Amid Accusations, Frugal Gourmet Lying Low Jeff Smith, Host Of The Most Popular Cooking Show In TV History
For years, Jeff Smith, known to millions as the Frugal Gourmet, seemed to be as omnipresent as he was omnivorous.
On 300 public television stations, the white-goateed Smith delighted in tasting recipes from around the world, from Armenian meat pie to spaghetti tonnata.
He promoted Columbia Crest wines and KitchenAid mixers, and his 10 cookbooks have sold 7 million copies.
But nowadays, the merry host of the most popular cooking show in TV history - watched by as many as 15 million viewers a week at one point - is lying low, accused of molesting eight men when they were teenagers.
Gone are the book signings that drew long lines, and the speeches and banquets that raised thousands of dollars for charity.
A religious cable channel reached its boiling point and pulled the plug on the Methodist minister’s most recent cooking series, “The Frugal Gourmet Keeps the Feast.” It focused on biblical foods and their spiritual significance.
“We felt it would be best to discontinue airing the show … until such time as the Rev. Smith has answered to those charges and cleared himself,” said Portia Badham, a spokeswoman for the Odyssey network.
Frugal Gourmet sightings are more sparse, and rumors about Smith’s health abound at the Pike Place Market, where he lives much of the time in a condominium that contains his test kitchen.
“I occasionally see him walking around down there, giving people a tour or something,” said Renee Behnke, vice president of Sur La Table, a kitchen implement store.
“He’s not been as regular as he used to be,” said Louie DeLaurenti, a delicatessen owner, echoing comments by several market shopkeepers. But he added: “I wouldn’t say he’s hiding out. He was always a guy who liked to be recognized.”
All three lawsuits seek unspecified damages and were filed in Tacoma. That’s where Smith opened a catering service, cooking school and restaurant called the Chaplain’s Pantry after serving as a professor of religion and chaplain at the University of Puget Sound from 1967 to 1972.
The men accuse Smith, 58, of using alcohol, intimidation and physical force to obtain sex in the mid-1970s to 1992. All are former employees except for one, who said he was picked up as a hitchhiker and assaulted by Smith in 1992.
Smith, who is married and has two grown sons, has not been charged with any crime. The statute of limitations on the alleged offenses has run out.
Smith, who has refused to give interviews since the first of the lawsuits was filed in January, has denied all of the accusations. His lawyer, Edward S. Winskill, has accused one of the plaintiffs, Clinton Smith, 36, of orchestrating the lawsuits.
Clinton Smith, who is not related to the Frug, as the gourmet calls himself, was sentenced to four years in prison in 1981, partly for stealing money from the Chaplain’s Pantry. He said he took the money in retaliation for being sexually assaulted. Police investigated the claim and did not arrest the Frugal Gourmet.
Jeff Smith underwent surgery in 1982 to repair an aortic valve that was damaged by rheumatic fever when he was a child. A minor stroke caused one foot to go slightly sideways in 1989. A couple of years ago he began using a motor scooter to get around after undergoing ankle surgery.