Cooking Price-Wise | Vincent Price’s legendary 1971 TV cookery show on Blu-ray for the very first time!

You don’t need to be a master chef to join cinema’s master of terror, Vincent Price, in the kitchen for Cooking Price-Wise, a brilliantly bizarre crash course in very 1970s cookery!

Never previously released before, it comes to Blu-ray courtesy of BFI Flipside on 25 November.

Many extras include a new interview with Victoria Price, new audio commentaries, Silver Screen Suppers’ Jenny Hammerton preparing classic Price dishes and much more – including an article written by Vincent Price Legacy UK curator Peter Fuller.

During the early years of that delicious decade that was the 1970s, while Vincent Price was on a sojourn in England, the iconic screen star and fine-dining aficionado took an unlikely break from macabre movies to rustle up this six-part television series, a labour of love designed to get bored British housewives serving up something a little different.

From melon monsters to crocodile cucumbers, not forgetting the perfect soufflé, the marvellous Mr Price is your genial and garrulous host amid the paisley-patterned saucepans as he demonstrates favourite recipes from around the world – in a fantastic, long-sought-after full-fat celebrity cookery show unlike any other.

Special features

  • Presented on Blu-ray in both High Definition and Standard Definition
  • Until We Eat Again (2024, 18 mins): Vincent Price’s daughter, the writer and inspirational speaker Victoria Price, reflects upon her father’s love of the finer things in life
  • Audio commentaries on selected episodes: Episode 1: Potatoes (Vic Pratt and William Fowler), Episode 3: Bacon (Lisa Kerrigan and Dr Josephine Botting), Episode 4: Cheese (Jenny Hammerton and Peter Fuller)
  • Monster Munch (2024, 25 mins): the Queen of the Kitchen, Jenny Hammerton of Silver Screen Suppers, demonstrates how you too can prepare classic Vincent Price dishes in this all-new kitchen caper
  • Kitchenfinder General (2024, 21 mins): Jenny Hammerton celebrates Vincent Price’s writing on cookery and his love of all things edible
  • A selection of food-related films made by the Central Office of Information (1940-1949, 30 mins total): Oatmeal PorridgePotatoesWhen the Pie Was OpenedHow to Cook a Cabbage and The Good Housewife ‘In Her Kitchen’
  • Tea Making Tips (1941, 10 mins): take the strain out of brewing up a perfect cuppa with this handy wartime instructional film
  • Centenary Express (1980, 7 mins): a gastronomic journey from Yorkshire to London on board a special train formed of vintage restaurant cars and hauled by a steam locomotive
  • ***First pressing only*** Illustrated booklet with new writing by Victoria Price, Peter Fuller, Jenny Hammerton and Vic Pratt; notes on the special features and credits

Product details 
UK / 1971 / colour / 143 mins / English language with optional descriptive subtitles / original aspect ratio 1.33:1 // BD50: 1080i, 25fps, LPCM 2.0 mono audio (48kHz/24-bit)

Where to buy: Pre-order from the BFI Shop

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Vincent Price’s Minestrone is a winter warmer

Will this cold spell never end? Thankfully, Karie Bible, the host of Hollywood Kitchen, has featured Vincent’s recipe for Minestrone in her latest podcast, as it’s the winter warmer that we all desperately need.

Vincent’s recipe originates from Cooking Price-Wise, the 1971 TV Times/Corgi paperback tie-in for his British TV cooking show. It’s so easy to make and delicious it’s become a real go-to in my household.

I’ve also started making recipe cards based on dishes from the kitchens of both Vincent Price and some of his legendary co*stars, which you can save and collect. You will find them on the Supper with the Stars Instagram page. Here’s the link to follow: https://www.instagram.com/supperwiththestars/

Watch the Hollywood Kitchen episode here:

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No jacket required | Our Virtual Cook-up was a taste sensation

Over the past three weeks Victoria and myself have been hosting weekly interactive Q&A’s via zoom and our latest saw us celebrating Vincent’s culinary legacy with over 40 fans tuning in from all around North America and the UK. It was another great success with cooking, clips, cocktails and chat being the menu de jour.

The different time zones meant some attendees where making brunch, others lunch, while in the UK, it was dinner time – and everyone got into the spirit sourcing their inspiration from Vincent and Mary Price’s three classic cookbooks: A Treasury of Great Recipes, Come Into the Kitchen and Cooking Price-Wise. Here’s just a sample of what was dished up.

