17 March 2009

Heston Bloominmad

Tonight sees the latest instalment of Heston Blumenthals series of bonkers food as the culinary clown prince goes all Tudor.

The Christmas special he did was incredible, but edible gold frankincense and myrrh not too easy to replicate in the home kitchen.

The Victorians gave us absinthe and dildo jelly, Medieval England had edible tableware. What can the Tudors give us?

Bring it on!

He’s promising extravagant, flamboyant an spectacular, but can he deliver?

I’m already a little put off my own dinner by what’s on the screen, but at least we won’t be eating Cilla Black, or at least I hope not. There’s some imagery I don’t want to get into, especially not with the equally unsavoury Kelvin MacKenzie.

First off, he’s making Butter Beer in St Albans. It reminds me of the warm cider you get at the Cambridge Folk Festival. Warm, sweet and acidic, with lumps in it. Vomit in a glass. Bleugh. Pint of Broadside please landlord.

Starter - more wobbly food, frog blancmange. You dirty bastard. He’s in a Chinese kitchen in New York learning how to prepare them. I don’t think we really needed to see them get their heads cut off while still alive. As anyone who knows me will confirm I’ll eat anything, but I’m not convinced that I really want frog blancmange, although it does look very pretty with the deep fried frogs legs on lily pads.

Next, Cockentrice. A mythical creature of half pig, half capon. Easily confused these Tudors. You’d think you’d notice it just two animals sewn together. Think manbearpig from South Park, or The Beast of Royston Vasey.

“Isn’t that just a cock with the head of a pig?”. “Yes - It’s Kelvin Mackenzie. He used to edit the Sun”, I thank you…

Unhappy with the simplicity of this, he’s gone to a taxidermists to experiment with proper animashes, but is just fucking about with soft toys, which mrsslippy finds most disturbing. There’s fluff everywhere….

Cockentrice finally on the table, and as great as to looks, there ain’t a lot of meat in it, and as mrsslippy quite correctly points out - it looks like spam. Even Kelvin is finally happy. Fuckwit.

Dessert is a pudding. Rice pudding. I don’t like the stuff at the best of times, so what crazy twist is he going to put on it? If he’s using ‘special milk’ ie anything that doesn’t come from a teat, or the teats of a person, then I’m turning it off.

Nooooo - he’s defiling a sausage skin by stuffing it with rice pudding! If you gave me a sausage filled with that muck I’d punch your face in.

Fuck me it gets worse. He’s decided the sausage skin is too difficult to peel to get the goodness out. He needs something sausage shaped that is waterproof and lubricated…..

You guessed it.

You filthy fucker. He’s cooking rice pudding in condoms then trying to pass it off as a sausage. No wonder everyone in his restaurant got ill. The man is sick. Seriously sick.

All in all it’s all done with smoke and mirrors. Looks impressive, but is it style over content? Probably.

I’m off to dig the pistachio ice cream out the freezer. I might roll it into little balls and smother it in chocolate sauce so I can pretend it’s peas and gravy, but then again, I’ll probably just eat it out the tub.

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