyment of the changing weather, fluctuating appetite and interests often take up more
words than the recipe being presented.
Slater tends to resist tying in his books with his TV series, although their appearances
may coincide, and some recipes appear across both. He has yet to present a full ‘year’ of
cooking on television; for pragmatic reasons, he is generally limited to season-specific
content, rather than looking at changing seasons. Nevertheless, the televisual works manage
successfully to recreate the aesthetic and sensuous qualities of his books, creating a similarly
rich, subtle engagement with seasonality.
The two series of Simple Suppers (2009–2010), set in summer, integrate cookery with
a narrative on the growing of vegetables, incorporating each week allotment visits during
which Slater explores what is coming into season, ripe and ready, or just past its best. 9 On
occasion, he cooks there and then, outdoors, over a temporary stove, the fruits of the
allotment-holders’ labours. Moving beyond familiar cultural seasonality (the summertime
tradition of the barbecue, for which food is usually bought or pre-prepared), here food
sourced only minutes previously is enjoyed within half an hour of picking or digging up.
Natural seasonality is embraced in the simplest way.
Both series of Simple Suppers offer repeated reminders of the natural sources of our
ingredients and their limited seasonal availability. Indeed, the constant presence of the natural
world in Slater’s programmes is striking, especially when compared with early, studio-based
cookery shows. Even when Slater cooks indoors, his kitchens boast huge glass doors, opening
onto adjoining gardens, maintaining a link with outside space through rain and shine. And
unlike Fearnley-Whittingstall’s rather stark cooking space, here herbs in pots, flowers in jars,
and even wildlife (bees, butterflies and the occasional cat) cross the threshold and bring the
outside in. An allium filmed moving in the wind in the garden can be seen later in the same
episode, cut and displayed in a glass bottle at the table; a bee continues to enjoy its bounty.
The interior remains insistently connected with the natural world and its seasonal riches.
For most of Simple Suppers, it is obviously midsummer, and Slater embraces the
season. He frequently eats, prepares and cooks food outside, enjoying early morning sunshine
and light summer evenings, often picking his main ingredient from the garden before carrying
it to the kitchen to prepare a dish from it. Yet his programmes move beyond cookery to evoke
the season more wholly. There are many exterior shots which are entirely superfluous to
cooking instruction and offer essentially aesthetic and sensual pleasures to the viewer, paying
homage to the textural richness of Slater’s books. Slater sits in his garden to read and to
write; he wanders, picking lettuce, herbs, chard and pea shoots for later; he greedily savours
tiny tomatoes and fresh peas popped from their pods. He speaks eloquently of the natural
world through the eyes of a gardener and home-grower, sharing not only the pleasures, but
also the pitfalls, such as the predators – snails, foxes and squirrels – who compete with him to
eat his produce. Extreme close-ups evocatively capture the details of summertime, and draw
our eye to the beauty of the everyday: a bee sucking nectar from a fragrant bloom, fresh
raindrops delicately adorning a leaf. Slater’s hand absent-mindedly traces a path across the
top of a box hedge in a small act of appreciation directed towards the natural world as it
changes through the seasons.
Though these series are short (six and eight episodes), each conveys a sense of time
passing and the attentive eye observes one season gradually transitioning into the next. In
Episode 1 of Simple Suppers 1 (2009), ‘New Tricks’, Slater takes advantage of some freshly
picked, new-season broad beans to create a simple, modern take on ‘beans on toast’, eaten in
the sunny back garden where the beans were grown; later, in Episode 4, ‘Too good to waste’,
he saves a large over-ripe marrow from the compost heap of a couple’s allotment and creates
a tasty vegetable medley there and then, cooking in the open air. As the three eat, the fading
light conveys the gradual movement towards shorter days and cooler temperatures, and the
surrounding allotments disclose that the summer growing season is coming to an end. Simple
Suppers 2 and Dish of the Day (2012) close similarly, winding up the summer season with
episodes entitled ‘Winter Warmers’ and ‘Comfort food’, respectively. Slater explains ‘I find
that my appetite is affected by season’ (Simple Suppers 1) – but importantly, this