Stateside, Sara crafted her own hibiscus and mezcal cocktail: Masque of the Red Death
Jaime prepared blueberry muffins, banana bread (no nuts) and iced coffee
David whipped up some of Luchow’s German pancakes and as Vincent always did himself, gave the first one to his dog
Jaime served up Spanish beans
Michele prepared some fruit-filled French Toast Santa Fe
Over in the UK, Chris and Pippa made a boozy trifle
Sarah made a very meaty spaghetti bolognese
Selene served up moussaka but with a Keto kink, while we all enjoyed a rare never-before-seen clip from Vincent’s 1971 TV show, Cooking Price-Wise
Jenny, my collaborator on the forthcoming Co*Star Cookbook, made Cannelloni alla Passetto

Our next session takes place on Sunday 17 May (8pm BST), where the theme will be art and collecting – so show us your art, tats and the pieces that inspire you, plus will have clips and a discussion on Vincent’s lifelong passion for the visual arts. SIGN UP HERE

Then, on Sunday 31 May (9pm BST), we celebrate the birthdays of Vincent, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Just watch the film beforehand and then join in our Q&A session about their friendships and collaborations on film, TV and even radio.

SIGN UP HERE

Here’s the link to the film: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1x6uxh

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Silver Screen Suppers on… Cooking with Vincent Price

Recipe Corner

As well being an accomplished actor and an art expert and lecturer, Vincent Price was also passionate about food. As his daughter Victoria says in her lectures on her dad, ‘He loved to eat’.

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Along with his second wife, Mary (Victoria’s mum), Vincent published the acclaimed gourmet tome, A Treasury of Great Recipes, in 1965, which brought together recipes collected from the kitchens of 35 American restaurants (including the Four Seasons, Galatoire’s and Locke-Ober) and eight European countries, plus several dozen of the Price’s own unpretentious favourites, including two for hot dogs. This glorious tome got a sumptuous reprint in 2015 by Dover Press.

ComeIn 1969, the couple also released their Come Into the Kitchen Cook Book, which was devoted to the heritage of American cuisine, from the early pioneer settlers to the Victorian era. This was reprinted many times, with different covers, as well as in a five-volume series which was retitled A National Treasury of Cookery.

Cooking Price Wise

In the six-part 1971 Thames TV series Cooking Price-Wise, Vincent invited viewers to ‘travel round the word using your cooker instead of a jet plane’, and shared his experiences of international cuisine, preparing such delicacies as Moroccan tajine, the American Ice Box Cake and Fish Fillets Noord Zee. These recipes and a host more were published in a paperback that is much sought-after today.

This page is dedicated to Vincent’s favourite recipes and is hosted by Jenny Hammerton, who runs the Silver Screen Suppers website. Just click on the recipe title, where you will be taken to the host page.

Vincent Price’s Bounty of Paradise Party: Sampling the delights from Vincent’s International Cooking Course LP
Cooking Price-Wise – Fish Fillets Noord Zee: Try Vincent’s Dutch delicacy


All around the world, people love eating and drinking like Vincent Price, here’s a round-up of links to other blog posts that celebrate Vincent’s favourite recipes.

Treasury• Greg Swenson, author of the Recipes For Rebels James Dean cookbook wrote a great piece about Vincent’s love of Sardi’s restaurant and his post includes the recipe for Cheese Knots 

Granny Pantries had a go at the Blueberry Muffins A La Posada and suggested adding a little vanilla to the recipe.

• Over at the Vincent Price Mania blog, two recipes were sampled. First, an all-time top favourite in the Silver Screen Suppers Kitchen, Mexican Creamed Corn. Plus one I haven’t tried yet, Old Fashioned Bread Pudding 

• The lovely Annie at Kitchen Counter Culture turned to her battered and much loved Treasury for the Gateau Grand Marnier recipe

• Lauren from The Past On a Plate made Blueberry Muffins A La Posada and Ranch Eggs – what a lovely brunch!

• Miriam Figueras bravely tackled Souffle Au Grand Marnier with excellent results.

• Yinzerella from the superlative Dinner Is Served 1972 blog made Vincent Price’s Bloody Mary & Bookbinder’s Snapper Soup.

