Gregg Wallace hits back at Mary Berry over 'ludicrous' deep-fat fryer comments

MasterChef judge Gregg Wallace has hit back at fellow BBC star Mary Berry after she said that households should not have deep-fat fryers.

Mr Wallace, who presents the cooking competition, has hailed the deep-fat fryer as “the heart of a proper British kitchen”.

“Every household down my road in Peckham, south-east London stunk of deep-fat frying and I’m sure every working class home around the country was the same,” the TV presenter wrote in a column for The Sun.

“How would you have done chips and spam fritters without a deep-fat fryer?”

But chips, according to Ms Berry - one of the judges on the Great British Bake Off - are not a good choice for a household staple.

“Many people think children must have chips,” she told Good Housekeeping earlier this week. “I don’t think any household should have a deep-fat fryer.”

Mr Wallace, a former costermonger and farmer, dismisses these claims as “ludicrous”, and likened the abolition of the deep fat fryer to banning the wok in China or the pizza oven in Italy.

“To suggest getting rid of it isn’t just an assault on the deep-fat fryer but on the traditional British psyche.

“I love Mary dearly but this is an attack on the British way of life. We fry things, that’s what we do.”

As well as being a handy tool with which to make chips and fritters, Mr Wallace also points out that many gourmet and specialty dishes also use a deep-fryer.

“When you go out for a good meal, chances are there will be a deep-fat fryer in the kitchen. Every Michelin star restaurant will have one…

“Think of all the dishes that are deep fried – croquettes, crab cakes, tempura prawns and the Italian speciality of fritto misto or mixed fry. The list is endless.”

Though he acknowledges that there were perhaps a few too many chips eaten in his household, Mr Wallace insists “that’s not the point.”

“We all know now that having deep fat fried food every night is not healthy and of course, it would wreak havoc on the old waistline," he wrote. "They can’t be your daily diet but that’s common sense isn’t it?”