Jeff Smith, TV's Lovable Frugal Gourmet, Takes Some Heat

Will the real Jeff Smith please stand up?

Is he TV's lovable "Frug" - one part Julia Child, one part Mr. Rogers and one part Santa Claus?

Or is he "arrogant," the author of books that are "sloppy, superficial and condescending," with "a droit-de-seigneur attitude to using other people's recipes"?

In a cluster of interviews with journalists and cookbook authors, few had anything good to say about Smith or his work, and fewer still would speak on the record.

One of the kindest was William Rice, food and wine columnist for The Chicago Tribune. "I've tried to cook his stuff, and let's say it was hit or miss. Some things worked, and others didn't," he said. "But as with anyone on TV, he's really an entertainer, and it's not fair to hold him to standards of purism."

More typical was Nahum Waxman, owner of Kitchen Arts and Letters Bookstore in Manhattan: "Among people who work seriously in this field and do meticulous research, there's a sense of outrage about his work."

Or freelance food writer Suzanne Hamlin, who said, "Food people don't take him seriously. He's pretty light on research and gives a lot of misinformation."

It could, of course, be jealousy. That's how Smith sees it.

"Some people are so anxious for you to screw up that it's tragic," he said in a telephone interview from Seattle, where he lives and tapes the show. "I never claimed to have chef's training; I'm a good cook, but I'm not a chef. But I bet I've done more study of history than they have. And I bet they wish they sold as many books as I do. Jealousy is not a kind bedfellow."

GRIN AND GOATEE

There's a lot to be jealous of, because fans love Smith's toothy grin and fluffy white goatee. They warm to his ministerial good will and trust his brisk, cheery, if-I-can-do-it-so-can-you attitude.

They've made him rich and successful. When "The Frugal Gourmet's Whole Family Cookbook" (William Morrow and Co., $22) comes out in May, Smith will have seven books in print, with sales topping 5 million copies. All have been on The New York Times' bestseller list, and "The Frugal Gourmet" and "The Frugal Gourmet Cooks with Wine" were Nos. 1 and 2 simultaneously.

When his new PBS series airs this month, Smith will have been a television cooking star for 20 years. Because his past series play all the time, he has an audience of about 15 million viewers a week, making "The Frugal Gourmet" the most popular cooking show on television and the fourth most popular show of any kind on PBS.

Are all those fans wrong?

They are, and they aren't. Turn the cameras on Smith, and he projects trustworthiness. And that's 90 percent of what it takes to be a success on television, said Rinker Buck, editorial director of Adweek's Marketing Week.

"When you talk about who will appeal on TV, it's not expertise that counts, but having a personality that makes people trust you," Buck said.

Who is this man? And what is it about him that enchants fans and enrages colleagues?

Smith is neither as good as his fans think nor as bad as his detractors say.

His strength is his ability to take the mystery and snobbery out of cooking.

`WHOOSH, WHOOSH'

But that can be misleading. In a program on bread in his new series, he is so eager for us to bake bread that he shows bagel-making without a water bath, turns out too many kinds of loaves for anyone to follow and gives the impression bread doesn't take long to make.

After food writer Hamlin watched his show on Moroccan cooking, she said, "He did something like seven dishes - whoosh, whoosh, whoosh - making things it would take me a week to cook. If I didn't know anything about the food before I saw it, I certainly wouldn't know anything about it afterward."

What of the accusations that he is condescending and deals in ethnic stereotypes?

"If I was, I'd hear about it from the communities I write about," Smith said. "If I make jokes, it's because I'm having fun and because I feel that I'm part of their culture. I'm the first to make fun of Norwegian food." (Smith, whose mother was Norwegian, laughs at the whiteness of Norwegian lute-fisk with potatoes in cream sauce.)

The writing sounds just like Smith's voice on television. The recipes themselves have improved since 1986, when Smith took on a collaborator, Craig Wollam, who has professional chef's training.

What of the rumors that his recipes aren't original, that in some cases, such as the Native American salmon soup and whipped raspberry soup in "The Frugal Gourmet Cooks American," they're almost identical to recipes in other cookbooks?

Smith brushes that aside, saying he is a food historian and doesn't claim to be a creative cook. Some of his recipes come from readers. Some come from interviews with real people. And some come from other cookbooks. "Sure, I mooch off other cooks; every good teacher is a thief. But I always try to give credit when I do."