• Super stylish blogger Ruth, from Mid-Century Menu made something I’ve wanted to try for ages, Crab Puffs.

• In Canada, Lisa from Brain Meets Keys put together a spectacular brunch, trying out three recipes from the Treasury in one go! Blueberry Muffins a la Posada, Buckingham Eggs and Champignons Marie-Victoire

• Battenburg Belle took the Treasury all the way to France and made Caesar Salad, Sea Bream Biscay Style and Petits Pois a la Francaise

• Taryn from Retro Food for Modern Times made Chicken in Champagne Sauce and Buckingham Eggs as a JAFFLE.


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• Nathalie Morris from the British Film Institute and Silver Screen Supper Jenny Hammerton demonstrate how to make Vincent Price Goulash


DISHES AND DRINKS FROM ADVERTISEMENTS FEATURING VINCENT’S RECOMMENDATIONS…

• Clara from Heritage Recipe Box rustled up a New Fashioned Cocktail

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Cooking Price-Wise | Vincent’s Fish Fillets Noord Zee

cooking price wise knife

This guest post comes from
Jenny Hammerton of Silver Screen Suppers

Hello, I’m Vincent Price!’
So begins each episode of Vincent’s Price’s glorious television show, Cooking Price-Wise, which launched on this very day in 1971 on ITV at 11.15pm. Lucky television viewers in Britain were given friendly cooking advice from the Master of Menace himself, in six stupendous instalments.

In a traditional striped butchers apron and jaunty cravat, Vincent presented exotic sounding recipes gleaned from glamorous places outside the British Isles. He guaranteed that these recipes could be made with ingredients that any Brit would be able to buy in their neighbourhood store or supermarket. At the time this series was produced, that was saying something…

In the early 1970s many British cooks were strictly ‘meat and two veg’ types, but Vincent aimed to educate and inspire them to expand their horizons. He proclaimed that: ‘in this series of programmes, I hope to take you around the world, using your cooker instead of a jet-plane.’ He wanted to encourage the British cook to try something a little bit different, and would demonstrate some favourite dishes that he and his wife Mary had collected ‘on our travels, here and there.’ Vincent reassured his viewers that, ‘no matter how outlandish some dishes sound to you, or how out of the way the places they come from, they really are quite simple.’

Cooking Price-Wise (1971)

Before the cooking began in the very first episode, Vincent gave viewers a potted history of an obscure little vegetable that was discovered in Peru. He managed to riff about this magical food for a good few minutes without actually revealing its name. At the end of his history lesson he pronounced with great relish: ‘and this, ladies and gentleman, is it!’ Bringing into view a large, mucky example of this very famous ingredient, he pronounced its name in the way only Vincent Price could: ‘the po-ta-to.’ There then followed a demonstration on how to make three recipes using the humble spud. Manhattan Vichyssoise, Pommes de Terre Savoyarde and Fish Fillets Noord Zee.

Vincent cooks in a kitchen set that is a dream come true for those who love 1970s cookware. He uses some beautiful enamel saucepans, white with an orange and yellow design. Scattered around the work surfaces are groovy orange and yellow storage canisters. He grinds salt and pepper from lovely red and yellow wooden grinders, so familiar to those of us who grew up in the 1970s. Inspired by Vincent I treated myself to some decorated enamel saucepans a couple of years ago, and I always think of his cooking show when I use them.

My Saucepan

Vincent was very keen on kitchen contraptions. On the first show he uses an electrical device that produces a ‘whole box’ of perfectly sliced potatoes. He then shows how to use a blender to take some of the work out of making Manhattan Vichyssoise. He jokes that you must remember to put the lid on the blender ‘otherwise you will have a brand new paint job in your kitchen’. He has a lovely, friendly, chatty style as he cooks. Well aware that not every home cook in the 1970s would have a blender, he advises that using a sieve would be just as good, but harder work. Vincent’s obvious confidence in the kitchen would have really encouraged the tentative cook to try out his recipes, I am sure. He really does make the food he is preparing sound easy to make, and delicious to eat.

