Delia Smith and the battle of the food snobs

Delia goes to the Dark Side,' said a headline on the Guardian's food blog this week, after BBC2 aired the first of Delia Smith's new cookery shows. Delia is a 'national embarrassment', decrees today's New Statesman.
 
Alex Renton, a food writer for the Observer, says his wife started chanting "burn the books" while Delia's programme was still on. As soon as it ended, Mr and Mrs Renton burnt their Delia cookbooks.
 
What crime did Delia commit? Did she give advice on cannibalistic recipes, or suggest leaving flammable chip pans unattended? No, she simply said it is okay to 'cheat' by cooking with frozen ingredients and tinned meat.
 
The hysterical reaction is food snobbery at its worst. On the Guardian's discussion board, one comment summed up the view of many: "Clearly she has lost the plot."
 
Horror at tinned food has a long and ominous history. For decades, snobs have expressed their fear and loathing of the masses by mocking their 'unhealthy' and 'disgusting' eating habits. As John Carey showed in his landmark study The Intellectuals and the Masses, snobby writers would dry-heave at the mention of tinned grub a century ago. "Tinned food offends against what the intellectual designates as nature: it is mechanical and soulless," wrote Carey.
 
In TWH Crosland's 1905 novel The Suburbans, the masses are depicted as 'soulless' and 'stingy', as symbolised by their consumption of tinned salmon. HG Wells wrote of a "ruddily decorated tin of a brightly pink fish-like substance known as Deep-Sea Salmon". Graham Greene said he would "surreptitiously feed to the dog" the tinned meat his Nottingham landlady served him at high tea.
 
A similarly contemptuous sentiment lurks behind the demented Delia-bashing - that people who buy cheap tinned food (whisper it: poor people) are soulless and stupid.
 
Well, I'm with Delia. She has shown that she is far more in tune with the nation than the horrified snobs. ·