A m I mad? I’m two stone overweight and somehow I’ve
agreed to eat 14 four-course menus and then half the menus all over again. All this on telly as a judge on Great British Menu, a competition in which top chefs compete to cook the Queen’s 80th-birthday banquet. It’s hard to miss, since the programme is on every day (BBC2, 6.30 p.m.) until the final on 2 June.
We start filming at dawn in an empty office block, parts of which have been given a makeover for the show. There is no heating. Even the kitchens are arctic, though marginally warmer than the judges’ quarters. We’re not allowed near them because two chefs battle it out in regional heats, and we must not know who has cooked what. Jennie Bond shivers in summery presenter gear in a basement corridor now known as Wardrobe. Makeup is a sluice cupboard, icily tiled in white. On account of the camera adding more pounds than even I possess, vanity dictates that I tough it out in a thin purple shirt. But I soon give in and add fleecy layers underneath.
It doesn’t take long to suss what my role is: I’m the nanny who has to keep my fellow judges, Matthew Fort and Oliver Peyton, in line. It’s my job to say, ‘Boys, boys!’ and slap their wrists. Matthew alternates between Jolly Good Chap and Grumpy Old Man, and is delighted if he can disagree with his old mucker Oliver. They fight a lot about what is British and what is not, as well as whether things taste nice. And since they both know that directors like it if you say things over and over again so there’s a choice of clips, they go on arguing long after it’s clear they will never agree. Oliver has a visceral hatred of saffron, and Matthew won’t allow that goat’s cheese can make a good starter. He can’t be doing with mint sprigs either. I’m the boring voice of reason.
Needless to say (but I’d better say it if I am to keep any friends in the trade) these chefs produce very good food indeed. The skill and inventiveness of the cooks and the range and quality of the ingredients make holding back impossible. But it does amaze me that top chefs have so little clue about balancing a menu. Presumably this is because in Michelinstarred restaurants the customer, rather than the chef, decides that if he wants a cholesterol-laden pudding, he’ll eschew the lobster in cream sauce before it. Some of the menus we are offered would give even a hardened eater like Nicholas Soames a heart attack. Also, not all of the chefs have the imagination to project to summer. We have had wintry root veg, Jerusalem artichokes, hot soups, dumplings, bubble and squeak, oxtail, venison, pickles and braised red cabbage galore. Which is welcome in a cold studio in February. But in June? For a birthday lunch? For a queen?
Of course the programme is primarily about entertainment, but there is a welcome serious side, which is to highlight regional British cooking and to promote the renaissance of good British producers. So, to niggle further, why do we get apricots when we could get quinces or damsons? Why do we get American softshell crab rather than Cornish crab? Why not goosegogs or rhubarb rather than citrus fruits; why Gruyère rather than a local cheese — there are now over 900 British cheeses entered in the annual British Cheese Awards. Surely one of them would be good?
Almost all the cooking is delicious, innovative and lovely to look at. These are Michelin-star chefs, after all. But I think they missed a trick with the puddings, which were mostly variations of restaurant pretty-pretty fripperies. You’d have thought that with the British (and particularly the Irish and Yorkshire) skill at, and love of, puds, someone would dip into that fund of pies, possets, fools, flummeries, fritters, jellies, trifles, crumbles or cobblers for inspiration. There are a few brilliant takes — Marcus Wareing’s custard tart, Gary Rhodes’s apple mousse, Galton Blackiston’s treacle sponge, Paul Rankin’s buttermilk jelly. But that’s about it. We knew we’d get masterly cooking, but what surprised me was how distinctive the styles are: Nick Nairn shows his classical background with exquisite execution; Richard Corrigan’s food reflects his gutsy Irish temperament; Galton Blackiston has the eclectic confidence of the self-taught cook; Atul Kochhar overlays his Asian origins with European style.
The chefs love it. For the grandees among them, it’s fun being back in a kitchen chopping their own onions, and the camaraderie and banter keep the freezing crew going. At first the competitors are laid-back, only in it for a laugh or to promote good food or to publicise their restaurants or whatever. But after a week during which they perfect their dishes, visit their local suppliers and are interrogated by Jennie, the competition gets to them. Antony Worrall Thompson manages to burn what should have been exquisite boned oxtail, Gary Rhodes oversalts his duck dish, Paul Rankin overdoses on the mustard for his lamb, and Angela Hartnett screws up with a stodgy Welsh cake. These rare booboos are hugely encouraging for the viewers and a gift for the judges. With so much good cooking, any flaw is welcome.
‘udgment Day’ takes place in a sort of Jheadmaster’s study and the two chefs of the week stand before us for our verdict. We take turns delivering it. I thank God we don’t know who cooked what so we can at least claim impartiality: I know a lot of these guys, and Matthew and Oliver probably know them all, and I don’t want to be on the wrong side of any of them. Or of their bosses: if I don’t vote for Angela or Marcus, will Gordon Ramsay come after me? Not that our opinion matters a lot: the public get to vote too, and they won’t have tasted the food. I’m told the public always votes on personality, but maybe loyalty to Wales or the Midlands or the North will matter more? And won’t Angela, the only woman, get the female vote?
Today I’m even fatter and still wearing concealed padding against pneumonia: springtime warmth does not penetrate an unheated building. But I’m now past vanity: what difference can a Michelin tyre make when I’m chewing and slurping in close-up? Especially with crooked teeth for which I will never, ever forgive my mother. How sensible of Her Majesty to refuse to be photographed eating and drinking.
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