seasonability is complemented by equal attention to natural seasonality, as he speaks
excitedly about his planting plans for next year.
At the autumnal close of Simple Suppers 2 and Dish of the Day, Slater reminds us to
tune in for his upcoming festive programmes: Christmas Suppers and New Year Suppers
(2010) and Nigel Slater’s Twelve Tastes of Christmas (2012), respectively. In these oft-
repeated specials, cultural seasonality perhaps unsurprisingly supersedes natural seasonality
as he proffers new variations on ‘traditional’ British yuletide fare. However, even here Slater
does not limit himself to the high days and holidays that dictate the focus of cultural
seasonality. Christmas and New Year Suppers between them cover the entire Christmas
season, through advent, Christmas Day, Boxing Day to New Year’s Day. It gives Slater the
opportunity to indulge in his favourite kind of cooking: making something special out of
leftovers – the unpromising bits and pieces remaining from the feasting. Slater’s use of these
scraps is famous: in 2011, comparing the Christmas cookery shows available over the season,
Stuart Heritage writes:
Rick will tell us how they eat Christmas dinner in Spain, Nigella will plunge her
turkey into a dustbin before she cooks it, Gordon will cook his dinner live during a
four-hour Christmas Day special and Nigel will probably just cobble something
together from bits he’s found at the back of his fridge. (2011)
Slater also embraces the ‘down’ days, those quiet, uneventful periods, which follow the
revelry and exuberance of Christmas, relishing the frugality and resourcefulness of cooking
something up from nothing. In New Year Suppers, he sits in a snowy field, clasping mittened
hands around a cup of homemade soup from a vacuum flask. Such moments convey a fuller
appreciation of the entire hibernal season, which is not reducible simply to the culturally
marked ‘big’ days.
Slater’s innate sense of the seasonal cycle, of the natural passage of time and of the
particular moments of which it is constituted, is neatly echoed at a structural level within
Simple Suppers and Dish of the Day. Episodes are individually organized into a weekly cycle,
each one presenting recipes for a whole week. Crucially, these are not merely a collection of
seven different recipes. Slater cooks double and saves leftovers, so that later in the week he
can return to those scraps and incorporate them into new dishes. Seasonability – the feeling
that something is timely or appropriate to that moment – is refigured at a weekly level; the
week takes on a distinct, overarching rhythm recognizable to the viewer: Monday
incorporates the left-over chicken from Sunday’s roast, whilst the ‘Tidy Friday Pan Fry’ uses
up the week’s leftovers in a hearty, comforting end-of-week supper. There is equal emphasis
on using what is seasonally available and cooking by instinct, with respect to how the cook
feels in a particular moment.
Slater’s work, both written and televisual, is shaped by distinct structures of feeling
and aesthetics: a commitment to remain responsive to the moment, and a desire to seek out
and embrace beauty. The former requires flexibility, improvisation and spontaneity. Slater
describes his cooking style as instinctive and impulsive (Dish of the Day): his decision to
make some lamb burgers is explained by the rationale that ‘I know today I want burgers’;
they are still sizzling in the pan as he tries them out. He will frequently insist that he has
never made a particular dish before, and even halfway through cooking, that he is not sure
what the finished dish will be. Inspiration comes often from desire for a particular taste or
texture (salty, sweet, rich, sharp, soft, crunchy), before secondary ingredients are chosen to fit
the bill – a defiantly sensuous approach to cooking. The main ingredient, though, is most
often seasonally inspired: something perfectly ripe or appropriate spotted in the garden,
greengrocers or local specialist food shop (we never see Nigel embracing PGST in a
supermarket). The overriding tone of Slater’s programmes is one of mindfulness, reflection
and focused appreciation. Whilst Fearnley-Whittingstall deals energetically and effortfully
with the work demanded by running a smallholding, Slater browses the local shops,
ruminates over his vegetable patch, peeks into cupboards to see what is available, takes his
time – always emphasizing that these are special moments carved out of otherwise hectic
working days.10 He invites us to participate in similar, small acts of engagement in and
appreciation of the present moment.
Slater’s programmes also embrace beauty. There is an element of consumerist
aesthetics in the much-admired kitchens he inhabits, and the culinary items he uses (the
unusual, super-sized pestle and mortar seen in Simple Suppers sparked much frantic Internet
discussion, as viewers strove to discover where they might purchase one11). All his
programmes are screened by the BBC, and are meticulous about removing branding from
ingredients, but those in the know will still recognize his Le Creuset pots and Kitchenaid
Artisan mixer and might be inspired to attain these sought-after – and pricy – items for
themselves. But far more common and striking is the celebration of everyday aesthetics, the
simple and the familiar, from the informal, handwritten recipe notes, to the worn, mismatched
crockery on which meals are presented. ‘Treats’ are a piece of mackerel for supper, or a
juicy, perfectly ripe pear. Finished dishes, though temptingly presented, are not aesthetically
privileged over the raw materials which formed them: ingredients are lovingly filmed too,
from their home in ground or field, through preparation and cooking. A calyx, apparently
carelessly overlooked, left on a tomato in a cooked dish, resists the perfectionist
‘transformative aesthetic’ supposedly typical of the cookery show. And in place of the
polished, decorative aesthetics of over-stylized food, there are the sensory aesthetics of
seasonality: a dish of pork and apples conjures for Slater the image of pigs eating windfall
apples and ‘brings a bit of poetry to supper’ (Simple Suppers 1, Episode 4). Seasonality is
both provenance and poetry.
Appreciating seasonality
The seasons have long inspired artists in painting, poetry and other arts. Television has less
frequently engaged with seasonality – but recent cookery programmes have begun to do so in
greater depth. Their achievements could too easily be overlooked. Scholars have historically
been quick to caricature cookery programmes’ aesthetics according to classic accounts of
food and culture, which do not reflect modern examples. The cookery show ‘aesthetic’ is said
to privilege fussy presentation: scholars have averred that cookery programmes are about
transforming food into a state suitable for aesthetic appreciation, downplaying its natural,
rough and ready state. Whilst this is true of many older and studio-format shows,
programmes such as River Cottage, Simple Suppers and Dish of the Day integrate
conventional cookery instruction with overt interest in the growing and production of food.
They challenge the routine hierarchy of the cooked over the raw, valorizing the aesthetic
qualities of raw ingredients. They thereby affirm the inescapable connection between the
natural world and the social/cultural world. Central to that connection is seasonality.
Seasonality is the means by which we, in our social, cultural context, may connect
straightforwardly and pleasurably with the natural world. Seasonality always refers to the
natural context; a seasonal dish is never a ‘remote’ object of aesthetic appreciation. Recent
cookery programmes, such as those explored above, vividly disclose this truth. They
recognize that seasons are both ‘natural’ (observable in the natural world) and ‘cultural’
(focused around social events such as summer BBQs and tea parties, Christmas or Easter).
The increased presence of outdoor shots and scenes are key to their evocative aesthetic,
which invites us to savour not only the food of the season, but also the season itself and its
opportunities for growing, harvesting, socializing and holidaying.

