For almost 90 years our TV screens have been filled with a rich variety of chefs, cooks, bakers, pâtissiers and culinarians demonstrating the skills we all need to be able to prepare meals and snacks in our own homes. Now, almost inevitably, the modern practitioners have run out of food combinations to tickle our tastebuds.
When asked what he intended for the next Channel 4 series Jamie Oliver stared forlornly at a blank sheet of paper, sighed, and shrugged. The words “F*ck me, mate, where do I start?” may have escaped his lips.
Every combination of ingredient has been attempted, no matter how unpalatable. The world’s cuisines have been trawled and exotic foodstuffs thrown together in random desperation, and then boiled, fried, grilled, baked, barbecued, charred, stewed, blanched, braised, boiled, sautéed, roasted, and more recently air fryed.
All this to educate and enable the general public to follow their example, which is a complete waste of time. Millions of cookbooks sit on kitchen shelves across the land, unloved and unopened. Still we struggle with the basics, despite decades of televised instruction. Salads are burnt, baked beans eaten cold, and everyone heads down the chippy.
Several expletives later Jamie finally hits upon a solution. “I’ve pared back and pared back in recent years. Only one place to go … 'Delicious One Ingredient, One Minute Meals'. Failing that, 'Fifty Ways To Use Urine In Your Cooking', because seriously we are just taking the p*ss now.”
