Food on the tube

Heston Blumenthal is considered one of the fathers of truly experimental cuisine and while his talents lie in the future of cooking, his new show, Heston’s Feasts draws inspiration from the past to create banquets that diners in ancient Rome and Greece would have enjoyed, but nothing is ever as it seems.

Blumenthal’s pub, the Fat Duck, in Berkshire, UK, is famous for its snail porridge. But that’s not what I remember him for. I remember him for running an experiment, live on an English evening cookery show, where he steamed scallops, using a few drops of essential oil in the water. The experiment ended with him spitting a scallop out of his mouth onto a plate and saying (while trying to wipe his tongue) “no, no. That didn’t work at all”. While it struck me as possible professional suicide to experiment in this way on live, national TV, I was also somewhat awed by his chutzpah. After watching Heston’s Feasts, I treat him with nothing but awe.

In each episode, he chooses a different historical era and the cooks a banquet of the epoque for assorted celebrities various. The episode I was given as a sneak peak featured The Tudors, which is the episode that happens to air on this Sunday. It is also my favourite historical period – I memorised every poem from Tudor Kings & Queens.

Anyhoo, the celebs in this episode were: Sophie Ellis-Bextor (singer), Alex Zane (über cool TV host), Cilla Black (60s throwback), Jay Rayner (celebjournalist), Kelvin MacKenzie (former editor of The Sun and steak and kidney pie kinda bloke), Ruth Watson (restauranteur, foodie, food writer, TV presenter).

The dishes Heston chooses include butterbeer, blancmange with frogs, cockentrice (a Medieval culinary creation designed to look like a mythical beast but usually made of a pig and a capon) and rice pudding disguised as bangers and mash.

I am not going to go into each dish because I want you to watch the show. But this is not a show for ideas for recipes you can make yourself. This is a show about imagination and food and a little bit about history. I found it completely fascinating – the creativity Blumenthal displays in creating and plating each dish (they are like individual works of art) and the lengths he goes to in order to achieve what he needs to is just phenomenal. The other highlight is that despite some moaning and whinging from Kelvin MacKenzie (we are warned from the start that Heston is aiming to win his favour), the celebrities are really good sports. They tuck into the frog without a word of complaint – I was pleasantly surprised!

Sunday, December 20, 8:30PM on SBS.