Feast
blog Saturday 28th of February, 2009
If I weren't already looking forward to Heston Blumenthal's 'Feast' so much, I would be after reading Charlie Brooker's excellent preview:
“ It's like a special edition of Come Dine With Me hosted by the unhinged artisan murderer from the movie Se7en. ”
Aren't they all like that, though? Anyway, I've been a big fan of Heston Blumenthal since I got his book In Search of Perfection (and sequel) sometime last year. As recipe books, they're a terrifying proposition — perfection is a high marker, after all. But they do provide fascinating insights into the history (and contemporary state) of some of the world's best loved dishes. And despite the everyday impracticality of the recipes themselves, they're great repositories of little tips to improve your own versions of these dishes (if you've never added Star Anise to Bolognese while it cooks, you really should).
Sadly, Heston's previous series, Big Chef takes on Little Chef, was about as cringe-inducing as reality TV can get. It was the kind of series that leaves no survivors — Blumenthal was obviously completely unsuited to the task, and his team of Michelin-standard chefs came across as total pricks as they sat and sniggered at the efforts of minimum-wage Little Chef employees. Not that those employees were easy to feel sorry for — too lazy and disinterested for any changes to stand a real chance of working once the cameras were gone, and too insincere for anything they said to be taken seriously. Topped off with a genuinely sociopathic Managing Director (who constantly demanded Fat Duck levels of culinary drama for under five pounds a portion), this was perfect TV for people who wanted to be left angry at the end of each episode.
Which is why I'm looking forward to this new series. As Brooker points out, this is easily the best TV vehicle for Blumenthal's particular style we've seen to date — I didn't see a lot of the 'Perfection' TV series, but those episodes I did catch tended to leave out a lot of the books' more considered content. And like Brooker, I'm always a fan of seeing experts do astounding, whimsical things in their field — something which is often missing from today's schedules.
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Kathryn. Thursday 5th of March, 2009.
I finally read Screen Burn. I'm so glad that Channel 4 scheduled Feast this week to fill the void that Masterchef has left. However now I'm thinking that Masterchef would be all the more interesting if it was judged by Blumenthal. And Michael Roux Jr. They would both be trying to out do each others crazy eyes thing. The contestants could get given the finest French ingredients and all of Blumenthal's science stuff. I reckon that would sort out the chaff out right away - "Congratulations! You are the only one not to lose all your fingers to liquid nitrogen, you're through to the next semi-finals!"