In spite of his extraordinary range of achievements as a writer, painter, TV and radio presenter, and autobiographer, Colin Spencer, who has died aged 89, is best remembered as a food writer. He won multiple awards over the years and served, at different times, as chairman and president of the Guild of Food Writers. In 2002, Germaine Greer described him as “the greatest living food writer”.
Even here his highly individual creative spirit encouraged him to range far beyond the narrow confines that constrain other less protean writers. In addition to his 18 cookery books, he wrote a food column in the Guardian for 14 years that, despite opening in 1980 with a promise of “no ideological lecturing”, would prove to be avowedly political in tone and range, dealing with the ethical aspects of agriculture and food production, as well as cookery, with equal passion. For many readers, he became the guiding light in an increasingly technological and complex food world. He was particularly vehement about the effects of factory farming and developments in GM crops.
