Saturday Kitchen is a 90 minute cookery programme broadcast which is broadcast live on BBC One on Saturday mornings. It is currently presented by James Martin; previous presenters have included Antony Worrall Thompson and Gregg Wallace. The programme is currently produced by Cactus TV (perhaps best known for the Richard & Judy show on Channel 4). The programme is also shown on RTÉ One in Ireland on saturday mornings, the episodes shown are several months old.

Beginnings

The first programmes, starting in January 2002 and shown on BBC Two, were presented by a then relatively-unknown Gregg Wallace with a different celebrity chef each week. As a BBC production for the Open University, the programme had an educational remit and a relatively low budget, showing clips of the likes of Keith Floyd and Rick Stein from the BBC archives to fill time.

2003-2006 - the Worrall Thompson era

The first series with Gregg Wallace had been deemed a success, and Saturday Kitchen was relaunched as a major BBC brand. Wallace, at the time relatively unknown, was replaced with an established celebrity chef, Antony Worrall Thompson, helming the show. The format was revamped and, in a bid to secure higher ratings, the programme was switched from BBC Two to BBC One, which had traditionally shown children's programmes in this slot since the early 1970s, a move which courted some controversy. Saturday Kitchen gained a more entertainment-based approach, with the focus moving away from simple suppers and snacks to more aspirational food with an increasing number of new chefs appearing, many of whom were Michelin-starred.

Until June 2006, the show was produced by Prospect Pictures with each show featuring two guest chefs who demonstrated how to cook a dish of their choosing. The guests and main presenter would also pitch another dish, each to be voted on by the audience by telephone - the winning chef cooked the dish at the end of the show. Worrall Thompson recorded a running total of the number of shows he won on the show by using fridge magnets.

June 2006 to date

In June 2006 ITV scheduled a similar cooking show in exactly the same time slot as Saturday Kitchen. Worrall Thompson defected from the BBC to present the show, which was titled Saturday Cooks! and also made by Prospect Pictures. The format was almost identical to the old style Saturday Kitchen format, but with different theme music and a different set. Both Saturday Kitchen and Saturday Cooks! started at the same time of day and ran for the same duration, although ITV later rescheduled Saturday Cooks! to 12pm on Saturday afternoons.

With Worrall Thompson presenting the rival show, the BBC recruited chef James Martin as the new presenter and revamped the once format again, switching their choice of independent producer to Cactus TV. The show currently features a Heaven and Hell element, in which a celebrity guest describes their most beloved and loathed foods, and the viewers vote for which recipe based on each James Martin will cook at the end of the show. This idea was also borrowed for ITV's Sunday Feast the week before the first Cactus-made Saturday Kitchen aired but 3 weeks after the official launch of ''Saturday Kitchen, where the idea was first announced.

Sunday Feast was axed following an unsuccessful run of only 10 shows.

In February 2007, Saturday Kitchen was accused of misleading viewers to phone in to an apparently live segment, which was found to have been pre-recorded a week earlier.

As well as cookery, the show features a regular wine tasting element, featuring wine experts such as Olly Smith, Tim Atkin, Peter Richards and Susie Barrie. Almost half the show's length is made up of edited versions of food shows from the BBC archives including, amongst others, Keith Floyd, Antonio Carluccio, Rick Stein and Delia Smith.

Since its launch the show's viewings figures have increased dramatically. At launch it received 1.2 million viewers but now reaches 2 million viewers.

The "Saturday Kitchen Cookbook with James Martin" was published by BBC Books in July 2007.

In May 2008 chef John Torode joined the Saturday Kitchen team as Guest Presenter in James Martin's absence.

The Omelette Challenge

Each week the guest chefs are challenged to cook a three-egg omelette as quickly as possible. The fastest three chefs are, as at 31/08/08, as follows:

• Gennaro Contaldo - 16.36 seconds
• Jun Tanaka - 17 seconds
• Matt Tebbutt - 29 seconds

Guests

Guest chefs who have appeared on Saturday Kitchen include:

• Rachel Allen
• Jason Atherton
• Mary Berry
• Frank Bordoni
• Martin Blunos
• Momma Cherri
• Alan Coxon
• Gino D'Acampo
• Jill Dupleix
• Bill Granger
• Sophie Grigson
• Ainsley Harriott
• Ken Hom
• Atul Kochhar
• Emma Lewis
• Reza Mahammad
• Manju Malhi
• James Martin
• Paul Merrett
• Jean-Christophe Novelli
• Ben O'Donoghue
• Merrilees Parker
• Jo Pratt
• Jun Tanaka
• Paul Rankin
• Gary Rhodes
• Simon Rimmer
• Mike Robinson
• Michel Roux
• Silvena Rowe
• Olly Smith
• Curtis Stone
• John Torode
• Brian Turner
• Lesley Waters
• Bryn Williams
• Matt Di Angelo Actor

A small number of the show's guests are regulars on Ready Steady Cook, including Ready Steady Cook's host Ainsley Harriott.

External links