While traditionally the cookery genre has prioritized cultural over natural seasonality,
some instances strike alternative balances. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage
moves beyond the cultural to reinforce the importance of natural seasonality, and discloses
the virtue and satisfaction of embracing its ‘enforced variety’. Nigel Slater’s work draws
natural and cultural seasonality – the seasonal and the seasonable – closer together, to offer a
rich, appreciative aesthetic and sensory engagement with the changing seasons. Furthermore,
these programmes, typically broadcast in the corresponding time of year, exploit television’s
capacity for contemporaneity, and offer images that are seasonally concurrent with the real
world and to which we can readily relate.
These programmes warrant and reward specific aesthetic attention by virtue of their
evocations of seasonality, broadly conceived as temporal relations to the natural and cultural
worlds, which they make possible via considered artistic (including stylistic and sensuous)
choices. An aesthetic perspective recognizes not only their visual and sensual pleasures, but
also the achievements of these works in proffering an alternative figuring of everyday life.
Whilst aspects of the rural idyll in River Cottage are unattainable for many viewers,12 there
are numerous elements of Slater’s metropolitan everyday which are widely accessible and
reproducible, especially those small, brief acts of appreciation for simple, seasonal pleasures
which encapsulate the possibilities of everyday aesthetics. Both programmes offer hopeful
ideals which can thus counter the prevailing neo-liberal narrative. As Kate Soper contends,
‘we need […] to register not only the spiritual deprivations but the more purely sensory
pleasures that consumerism denies us’ (2008: 578–79). Thomas further argues that
other ways of living and forms of pleasure can and must be developed. These other
pleasures might include slower and more peaceful lives, new relationships to time,
material goods and work, space for human connection and spirituality, and so on.
(2008: 681)
Such scholarship moves beyond the default critique of such programmes, pleasures and
concerns as irresolvably bourgeois, serving only to perpetuate divisive class distinctions, to
offer a more nuanced, hopeful and broad-minded perspective.13
It is not surprising that the most successful of these programmes are home-grown,
tallying with the British context of their primary viewers. They perpetuate cultural
seasonality, whilst offering vital and powerful reminders of our natural-world seasonality,
important especially to urban viewers whose awareness of natural seasonal progression is
often limited to observing weather changes. They thus offer to the native viewer a model of
sensory and aesthetic appreciation of seasonality which merges the seasonal with the
seasonable, and which is firmly rooted in and attentive to the everyday. It is a seasonality in
which all can participate and in which all can find pleasure.
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Television programmes
Celebrity MasterChef (2006–, UK: BBC).
Christmas Suppers (2010, UK: BBC).
Delia’s Classic Christmas (2009, UK: BBC).
Dish of the Day (2012, UK: BBC).
Family Fare (1973–1975, UK: BBC).
Food Unwrapped (2002–, UK: Channel 4).
Forever Summer (2002, UK: Channel 4).
Hugh’s Chicken Run (2008, UK: Channel 4).
Jamie at Home (2007–2008, UK: Channel 4).
Jamie’s School Dinners (2005–, UK: Channel Four).
Mainly for Women (1957–1959, UK: BBC).
Mary Berry’s Absolute Favourites (2015, UK: BBC).
Mary Berry’s Easter Feast (2016, UK: BBC).
MasterChef (1990–2001, UK: BBC).
New Year Suppers (2010, UK: BBC).
River Cottage: Spring (2008, UK: Channel 4).
River Cottage: Autumn (2008, UK: Channel 4).
River Cottage: Winter’s on the Way (2009, UK: Channel 4).
River Cottage: Summer’s Here (2009, UK Channel 4).
Simple Suppers (2009–2010, UK: BBC).
The Twelve Tastes of Christmas (2012, UK: BBC).

