Join Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Sue Perkins in this quiz show that tests your knowledge of all things gastronomic. Features special guests James Martin and Charlotte Church.
This Channel 4 show made its local debut on Wednesday and follows a tried and tested format: a snarky host, two teams, each with a chef acting as “captain” and a celebrity as their support. Of course, it’s difficult to distinguish between celebrity and chef these days. As the blurb promised, Hugh F-W is the head of one team and James Martin – who I haven’t seen before, but came with the “housewives’ favourite” tag, so is therefore clearly not new to television – headed up the other. Hugh was joined by Charlotte Church (a non-chef celebrity) whilst James had Ching-He Huang (mysteriously missing from the guide summary) who was introduced as a food writer and TV chef, tipping the scales in the James team’s favour as far as food knowledge was concerned. Hugh’s team had greater international celebrity status, though.
The format of the show – if such can be gleaned from a single viewing – is a series of quizzes and challenges.
Round 1 – ten of a kind
20 seconds to name ten types of a certain food. For Hugh, it was pasta shapes, of which he identified eight, followed by a set-up-for-the-laffs question about pasta puttanesca. James had 20 seconds to name ten types of cooking oil, followed by a question that must have been in the press at that time regarding a man in Zimbabwe substituting something (urine) for oil. Ching-He was asked to identify vegies that are served with a traditional British Sunday lunch and Charlotte had to name ten items from the menu of her local Chinese Restaurant, the Golden Well in Bridge End.
Round 2 – what the fork is it?
Contestants try to work out what an unusual appliance or implement does. In the first round, Hugh tried to figure out the purpose of a bright red octopus-shaped plastic implement, deciding – after much hemming and hawing – that it was a vegetable cutter. No points to his team, as Sue demonstrated that it was designed to be used to turn cooked hot-dogs into… well… octopus-shaped cooked hot-dogs. No doubt Hugh regrets not using the design as a clue to the purpose. Ching-He and James managed to pretend they didn’t know what their implement was long enough for Sue to make a few vibrator jokes.
Round 3 – skills challenge
The team captains (right handers) had to prepare a hamburger with their left hand. Right hands were tied to their partners’ left hands, and partners were allowed to contribute a right hand. High concept, clearly designed for maximum mess and potential for injury.
Round 4 – palate test
A dish was blended up and served to the teams to identify. Hugh and Charlotte managed to identify their Tricolore Salad fairly easily, but James and his team-mate struggled a bit with their KFC Zinger Burger. James started off with “hot and spicy” and followed up with “bloody awful”. He managed to identify it with a few hints and was outed as a fan of the dirty bird. Hugh snuck in a quick comment about the unhappy lives of the Colonel’s birds before the round ended.
Final round – buzzer questions
Peremptory trivia question round (won, in this instance, but Hugh and Charlotte).
The winner is announced and the credits roll.
This is a fluffy show which would probably serve as reasonable background TV for a task like doing dishes or preparing dinner. It’s not a how-to food show, imparting practical advice; it’s a trivia competition designed for maximum double entendre. Worth a look.
Lifestyle Food, 9.00pm, Wednesdays
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Injera – you havent come across ‘Sweet Baby James’, the pinup pudding boy – I am most surprised. He is Gordon Ramsay’s anti-matter world* chefbot ( *Ref: Lost in Space ) Now this man not only knows a lemon tart ( THE BEST RECIPE EVER) his spotted dick comes second.
I will google him at once! Thanks, Pollywaffle.
BTW, that previous post wasnt meant to sound as rude as it does, so easy to wander into material about his stiff peaks but I wont
That show sounds more interesting than Marseter chef
Wot do Hugh’s initials F-W stand for or is that an in -joke
Sour – its actually watchable, think the remaining fat lady is on next week, now I would love to see her dink Matt P and conveniently lose him on a bend
Oh, Sourkraut, I think we could all have some fun with guessing the best option for the F-W on Hugh!
Pollywaffle – must catch another ep. And I’ve seen that Sweet Baby James has another show coming up on the Food channel. Of course, I can’t remember what it was called, or the general tenor of the show. I’ll blame matched wines…
Injera´s last blog ..Food TV – Family Food Fight