Gastronomic: Part Two

Ah, what a difference a week makes! No sooner had I watched in awe at "Heston's Victorian Feast" that I find out that Mr. Blumenthal's restaurant had been closed down because 400 customers complained of feeling ill!

So cue the jokes in the second of the series - a Medieval Feast. At some point during the initial history part, the Black Death was mentioned and suddenly from the corner I heard "Is that what you're gonna be serving in your restaurant then?"

It was funny, if in slightly bad taste (but then again I laugh at the strangest of things). But alas, no Black Death was served. Instead for appetisers there was Meat Fruit. Yep, meat disguised cleverly and convincingly like fruit. The plums were the least appetising (made out of an ingredient you're likely to see on something like I'm A Celebrity... 'nuff said). But the parma ham grapes sounded nice, I would've eaten that.

Oh, but the starter was vile! Blood sucking lamprey! Urgh! Even the guests couldn't stomach it - the raw head and tail were put either side of a griddled middle piece with the spinal cords of the little monsters fried and served as a garnish. Blech. Blood sauce as well. Double blech.

The main course looked at sounded nice. Pigeon pie baked the Medieval way. I.e. inedible crust but everything else about it seemed quite nice. At least until I realised how it was going to be presented. There is a showpiece for every one of these installments, and this week it was four and twenty blackbirds baked live in a pie. Only Heston replaced them with pigeons since blackbirds are now endangered. So, crust baked using some industrial equipment (steamrollers, cement mixers etc - it was one heck of a big pie!) he started putting the pigeons under the crust. When it came out and the lid was removed the birds flew everywhere.... and the dinner was taken out from the big pie. I don't know about anyone else but I wouldn't want to be eating a pie that's been near any sort of bird, let alone a pigeon (what if it hadn't emptied its bowels in a little while - actually one of the birds did on one of the guests' heads).

Dessert was clever but incredibly messy. Edible tablewear served with pork pie. Yeah, pork pie. Not real pork you'll understand but faux-mincemeat made from rasberry sorbet and vanilla ice-cream, strained through a grid and solidified with liquid nitrogen. Aha, really. Still, I wouldn't want to eat the crust which appeared to be a real pork-pie crust instead of a sweet treat.

Ooh, I can't wait for the exploding cockatrice next week!