Cookery queen is out of flavour

The popular food writer Delia Smith has been snubbed by the foodie "Oscars". Neither her best-selling book Delia Smith's Winter Collection, nor the BBC television programme of the same name have been shortlisted by the prestigious Glenfiddich Awards.

The Winter Collection book broke all records, selling 1.7 million in just weeks and topping the sales charts at the end of last year. That and Delia Smith's other cookery books made her pounds 3m in royalties last year alone.

But the queen of kitchen cookery books does not feature in the Glenfiddich shortlist. Instead, the judges including humorist Alan Coren, Sainsbury's off-licence director Allan Cheesman, and restaurateur Jeremy King plumped for more obscure "foodie" names for the awards, to be given on 17 April.

Food books shortlisted are The Classic Food of Northern Italy, by Anna Del Conte; The River Cafe Cook Book, by Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray; The Modern Cook's Manual, by Lynda Brown and A Provencal Table, by Richard Olney.

The television programmes were Slice Of Life, Janis Robinson's Wine Course and Rick Stein's Taste Of The Sea, all shown on BBC Television.

A spokeswoman for Glenfiddich said: "We like to think of ourselves as the Oscars of the food and drink writing world. Delia Smith won a special award last year for services to the world of food writing.

"But she has not been nominated this year, and that is really down to the judges, who change every year."