Delia Ann Smith CH CBE (born 18 June 1941) is an English cook and television presenter, known for teaching basic cookery skills in a no-nonsense style. She's one of the best known celebrity chefs in the UK (a country which has loads of them) and is one of those celebrities whose fame is sufficient to allow for her to be identified by her first name alone.
Such was her influence in her 1980s and 1990s heyday that she was responsible for what was called the "Delia Effect", a good example of The Red Stapler trope; sales of ingredients and appliances showed a marked increase after she used them on her shows. For example, sales of cranberries in Britain rose by 200% after she used them in a recipe in 1995, and her recommendation of using a skewer to check if a cake is thoroughly baked caused a 35% rise in sales of skewers. Given that her programmes were broadcast on The BBC, her recommendations had an authority that later examples of product placement by other TV cooks lacked.
