Posted on: 11 April 2007 |
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Here was Yeoh Siew Hoon’s chance. An opportunity to ask Keith Floyd the questions she’s always wanted to ask. Problem was, she had 1,000 questions and only one hit.
Brainwave. “Who’s your favourite other chef? And do you think chefs today are too prissy and too precious about what they do?”
Floyd – he calls himself Floyd because “Keith is such a naff name” – removes his jacket, takes a deep breath, grabs the mike, looks around at the audience, flashes his roguish grin … and declares, “I am a cook. I am not a chef, I am not a prat. I believe in food and television in the UK is manipulating young wannabes to become personalities, not cooks.
“Having said that, I salute Jamie Oliver for improving school dinners, Rick Stein for what he does with fish, Gary Rhodes for showing what British cooking can be and (French celebrity chef) Jean-Christophe Novelli, even though he’s a frog.”
He said that it was very sad that young cooks were getting into the restaurant business not to be cooks but to get into some “X factor TV personality s…”.
I asked what he thought his X factor was. Quoting from the “best rock n’ roll novel ever written (according to website)” – “I Am Still The Greatest, says Johnny Angelo” – Floyd screams, “I’m good ‘cos I’m good.”
What does he think of durians, asked a Singapore man in the audience? “I’m disgusted at the news that this man in Thailand has taken the smell out of durians. I say, let the durian live.”
Asked what food or drink he would like to be remembered by, he challenged the Grand Hyatt. “If you’re a real hotel, after I knock off this gig, bring me caviar and vodka and I will die so very happy.”
He then talks about his heroes – “none of them are cooks, they are all musicians.”
Once in Sydney, he hears a knock on the door and (the late) George Harrison is at the door. “My god, I thought, I am talking to George Harrison. He asked me whether I had tried these vegetarian cakes. I wanted to talk rock n’ roll, not cooking.”
Why does he cook such large quantities? “Because I am a generous guy. I don’t cook for one, I cook for the world.”
What's your most memorable drink? “This one because it could be my last.”
The next time I meet Floyd, I will ask him if he ever wrote his life story, what would he call the book?
Pink Floyd? Or Pink (and Pickled) Floyd? Whatever the name, I know it will tickle me pink.