In 1976, Gwen Troake, a farmer’s wife from Devon, won the "Cook of the Realm" competition, leading to the BBC selecting her for its TV series "The Big Time", where talented amateurs were given the opportunity to take part in a spectacular professional event. Troake was to organise a three-course Foyle's Literary Lunch at the Dorchester Hotel in honour of the former Prime Minister Edward Heath, with Earl Mountbatten of Burma and other dignitaries in attendance, and asked Fanny Cradock, by then a tax exile in Ireland, along with chef Eugene Kaufeler, actor and gourmet Robert Morley, nutritionist Magnus Pyke and many other experts Troake admired to advise her.