In the history of cooking shows, there has never been anything remotely like the Two Fat Ladies. For three seasons on BBC Two, the jolly, bickering, irreverent duo of Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright tooled about the English countryside in a vintage Triumph motorcycle with a sidecar, stopping at boarding schools, monasteries, logging camps and army outposts to create big meals with big flavors. And they made cooking -- well, watching cooking -- a delight.

Those of us fortunate enough to have caught their show when it ran on the fledgling Food Network were treated to a uniquely British program. Paterson and Dickson Wright cared little for petty health concerns, loading up their dishes with bacon, butter and lard, leading even English nutritional authorities to complain about their fat-laden recipes. Paterson was a heavy smoker, and made no apologies for it, and Dickson Wright was a recovering alcoholic -- which didn't stop her partner from quaffing an adult beverage at the end of many episodes. They eschewed low-fat substitutions, mercilessly mocked vegetarians, and ignored basic kitchen hygiene, often licking their fingers in the midst of creating one of their greasy, gut-bustingly rich meals.

In many ways, the Fat Ladies were terrible role models. They were overweight, badly dressed, and seemingly incapable of not saying whatever came to mind, no matter how politically incorrect. And yet, that's precisely what made them such a huge hit in Britain and, later, on the Food Network. Paterson and Dickson Wright embodied exactly the sort of ladies that most of us hope we have the guts to be in our later years -- uncaring of convention, in love with life, and full of explosive good humor.

And when it came to cooking, they knew their stuff. While traditional meat and game-based dishes were their foundation, both ladies were wizards of culinary technique, and the show offered a mother lode of instruction, advice and arcane trivia (Catherine the Great, for example, almost died when she ate too many artichokes on her wedding day). Between the cooking, the endless stories, and Jennifer's frequent musical outbursts, Two Fat Ladies was the most entertaining and educational cooking show to have ever hit the airwaves.

The DVD box set of the entire Two Fat Ladies series from Acorn Media is a delight for fans, and a treat for anyone who's never experienced them until now. The four-DVD set includes two biographical featurettes and an extensive documentary that offers a detailed look at Paterson and Dickson Wright's lives. Paterson's father was an engineer, and after an early childhood in China, she traveled with him all over Europe until her rambunctious behavior landed her in a Catholic boarding school (from which she was ultimately expelled). After taking many jobs -- and being fired from most of them -- she ended up as cook for the staff of The Spectator magazine, where she was sacked and rehired repeatedly before ending up as a food writer. Dickson's Wright's slightly less colorful history involved an upper-crust upbringing, law school (and the distinction of being the youngest woman called to the English Bar), then alcoholism, a similarly checkered career as a cook, and eventually her ownership of a small bookshop that specialized in cookbooks.

Sadly, the show ended far too soon when Paterson was diagnosed with incurable lung cancer midway through the fourth season. She died not long after, at age 71 in 1999. The disc's documentary serves as a fine tribute to her, and the DVD set of all 24 episodes includes a slender booklet with eight recipes.

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Dawn Taylor is happy to wrap bacon around almost anything, but still refuses to eat Spotted Dick.

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