Cooking Price Wise_Ad_TVT_cropAll of the recipes Vincent demonstrates in the cookery show are included in the book that accompanied the series. Cooking Price-Wise is now an extremely rare and highly collectable cookbook, which was originally priced at just 30p. If you have a spare £1,000 knocking around in your bank account, you could buy one of the only 2 copies available on Amazon. Currently priced at £999.11, you’ll have 89p to play with assuming they throw in free postage. I would never, ever sell my much-treasured copy of this book. It is very bashed about, as I use it often, and it contains my notes on the recipes I have made from its lovely selection. The first time I made Fish Fillets Noord Zee in 2011 for example, my verdict was simple.  Scribbled in turquoise ink, it just says ‘Awesome!’.

Fish Fillets Noord Zee is one of the recipes Vincent demonstrates in the first episode of Cooking Price-Wise. This is a really fun dish to make as it involves putting mashed potato into a piping bag in order to make a series of ‘dykes’ which represent the sea walls in Holland. It’s a pretty bonkers recipe, but is definitely a crowd pleaser if you have guests. Sometimes I feel that making an extravagant dish just for yourself is fun too, so I rustled this up just for myself the other day. I felt like the Queen of Holland having this all to myself.

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In the Cooking Price-Wise book Vincent says: ‘If you don’t feel like cooking fish…other foods can be placed between the potato walls – for instance, you can serve all your vegetables beautifully arranged on one large dish, or a mixture of meat and vegetables can be divided by the walls. Anyhow, the important thing is to use your imagination!’

So my second attempt at this dish contained plaice prepared exactly as Vincent recommended, with his lovely creamy sauce, but instead of mushrooms, shrimps, scallops and herring roes, I used up whatever vegetables I had in the fridge. It was utterly delicious! Here’s the recipe to serve 4, but you can divide accordingly if making for less.


Vincent Price’s Fish Fillets Noord Zee
4 medium potatoes
3 tablespoons butter
Small amount of cream
4 fillets of plaice
½ pint / 284ml dry white wine*
Juice of one lemon
1/2-teaspoon salt
1/4-teaspoon white pepper
4 tablespoons butter
4oz / 112g button mushrooms
4oz / 112g shrimps
4oz / 112g herring roes, floured
4oz / 112g scallops

For the sauce
2 eggs
1-tablespoon flour
1/2 / pint / 284ml cream
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Parsley to garnish

Cook potatoes in salted water until very tender. Drain and mash. Beat in butter and enough hot cream to make fluffy potatoes that are still stiff enough to be pressed through a fluted pastry tube. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Keep warm over simmering water.

Poach the plaice in a cup of water, the white wine and lemon juice, with the salt and white pepper added for 5 minutes. Remove the fillets and keep warm. Boil liquid over high heat until reduced to 1/4 pint / 142ml.

Heat 1 tablespoon of butter in each of 4 small frying pans. In one sauté the mushrooms for 5 minutes. In another the shrimps for 5 minutes. In a third, toss the floured herring roes for 5 minutes. In the last, cook the scallops for 5 minutes.

Fill a forcing bag, fitted with a large fluted tube, with the mashed potatoes and press out fluted ribbon down the centre of a large serving platter. On one side press out 3 ribbons from centre to edge of platter, making 4 evenly divided compartments. Arrange the fillets on the other side in the long compartment. Put platter into a warm oven to keep warm.

Sauce
In saucepan beat eggs with flour and cream. Strain the reduced fish liquid into the egg-cream mixture and cook, stirring rapidly until sauce is hot and slightly thickened. Be careful not to let it boil. Stir in 1/2-teaspoon salt, or to taste, and 1 tablespoon lemon juice.

Presentation
Pour sauce over the fish fillets only and garnish with parsley

NB – when converting imperial measurements to metric, there is often a slightly odd result. 112g of each of the dyke fillings are a literal translation, but you can, of course, use more or less as you see fit. Also, for American readers, the Imperial pint is 20% more liquid than an American pint. Probably not crucial in this recipe but something to bear in mind when making the sauce.

Vincent ends the first episode of his brilliant cookery show by shaking some salt over his Vichyssoise and tucking in. He signs off by saying: ‘I hope we meet again, good eating!’ and I say the same. Maybe I’ll do another post sometime, for the Vincent Price London Legacy UK blog. Vincent made Dolmades, Moroccan Tagine and Cafe Napoleon in episode 2, so perhaps I’ll try one of these. In the meantime, I do hope you give Fish Fillets Noord Zee a go. Good eating!

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