A truly inspring Cooking Programme (Heston's Feast - Channel 4)

Member Name: paulie1975

Product:	Heston's Feast - Channel 4
Date:	10/05/09 (101 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great Dishes, exciting, innovative, Blumethal is an effusive host with charm and personality

Disadvantages: Don't try this at home!

You have simply got to love this programme, if you like, food, science or somebody who looks like their having a hell of a lot of fun doing their job.

I like Heston Blumenthal, he's the owner and chef of the Fat Duck in Bray, this is considered the second best restaurant on the planet and he's renowned for his strange and sublime tasting menu which includes some incredibly odd meals.

He has recently been on Channel four trying to reinvent the Little Chef menu to save it from going under and make it relevant to people in our era, he came across as a really nice guy who encouraged rather than dismissed, who looked to be innovative but realistic in equal measures, and he did a damn good job under some real constraints.

Well this programme is nothing like that, for this programme, Heston has been asked to be as mad and creative as he wants to be and set up feasts from Bygone days, the programmes asks him to recreate feasts from the following eras:

Victorian Britain

Tudor England

Medieval Era

Ancient Rome

For each Feast a series of celebrities are invited, they are a strange mix but this is a strange show, we have people as diverse as Rageh Omah, Germaine Greer, Kelvin MacKenzie and Alex Zane.

Each week Heston delves into the past gives a bit of background on each era and what was eaten and then sets about creating the maddest concoctions he can make. Its fun watching Heston create Absinthe Jelly with a Vibrator or cooking a whole hog in a jacuzzi for 24 hours, this really is boil in the bag, but not something Gordon Ramsey will be taking to his restaurants i'm sure. We have ejaculating cake, a hog roast where the guts fall out of the stomach and are actually edible sausages, an edible insect garden where the insects, flowers, grass, even dirt are edible. This is visually stunning and we are willing Heston on at every moment. The food looks exciting and Heston seems like an overblown schoolkid in his work, heading to France to get drunk on Absinthe or to East London Sex Shops to find out which vibrator would make a jelly wobble most, he has a great time and so do we.

I was entranced by the series, by the man and by the food, I found the format good although I didn't care what the guests thought as while some were genuinely excited, some were simply there to be on tv and showcase themselves, I simply wanted to watch this great chef have fun and make some ingenious and innovative meals, I was thoroughly satisfied.

On BBC2 Blumenthal made a series about making the perfect meal, this was ok, but too complicated and there was no fun to it, Heston now seems to have found his niche, he is the mad scientist of chef's and should have free rein to enjoy himself, he's not shouty like Ramsey, or posh like Nigella, he's a normal bloke who is doing what he loves and its incredible fun joining him to see what he can do.

A great tv experience, something truly different and exciting.

Summary: A truly inspring Cooking Programme