He’s finally flipped! Heston’s in love with an interstellar potato
Today’s TV chefs all have their own schtick. Gordon shouts and swears, Nigella looks seductive and licks a lot of spoons, while Jamie is a cheeky Cockney geezer.
Heston Blumenthal, of course, is the culinary world’s mad professor, famous for his whacky flavours and crazy concoctions. so when, in the first few minutes of his new series
Heston’s Great British Food (Ch4), it was revealed that he was going to be delving into the history of our favourites dishes, it all sounded disappointingly normal.
His fans needn’t have worried though because, shortly afterwards, he started to talk about testicle pie and sending a potato into outer space. Phew.
In the first of his four-part series, Heston focused on the pie, a firm favourite with Brits since the 16th century when they were the centrepiece at wedding receptions, rather than cakes. Back then, the pie was more about theatrics than food, with its contents including everything from live snakes to dwarves, who would leap out and surprise diners.
Clearly baking a dwarf into a pie would have been crossing the line (even for Heston), so he set about creating a Bride Pye using a slightly less controversial ingredient — lamb testicles — which were believed to enhance a couple’s fertility.
He presented his masterpiece at a wedding fair and encouraged attendees to sample it. Watching the horrified reactions of some of the Bridezillas, after the filling was revealed, gave viewers a mischievous chuckle. Heston then went on to do his own twist on pork pie using beetroot ice cream, and a version of the Victorian Penny pie.
Back in the 1800s, the Penny pie was filled with rancid meat, which is what inspired the legend of sweeney Todd — the demon barber who slit the throats of his customers so their flesh could be used in pies. With human flesh not really being an option for Heston (imagine trying to get that idea past ofcom), he instead chose to use animal parts we don’t usually consume, such as brains, ears and tongue.
Heston wanted to accompany his pie with the world’s fluffiest mash, which he believed could be achieved by placing a spud in a rocket and launching it to 28 kilometres above the Earth, where its cell walls would break down.
It didn’t work — which was perhaps just as well because Heston grew rather attached to his spudnik. ‘Peeling the top off his head feels wrong,’ he said. The potato was spared but his tasting panel — made up of professional pie makers — were not as they tucked into the dishes and their ‘surprise’ fillings.
although all rather daft, it was highly entertaining. However, the biggest surprise of all would be if Heston just cooked a normal dish that your average punter might want to eat.
on a much more serious note, the compelling Protecting Our
Parents (BBC2) series came to an end. The final episode focused on the shortage of places in residential care homes and the turmoil some relatives face when having to place loved ones there. John, 78, was in the later stages of dementia, and watching this strapping man weep with confusion was heart-breaking.
Worse still was the impact it had on Jean, his wheelchair-bound wife, who battled huge feelings of guilt when she had to accept that she could no longer have him at home. ‘If the situation was reversed, I think he would have fought harder for me,’ she said.
all Gladys, 85, wanted was somewhere safe for her to go and to live near her family. she simply couldn’t understand why it wasn’t possible. ‘It’s awful getting old,’ she wept. ‘I wish I could go back and just be young again.’
at Birmingham’s Heartlands Hospital, half its intake of patients were aged over 65. We witnessed Evelyn, who was frail and sick, and was just dumped there until something else could be found.
With the number of over-60s set to hit 20 million in the next 15 years, it’s an issue that should be troubling us all, and producer alice Perman must be commended for her important series.
Christopher Stevens is away.