I can see I'm going to have to watch this programme, just so as I can convince people I'm not talking through an - er - other orifice here. But I can't see how viewers (i.e. you lot) can get so worked out about food which you can't taste, can't smell, and are never going to get to eat anyway!
Never mind. One of the things I pride myself in, is that I know a little bit about cooking and have some ability to prepare a meal. This doesn't mean I understand all these fancy ('poncy', someone said) dishes splashed over TV celeb-chef offerings. To me, cooking means preparing
food, not a
dish. And making it something people are going to want to eat, and they're going to be clamouring for second helpings.
And food can be simple. Simple enough to be tasty though it would never get past the heats in Masterchef. Take an artichoke, as a case in point. I
love a good artichoke - when one is forthcoming (usually when I'm in France) and I'm in the mood for it. And what could be simpler? Clean it well - cut off the stalk - boil it in lightly salted water until the 'leaves' can be pulled off easily. Meanwhile prepare the simplest of
hollandaise, no need to even give it that 'poncy' name, just a bit of melted butter and lemon juice. Serve. To eat, pick off each 'leaf' in turn, dip in sauce, and suck off the fleshy part. When you get to the heart, carefully scrape off the 'choke' and savour the delicious heart doused in what's left of the lemon sauce. Simples!
So what do I get when my wife and I get invited to a business dinner in a fancy hotel situated at the classier end of Crawley (believe me, you have to go a long way out of Crawley to get to its 'classy' end...)? I go for the veggie option, as I so often do, and up comes
fonds d'artichauts done up in a sort of cheesy-winey sort of sauce and baked
en croute (at least I think that's what the menu said). So: a dollop of mess suggestive of somewhat ropy stilton, in a limp pastry case, with lumps of something vaguely vegetable-ish lurking in it. Not a prayer of artichoke flavour anywhere (if there had been the stilton would have swamped it anyway) - probably because it came from a tin. But that was 'fancy'' food, elaborately garnished and elegantly laid out on the crockery, and seeming to justify the enormous price it commanded (I wasn't paying the bill
). But food I can enjoy - it wasn't.
So how would Masterchef tackle that particular poser: prepare me a good artichoke?
