20 years of Observer Food Monthly: 20 key moments in food

From MasterChef to Noma, and street food to the rise of female chefs

By the time OFM launched in April 2001, Gordon, Heston, Hugh, Jamie and others were already on a spectacular trajectory. These were the decades of reality TV so we didn't just watch them, we took an unshakeable interest in their personal lives. Nobody knew what Delia Smith did when the cameras were off. Keith Floyd never invited us into his beautiful home, but the cooks we now knew by their first names were all over the tabloids and the new gossip magazines. A slightly bewildered Delia Smith expressed it well when, in 2008, she said of Gordon Ramsay: That's not teaching. I like him when he does his recipes, but I'm not keen on his swearing."