The development of British radio broadcasting technology in the 1920s and 1930s and,equally importantly, the progressively widespread purchase and use of radio setsestablished a new platform from which to engage and influence the population on anumber of matters. The British Broadcasting Corporation’s public service principles ofprogrammes to inform, educate and entertain gave rise to various content experiments ata time when there were very few precedents. One such innovation was the cookery talk.This was broadcast live, accomplished without the possibility of practical demonstration,and constituted a new, and abstract, form of communication primarily designed forwomen in their own homes. In this, women were the earliest and most frequentcontributors, and their broadcast content differed from that provided by men. Byreference to archive material, this article examines the social context and the thinkingbehind those early years of radio cookery talks and documents the contributors who wereto establish this now-familiar genre of broadcasting.