Why oh why are so many food and drink programmes an hour long these days?
It's as if their makers think it turns them into the equivalent of broadsheets to the half-hour formats' red tops even though they've actually got no more than 10 minutes worth of decent material.
It's so depressing when you know before you even sit down that you're about to be subjected to some hackneyed, padded-out dross that'll have you at best propping your eyelids up with toothpicks or, at worst, hurling something at the box. Thank Jamie there are still some who understand the value of brevity.
Jamie's 30-Minute Meals (5.30pm, C4, 26 October) was actually just 24 minutes minus the ads and all the better for it. As was the man himself. In fact, he reminded me of the Jamie of old the one who focused on cooking nice grub (this time, cauliflower macaroni, salad in a 'green goddess' dressing and boozy stewed fruit) rather than preaching to us all about how fat we are.
Better still, it was the sort of food I'd have a stab at myself though who's he kidding it'd take half an hour? Maybe if I were a trained chef.
Not that being one necessarily means you can turn out decent food as the two who went head to head this week in the first of a new series bizarrely, sponsored by the Food Standards Agency demonstrated (Street Market Chefs, 7.30pm, Five, 26 October). This was a programme sadly even brevity couldn't rescue.
The pair were tasked with cooking a two-course meal with the produce they'd bought from York Farmers' Market, fittingly located just off the Shambles. And my God, this was one, right down to the dismal sound production, shaky camerawork and the fact one of the judges was some no-mark from York City Football Club (non-league for Crissakes!).
The food was equally amateurish and neither chef used the key ingredient, honey, in the first course, the bloke instead dishing up a vile-looking lump of goat's cheese adorned with... creamy goat's cheese. Inexplicably, he won (I say inexplicably because I'm sure he scored the same number of points as the other chef). What was the FSA thinking? And don't get me started on its ident featuring folk cavorting around dressed as germs.
Very odd. Very odd indeed.
More from this column
It's as if their makers think it turns them into the equivalent of broadsheets to the half-hour formats' red tops even though they've actually got no more than 10 minutes worth of decent material.
It's so depressing when you know before you even sit down that you're about to be subjected to some hackneyed, padded-out dross that'll have you at best propping your eyelids up with toothpicks or, at worst, hurling something at the box. Thank Jamie there are still some who understand the value of brevity.
Jamie's 30-Minute Meals (5.30pm, C4, 26 October) was actually just 24 minutes minus the ads and all the better for it. As was the man himself. In fact, he reminded me of the Jamie of old the one who focused on cooking nice grub (this time, cauliflower macaroni, salad in a 'green goddess' dressing and boozy stewed fruit) rather than preaching to us all about how fat we are.
Better still, it was the sort of food I'd have a stab at myself though who's he kidding it'd take half an hour? Maybe if I were a trained chef.
Not that being one necessarily means you can turn out decent food as the two who went head to head this week in the first of a new series bizarrely, sponsored by the Food Standards Agency demonstrated (Street Market Chefs, 7.30pm, Five, 26 October). This was a programme sadly even brevity couldn't rescue.
The pair were tasked with cooking a two-course meal with the produce they'd bought from York Farmers' Market, fittingly located just off the Shambles. And my God, this was one, right down to the dismal sound production, shaky camerawork and the fact one of the judges was some no-mark from York City Football Club (non-league for Crissakes!).
The food was equally amateurish and neither chef used the key ingredient, honey, in the first course, the bloke instead dishing up a vile-looking lump of goat's cheese adorned with... creamy goat's cheese. Inexplicably, he won (I say inexplicably because I'm sure he scored the same number of points as the other chef). What was the FSA thinking? And don't get me started on its ident featuring folk cavorting around dressed as germs.
Very odd. Very odd indeed.
More from this column
No comments yet