Loyd steps up to the plate
7:00am Saturday 19th July 2008
EIGHTEEN years after Masterchef began, Loyd Grossman is back this month with his new BBC food series, Step Up To The Plate. As amateur chefs and professionals gear up to battle it out, he explains why he was at the right place at the right time when his career began.
By Sarah O'Meara
DRAWLING American presenter, Loyd Grossman, seems to have mystical qualities. Since moving from Boston in the US to London in 1975, he has presented two of Britain's most enduring television formats, reality food programme Masterchef and celebrity spy show Through The Keyhole.
Both still on air, the shows have clocked up 36 broadcast years between them and Loyd is still confident he knows what people want in the future.
"I do think I have a good sense of where things are going in terms of people's tastes," he says, adding with a laugh, "but I'm keeping quiet about what I think the next trends will be."
The celebrated presenter and chef is as commercially canny as he is prophetic. When Loyd began presenting Masterchef in 1990, the nation's tastes were, quite literally, changing. As the age of popular reality television dawned so did the British people's desire to unplug their brand new microwaves, throw away the fondue set and stock their cupboards with real ingredients. And we as a nation discovered the sun-dried tomato, Loyd was there, showing us that the British really did know how to cook.
"It was the first of the food shows which aimed also to be entertaining," he explains. "But the BBC were never really sure whether they actually wanted people to watch Masterchef. To begin with, they put us up against Coronation Street, which was almost like getting a death sentence. Even though it got huge ratings, every year it hung on by a thread."
In the face of fierce opposition Loyd somehow managed to cogitate, digest and deliberate his way through 10 years of competitive, amateur cooking. He also rejects the idea that because the show was popular, it couldn't be serious.
"All the great chefs in Britain were on Masterchef from Raymond Blanc and Rick Stein to the Roux Brothers on the show," he says with exasperation. "But it was aimed at making people who were not self-proclaimed foodies interested in food. Then we did Junior Masterchef and the BBC absolutely hated it. One of the executives famously said to me, 'We don't want a family audience'."
Eighteen years later, Loyd's career has gone full circle. In his new show Step Up To The Plate, amateur and professional chefs such as Aldo Zilli go head to head. And he says that this time the BBC are being a little more supportive.
"Judging by what we've filmed so far, it's going to be hard to tell the difference between what the amateurs produce and what the professionals cook - which will be great for the show.
"I think the quality of cooking on the show says a lot about how knowledgeable we have become as a nation about food and how cooking and eating is now very firmly established as one of our major national pastimes."
When Loyd came to London as a student in the mid-70s, he says there was only a handful of good restaurants. Landing a job writing for high-profile magazine Harpers and Queen, the young journalist admits to being in the right place at the right time.
"When I started in 1980 there were only three restaurant critics in the country - at Harpers, at Vogue and Fay Maschler. It was a very good period to be writing about food because things were stirring. Up until then restaurants had been very staid and formal and with the opening of new places like Langham's in Mayfair, suddenly the idea of a restaurant as a big social event captured people's imagination."
Grossman says that working for 'the world's super trendy glossy magazine' meant that TV producers were interested in his skills. By 1983 he was presenting Through The Keyhole and a few years later along came Masterchef.
But although he has become one of Britain's foremost culinary authorities with his own line of food products, Grossman admits that he didn't learn to cook until he was 30.
"My parents weren't cooks but we went to lots of great restaurants. I only started to learn how to cook because I wanted to know more about food. The first thing I learned to make was a tomato sauce, using what now seems like a very complicated recipe from an American cook book and had lots of slightly odd ingredients in it."
Grossman has always had an attachment to Italian cuisine and since moving to Europe has spent many happy holidays touring the country.
"When I started spending more time there, I realised you couldn't go to Italy if you weren't as interested in food as you were with architecture and art. It's just part of the culture."
With the help of his Italian development chef Anthony Warner, he's enjoyed making his own-brand Italian sauces. But once again, Loyd was way ahead of his time.
"When we started developing my range of food I didn't know anything about the food business," he says with a laugh. "I thought I would make something at home and then we would figure out how to make it on a large scale.
"But apparently that's not how it's done. I soon discovered that a lot of sauces are made with water and modified starches. I wanted to use ingredients you'd find in your cupboard and not have people reading the side of the jars saying, 'What's this?'. These days my way of thinking is normal but 13 years ago things were very different."
LOYD'S TIPS FOR ITALIAN COOKING
Keep it simple
"Italian restaurants that try and be like grand French restaurants go wrong," Loyd says. "It's all about letting the ingredients speak for themselves and using assertive flavours. Most pasta sauces do not have more than six or seven ingredients. It's rustic, home cooking not haute cuisine."
Organisation
"It's all about organisation," Loyd explains. "Because the timing flows from that. You can't just throw everything together. You've got to be able to think a certain way."
Ingredients
"Because you can't disguise anything, the better the ingredients the better result you're going to have," says Loyd. "The hardest thing for people is getting good quality olive oil. Unfortunately it's a case of you get what you pay for. There's no question that spending another 30 pence on pasta will also make a world of difference."
TOMATO AND BASIL SAUCE WITH MOZZARELLA AND AUBERGINE
(Serves 2)
Ingredients:
1 small jar of Loyd Grossman Tomato and Basil Sauce
1 aubergine
1 whole mozzarella cheese (1 tub)
1 punnet of cherry tomatoes
200g penne pasta
Extra virgin olive oil
Black pepper
Cook the pasta until al dente (cooked without being soggy).
Slice off the outside skin of the aubergine all the way around, cutting down from top to bottom on all four sides about a quarter of an inch deep, then slice the skins into thin batons widthways. Cover the bottom of a non-stick pan with olive oil and when hot, shallow fry the aubergine batons until the pulp is soft and the skin begins to crisp.
Stir in a jar of Loyd Grossman Tomato and Basil Sauce and heat until piping hot.
Dice the mozzarella and wash and halve the cherry tomatoes. Add both to your serving bowl with some torn fresh basil leaves, dress the mixture with extra virgin olive oil and black pepper.
When your pasta is cooked to taste, drain and toss into the pan with the sauce. When pasta is fully coated add to the serving bowl and mix. Decorate with freshly torn basil leaves.
This pasta is served somewhere between tepid and piping hot - a typical summer dish.
Substituting a nice chilli oil for the olive oil when dressing the mozzarella and tomatoes would give a nice kick to the dish. For an even more heat you could replace the tomato and basil sauce with a Loyd Grossman Tomato and Chilli Sauce.
Some people may not be keen on aubergines, so chargrilled peppers would make a delicious alternative.
It would be perfect served with some chargrilled chicken strips or even a piece of grilled tuna steak to make a more substantial summer meal.
For something a bit more adventurous, you could try mixing in some chopped rocket leaves in with the tomato and mozzarella.