What to Eat Now (2008–2009, UK: BBC).
Contributor details
Sarah Cardwell is Honorary Fellow in the School of Arts, University of Kent. She is the
author of Adaptation Revisited (MUP, 2002) and Andrew Davies (MUP, 2005), as well as
numerous articles and papers on film and television aesthetics, literary adaptation,
contemporary British literature, and British cinema and television. She is a founding co-editor
of ‘The Television Series’ (MUP), Book Reviews editor for CST, and on the advisory board
for the new series ‘Adaptation and Visual Culture’ (Palgrave Macmillan).
Contact:
School of Arts, Jarman Building, University of Kent, Canterbury, CT2 7UG, UK.
E-mail: s.cardwell@kent.ac.uk
Notes
1
For an introductory overview, see Cardwell (2006).
2
Television aesthetics also addresses broader conceptual questions arising via the exploration
of TV from the perspective of analytic (Anglo-American) philosophical aesthetics.

3
See Cardwell (2012) for one example.
4
A survey of 2000 people was carried out by BBC Good Food Magazine in 2014.
5
See www.lovefoodhatewaste.com, www.eattheseasons.co.uk and www.eatseasonably.co.uk.
6
Ashley et al. (2004) and Brownlie et al. (2005) proffer accounts overtly shaped by Lévi-
Strauss’s characterization of cooking.

7
There are other traditional cookery programmes that, although not marked as seasonal,
nevertheless strongly imply seasonality: Jamie Oliver’s Jamie at Home (2007–2008) offered
fourteen episodes of summer recipes, followed by twelve of winter recipes, demarcated into
two series.
8
See for instance Food Unwrapped (2012–).
9
As with Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage, there is a campaigning element here: the
programme supports the BBC’s ‘Dig In’ campaign, promoting home-growing of produce.
10
I am indebted to Derek Johnston for this observation.
11
It was eventually revealed to be a one-off piece created by sculptor Julian Sainsbury, now
available to buy from Julian Jones at £120.

12
Though Thomas (2008), writing about downshifting narratives on TV, observes that this
lifestyle is not dependent upon high income or excessive consumption.

