Heston’s Feasts proves Blumenthal really is the real life Willy Wonka.
I was all set to hate the new series of Heston’s Feasts. I had a great time watching the first series of the show, but after a couple of episodes you do start to recognise the formula, as mathematically precise as one of Blumenthal’s recipes.
If you saw the first series of the show, or the Christmas Special, you’ll recognise the checklist for every episode:
- Heston lingers over a tower of hardback books in a library to research that night’s theme and telling us why this particular one, more than any other, is his absolute favourite.
- A course based around a gross-out ingredient (bull’s testicles, calf’s brains, whale’s vomit).
- Heston gets together with some chap and they graphically kill some animals (shooting a stag, chopping up live frogs, slicing open a pig to finger its intestines).
- Heston inviting members of the British public to wretch over repulsive test dishes or atrocious historic recipes (edible soil at a garden centre, the Frankenstein kebab shop, whale vomit hot chocolate for the panto cast).
- A grimly macabre dish where Heston tries to make the animal look as if it is still alive (dead lamprey heads eyeing up at the diners from the plate, a murdered stag staring accusingly at the dinner party feasting upon it’s flesh).
- A dish of something that’s disguised as something else (meat fruit, chocolate candles, bangers & mash rice pudding).
- A wild-goose-chase for spectacular centrepiece that won’t get eaten (a giant vibrator-filled jelly, rogue taxidermy at the plastic surgeons, the wicker stag).
- Heston travelling to a not-too-far-off land to source and research his ingredients (French absinthe, American turtles, Latvian lampreys)
- A barmy food eccentric (an Italian butcher with a hat made of animal bones or the forest-dwelling mouse hunters of Slovenia).
- A sceptical dinner guest who is eventually won over by the inventiveness of the meal (Kelvin Mackenzie, Mariella Frostrup).
Lucky viewers might also be treated to i) some laboratory equipment repurposed for the kitchen ii) dazzling dinnertable pyrotechnics iii) Heston and the other Fat Duck chefs mucking about in the car park or upstairs research lab.
There are times watching this series that you know Blumenthal is playing up to the cameras, trying to be even more weird, wacky, gross and geeky than his tabloid stereotype. As if the ultimate goal of each programme is to get a mention on the coming Saturday’s Harry Hill show.
Remember how each episode of Kitchen Nightmares USA follows exactly the same pattern? That was my fear for the second series of Feasts, that as much as I love Heston I’d just be bored by the show’s repetitive format.
Which wasn’t the case, as it was actually brilliant.
It’s business as usual from the very start, but with the tower of hardbacks in a library swapped for a slender children’s paperback in a traditional sweet shop. Then the obligatory scene-setting cheeky animation. I love these.
Five minutes into the show I was having a great time. Probably not quite as great as the often quite random Z-listers being treated to a meticulously planned one-off meal by one of the top chefs on the planet. But still a very good time.
It’s all wonderfully enjoyable and daft way, revolving around Blumenthal’s central premise that food should be fun. Even the usual clichés brought a smile to my face, some examples being…
- Deliberate weirdness
- Travelling abroad to chase a rare ingredient
- The man obsessed with a single food
- Nauseating the British public
- Foods pretending to be other foods.
- Impressive but inedible centrepieces
- Guest appearances from lab equipment
…And so on.
My favourite in-joke was Heston’s criticism of his 60’s version of duck à l’orange. One reason he slates it is that “it’s cold”. Cold??? Eat at the Fat Duck and you’ll struggle to find a single dish that’s served above tepid.
Everyone compares Heston to Willy Wonka, and this episode really revelled in the chance to make a direct comparison. Accept it for it’s formula and it’s probably the most fun food show on the telly .
But did you see it, and did you enjoy it as much? Let us know what you think.
Wow, six years later… lol. Hi, Phil. I did watch both series of Heston’s Feasts, with the exception of two episodes – I haven’t seen the Ultimate or Fishy Feast. I enjoyed the shows, but aspects of them become really annoying after awhile. One is Heston’s supposed failed recipes – another part of the formula you mentioned. It’s obvious he mucks up a bunch for the sake of the camera and to pad out the episodes. The recipe failures also tie in with something mentioned in other posts on this blog – wasted food! HB is guilty of this in most of his different programs, and it gets right on my ravin’ titties. Another thing that frustrates me is the feasts are much more about spectacle than about actually FEEDING the guests. I know Heston is all about dazzling and enchanting his guests, taking them back in time. To bring back childhood food memories in a powerful way, and to create new ones. That is his life’s philosophy, and I think it’s amazing and wonderful. A worthy cause. But is it too much to ask for him to do all that, and actually feed me enough to sate my appetite? Lol. If I am going to spend hundreds of pounds/dollars on a meal (I’m pretty sure that is what the bill would be for one of the feasts), I’d better be fed until I have to be carried out on a gurney. The same goes for eating at a restaurant. Having said all that….the episode. I think it is my least favorite. The only courses I can remember off the top of my head are the lickable wallpaper, and the chocolate waterfall. While I’m sure the wallpaper and chocolate powder (are you kidding me?!?!) were delicious, they aren’t FOOD. There wasn’t anything to really get stuck into that I remember. All sparkle, bells and whistles. All flash, no substance.