Ms. McCann is a vestige of radio's golden age. She was host of her own show for nearly 10 years on the AM talk-radio station WOR, until her program was canceled in 1983. She was preceded on that station by her parents and her grandfather, a muckraking journalist. She keeps her family's name alive on the airwaves, even if her role is limited to lending products her personal approval, a practice common in her grandfather's time but forbidden to many professional newscasters today. WINS hired her in 1992.

"I was basically tickled and grateful," said Ms. McCann, who is graceful and slender, with an expressive face creased by fine lines. Her short, layered hair is a pretty dark blond. Shall we call it Golden Blossom Honey, the first product she ever advertised for WINS? Why not. Her grandfather endorsed the brand, too.

Not many people can say they broadcast at WOR during its glamour days, when Ms. McCann's colleagues included nationally known personalities like the actress Arlene Francis, who had her own top-rated program.

And how many of us have broadcast from inside a banana? Yep, that would be Ms. McCann. She interviewed an artist and several of his students, who sat naked inside a giant banana made of yellow acetate in the WOR studio. Ms. McCann wore only her slip. "It was the early 70's, and everything was upside down," she explained.

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And who else practices conga drums to wind down inside her Upper West Side apartment after a day of working on scripts at WINS?

But O.K., let's get back to her story, which Ms. McCann was obviously thrilled to tell. She fumbled a bit nervously through a manila folder of yellowing newspaper clips and skimmed through index cards on which she had scribbled talking points.

The story begins with her grandfather, Alfred W. McCann, who went on WOR in 1927 to expose the unsavory practices of the American food industry, which was doing bad things like putting black shoe polish in chocolate and deodorizing rotten eggs. He also ran a laboratory in Manhattan where foods were tested before they received his approval or disdain. Ms. McCann's father, Alfred W. McCann Jr., continued the tradition when her grandfather died. In "The McCanns at Home," he and his wife, Dora, bantered and joked, and their main theme remained food, especially the romance of food.

Ms. McCann, who was frequently on the air as a child, says she never intended to go into radio. She studied English literature at Manhattanville College in Purchase, N.Y. The radio bug bit her in the mid-1960's, when she filled in for her father at WOR for three months after he had a heart attack. She was soon hired as one of New York's first female D.J.'s. In 1974, she took over the family tradition with "The Patricia McCann Magazine," a daytime talk show that strayed from food into social issues.

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WHEN the program was canceled in a move to attract younger listeners, she recalls feeling sad: "People over 50, I thought, they are still people." It prompted her to study aging. She received a master's degree in gerontology from the College of New Rochelle in 1992. She advocated for the rights of older people, organizing a 1993 citywide conference on elder abuse. But after she ended a four-year stint at another radio station, WMCA, she says she missed her audience. "I'm kind of a regular girl now," she said. "I love to sell. I love to tell a story."

For her commercials, which are occasionally broadcast in other parts of the country, she says she samples and researches every product. She has lost eight pounds on the Zone Diet, guzzled Dunkin' Donuts coffee and stopped at an Aamco shop in New Jersey to learn that a car transmission has 700 parts. "How's a girl to know?" she asked.

Ms. McCann, who lives alone and never married, is reluctant to give her age, citing the harsh realities of age discrimination. When she was told she has had quite a life, her cornflower-blue eyes teared up. She said she was grateful for the compliment. "It's the past," she said softly.