The great chef scratched his chin. At length he pronounced: “I like it.”

I wasn’t chatting him up, you understand. We were cloistered in a publisher’s office at the end of a long day, his having begun at dawn, perusing produce for his many restaurants. Our mission? Filling gaps in a cookbook.

Recipes weren’t the problem. He had bushels of food nous and, unusually for a chef, his confections were neither fussy nor required a PhD in obscure victuals. The challenge was to articulate — intuit — OK, dredge up, some thoughts on grub in general. This constituted editorial assistance.

The book duly appeared, with his name above that of an official co-writer who had failed to do much actual writing.

Shocked? Don’t be. Such episodes are common in the creation of modern cookbooks. Most chefs leave school young to master their trade. They aren’t trained to turn out toothsome prose to order.

Food writers such as Elizabeth David and Jane Grigson were once pre-eminent authors of cookbooks. Nowadays celebrity chefs dominate bestseller lists. Many books awarded writing prizes in recent years were scripted by people whose names don’t appear on the dustjacket. A similar shift has occurred in television.

“Here’s one I made earlier.” In 1973 Delia Smith first opened the oven on a ready-baked cake. Viewers of Family Fare didn’t doubt that she’d made it herself: Delia, like her recipes, could be relied on. Slow-mo the credits on your favourite food show today, however, and you’ll see a long list of people, the galley of specialists who translate chefs’ ideas into digestible formats. Some actually supply the ideas.

To outsiders this is surprising, and might be construed as fraudulent. Yet such back-room industry is ever more essential to our booming food showbiz.

If Delia were starting out now, brilliant as she is, a spot before the cameras would be unlikely. TV cooks have become entertainers, projecting lifestyles for viewers to buy into. Charisma and an arresting unique selling point (placenta pâté, anyone?) are as important as the art of unsinkable soufflé.

Perhaps you watch Nigella Lawson for make-up tips — or something else — while the microwave nukes dinner. Even as she invites us to share her family Christmas — fashionably messy round the edges but not a spot of grease on her satin dressing gown, you notice — we know deep down that it is theatre. And while the leading lady sat in make-up somewhere behind the scenes, someone else’s mascara was melting over a hot stove.

And Nigella offers many ways to share in the dream. Be it DVD, book or ceramic Salt Pig, you can get a load of her, or at least of the franchised fantasy that she embodies.

Food is everywhere and those stars prepared to help retailers to flog more of it are making a mint — becoming more famous into the bargain. Even the face of Loyd Grossman, never a chef as far as I know, appears to shift jars of ready-made sauce.

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