13
A similar movement towards greater balance and nuance can be detected in recent
investigations into ethical consumption, socio-political context and class privilege. See for
instance Johnston et al.’s (2011) empirical exploration of ethical eating in different
communities; Johnston and Baumann’s (2010) exploration of democracy, distinction and
moral ambiguities in the gourmet foodscape; and Soper’s (2008) thorough assessment of
reactions against consumer culture, alternative hedonism and aesthetic revisioning.

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Season to taste: television cookery programmes, aesthetics and seasonality

Sarah Cardwell, University of Kent

From the perspective of television aesthetics, moving beyond dominant evaluative

conceptions of ‘aesthetics’ often found in studies of TV cookery shows, it argues that

season. They stand as legitimate works of TV art which contribute to an aesthetic

appreciation of changing seasons. They contribute to the perpetuation of cultural seasonality,

audience to celebrate both.

television aesthetics; seasonality; cookery programmes; food television; aesthetic attitude;

therefore unsurprising to find allusions to seasonality in cookery programmes, primarily in

responsiveness to seasonality, proffering appealing and engaging evocations of the changing

ethical food consumption (which promotes awareness of provenance, including seasonality).

programmes, rooted in television aesthetics, proposing that in some cases it is highly

particular analysis undertaken here. ‘Television aesthetics’ is sometimes misunderstood as

taking up of an aesthetic attitude (Cardwell 2015) enables and encourages an appreciative,

critical appreciation of the achievements of the programme as an artwork – a potential source

Cookery programmes as potential artworks

considered aesthetically. Moreover, many current cookery programmes prominently

cookery series fronted, respectively, by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Nigel Slater,

account of the figuration of seasonality within the genre as a whole. It is an unapologetic

distinct achievement relates particularly to their evocations of seasonality.

These programmes move beyond conventional generic tropes to elicit engagement

cookery and food.

Seasonality, food and culinary culture in Britain

‘serere’ – to sow. Unsurprisingly, therefore, seasonality is most often encountered with

timely’ (Chambers 1993). This ‘seasonability’ I shall designate herein as ‘cultural

context. This article focuses on British examples.

material dedicated to Christmas perpetuates such traditions. In contrast, interest in natural

cookery shows offer indicative contemporaneous reflections of the somewhat tenuous,

mutable status of natural seasonality within popular culinary culture.

considered seasonality important, and that they shopped accordingly).4

Scholarship focusing specifically on cookery shows in relation to seasonality is thin

Potter’s authoritative collection on ethical consumption defines it as ‘a convenient catch-all

(2011: 189–201). Whilst there is no sustained exploration of seasonality per se in these

in the winter. (2005: 255)

enduring pleasures, such as balancing abstention with indulgence as a route to greater

we prepare and eat.

a broader appreciation of seasonality, beyond food and cooking. Unfortunately, dominant

strands in TV studies militate against a full aesthetic appreciation of these programmes’

The problem of the ‘aesthetic’ in the analysis of TV cookery programmes

television cookery programmes. Stephen Mennell (1995) takes a developmental approach to

gastronomes, women’s magazines and cookbooks, he makes no mention of television.

example, in her renowned analysis of four types of cookery programmes – Cookery-

Educative (instructional), Personality, Tour-Educative (travelogue) and Raw-Educative (the

narrow understanding of the term, referring to close textual analysis employed as a

methodology to advance pre-determined concerns. Isabelle De Solier (2005), for example,

documentaries within the specified context of neo-liberalism.

Some scholars have attempted to foreground aesthetic concerns more particularly.

It is striking how often the term ‘aestheticisation’ crops up in studies of cookery

field of philosophy. It is argued that cookbooks are ‘sites of aestheticised consumption’

in accord with fashion bestows upon it a multiplicity of functions, making it seem a

Food is about cultural performance; it is variously a narrative of class divisions,

object and a performative practice in the canonical sense. (1999: 136)

In such existing accounts, ‘aesthetics’ is a synonym for appearance, ‘stylization’ or

most often sceptical, distrustful and somewhat condescending.

in analytic philosophy or television aesthetics. Indeed, within philosophical aesthetics,

2012). By contrast, in some studies of TV cookery shows, an understanding of the proper

58). He sagely pinpoints the problem as rooted in a misunderstanding or – or mistrust – of

The TV cookery programme and seasonality

dinner, while a demonstration of Christmas dinner preparation was broadcast on television in

repeated from previous years.

the limitations of studio production – tended to militate against fuller representations of