Heston's Victorian Feast (Channel 4)
The Mad Hatter of Cooking’s Wonderland Themed Dinner Party
Mar 3, 2009
Television cooking has come a long way from the early days of a mumsy-type matron teaching everyone how to boil an egg or throw together a cheap prawn cocktail for that all important dinner party. Now most cooking shows on modern TV come with a pre-amble warning of strong language, attract as many complaints a Chris Morris spoof and feature more bullying and knee-jerk opinion than an episode of Jeremy Kyle.
Then there is Heston Blumenthal, a chef who is famous for his food rather than his temperament, and in this new Channel 4 series is looking into the distant past for his latest inspiration in the kitchen. No, that doesn’t mean the Little Chef menu.
Alice in Wonderland Theme with Mock Turtle Soup and Absinthe Jelly
The Fat Duck man is on a mission to use myths, science, ancient cookbooks and inspiration from one of his favourite books, Lewis Carroll’s most famous work Alice in Wonderland, to create an imaginative feast for his celebrity diners: broadcast reporter Rageh Omaar, actress Gemma Redgrave, TV journalist Dawn Porter, food critic Toby Young and radio presenter Richard Bacon.
The book is full of madness and imagination, so it seems a logical step in his quest for thought provoking food. In his words he wants food to be fun and a meal people will remember for the rest of their lives, and who won’t remember eating mock turtle soup crafted into a fob watch or absinthe jelly with a certain “vibrating surprise”?
Heston Blumenthal - John Major meets Bottom’s Eddie Hitler
The attraction with watching Blumenthal is peculiar because he isn’t as entertaining as Gordon Ramsey or charismatic like Jamie Oliver - in fact he’s almost the culinary equivalent of John Major and looks like Bottom’s Eddie Hitler - yet his unique style of food is interesting. Plus the jelly experiments and the absinthe tasting scenes were funny as they displayed his playful side.
Maybe the mad scientist approach of his cooking is a bit overblown and pseudo-intellectual but there is something about watching a man combine strange ingredients that is oddly appealing, even if most people can’t afford to look at it never mind have a taste.
It was intriguing to see him recreate the foods and flavours as described in the book. With the pink “Drink Me” potion Blumenthal made a drink that tasted of cherry, toffee, toast, custard and turkey. But it’s not food anyone watching is going to be able to replicate, not everyone in the world has bizarre flux capacitor stuff in their kitchen.
As ever with cooking shows you have to see the chef going into the wild and hunting their own prey - which is what we see here when Blumenthal catches his own turtles - and growing his own Victorian garden with edible insects.
Victorian Feast let down by Irksome Guests
Overall Heston's Victorian Feast was a decent hour of television that was let down by the calibre of his guests, who were quite a dull bunch and reactions didn’t go further than “that was nice”. Maybe as the party was cut up with scenes of Heston rather than shown in one go was to blame but on paper it hardly seems like the wittiest assembly of human beings. Give us Stephen Fry and Paul Merton next time and we should be onto a winner.
Heston’s... is shown on Channel 4 at 9pm on Tuesdays and repeated on 4oD.
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