Modern Living: Cooking with Kerr

Escoffier he is not. And no one could compare him to the organized Julia Child. But the Galloping Gourmet, who first roistered onto U.S. TV screens in 1969, charmed and instructed large audiences with his intentionally maladroit preparation of elegant food, claret-nipping and well-staged cocky capers. After a three-year sabbatical from television —caused by a near-fatal driving accident—Graham Kerr (rhymes with rare) is back on the tube, this time at a canter. Now, skipping foie gras, fondue and farce, Kerr has a basic, economy-oriented series of five-minute segments called Take Kerr, on view daily throughout Canada and 55 U.S. cities, that concentrates on such dishes as—well, would you believe cabbage surprise?

This time around, Kerr aims at teaching viewers to eat better for less. “I’d like to recommend a list of four priorities for eating better,” says the recycled Gourmet. “We must concentrate on the emotions, the sciences, the economy and time. Whatever we prepare must look good, taste good, smell good and save money without making the home cook a house slave.”

One of Kerr’s demonstrations is called “Save the Green,” a simple technique in which two different dishes can be made from one bunch of broccoli. Another shows a workable method of skinning tomatoes, which he adds to a “simple white sauce for a fish filet, making an economical and nutritious dish.” For kitchen weepers, he presents a way of cutting onions without expending a tear. Some forthcoming Graham goodies include a curdle cure for hollandaise and a technique for cutting hamburger shrinkage by folding an ice cube frozen with soy sauce into the middle of a patty. Other Kerr culinary clues include tips on deep frying, the “nonstick pancake,” selecting a minute steak that costs only a few cents more per serving than hamburger, and how to skin a fish.

Catering Advisory. Though he used to come across as more showman than chef, Graham Kerr has a lifelong journeyman’s background in the delectation of diners. Son of a London hotelkeeper, he started helping in the kitchen at six, studied hotel management in England, ran a 15th century coaching inn with his actress-wife Treena (now his producer), then moved Down Under, where he served as chief catering adviser for the Royal New Zealand Air Force. He later began extolling eating on radio and TV, first in Australia and then in Canada. He now teaches at Cornell University’s renowned school of hotel administration.

In his new kitchencarnation, Kerr calls his five-minute spots “transistors.” As he explains, “I take the tired culinary techniques and replace them with new, sparkling, switched-on methods.” Kerr’s new format for TV switches could be described the same way.