Food John Bishop's Britain

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Thank you, thank you.

Good evening and welcome to John Bishop's Britain.

On tonight's show, I'll talk about food.

Let's be honest, food has changed dramatically.

Cos dads now cook. Men cook. That didn't happen when I was growing up.

I remember being a kid, walking into the kitchen,

seeing me dad cooking, and I just started crying

cos I thought me mum had left.

To find out what the British public really think about food,

I've spoken to hundreds of people about the subject.

And this is a look at the people we interviewed.

That represents Britain to the rest of the world.

And this is a taster of what they had to say.

Oh, I do love eating out.

Rubbery and vile.

-Never eat dog.

-Tastes like rubber.

It's a nightmare experience every time.

Slithering down me throat? No, thank you.

-Hideous.

-I find the whole thing quite erotic.

They do slip down your throat so marvellously well.

We'll be hearing what they think throughout the show,

plus there'll be a few sketches.

Tonight, the subject we're going to be talking about is food.

Something that means a lot to everyone in the room, cos we need it.

We all have it every single day, everybody eats every day,

unless, of course, you're Victoria Beckham.

But food has changed completely as an activity.

There used to be that thing, where families, at least once a week,

would eat together. You would sit down, have your Sunday roast

and you would all eat together and everyone made the effort.

You would do that so, when you ate together,

you realised why, for the rest of the week, you were best apart. Because it was a nightmare.

But it was during that time that we had those Sunday roasts,

that something happened to me that was a massive step into manhood.

I was 19 years of age, it was 1985. I went home.

My mum had got the Sunday roast together and I said,

"Mum, I'm not eating that. I'm a vegetarian."

This is 1985, remember. This is at the time of Live Aid.

My mum said, "Look, son, I'm not sending your ham to Africa,

"it'll never get there."

I said "That's not the reason. I'm a vegetarian from now on."

She just went... "You better tell your father."

I went in. I told my dad I was a vegetarian.

My dad looked at me like I'd just told him I joined Village People.

# It's fun to stay at the YMCA... #

But nothing changed, we still had the Sunday roast.

Anyone here that was vegetarian then, will tell you this was how it was.

There wasn't any Quorn, there wasn't any Linda McCartney meals.

What happened is, you had the same roast as everyone else.

You had the potatoes, you had the veg, you had the gravy

but instead of having the chicken,

you had a five-inch pizza on top.

That's what I had. Five... Because also in 1985,

five-inch pizza was the only pizza you were going to get.

You would go to Iceland or Kwik Save and they had them in packets of seven.

Cheese and tomato, that's all you were getting in his country.

Cheese and tomato pizza, and that was exotic. It was that big.

That big. That's how pizza was. That was the only pizza that we knew.

Now, you can get pizza and it comes to your house.

In 1985 you couldn't get pizza to your house, but you could get bin men.

But we all remember the different foods we ate when we were growing up.

I've got an auntie in Dumbarton that used to experiment on me,

and she came up with the bright idea of having choc ice and chips.

When I was growing up, I hated custard creams.

Which really could have been disgusting, but she saved the day

by putting salad cream on it.

I remember having to eat broad beans, which I absolutely hated.

-Pilchards.

-Peas.

-Hairy fish.

-Brussels sprouts.

Rice pudding. Anything with a skin on it.

-Jarred beetroot at my grandmother's.

-Oh, I loved it!

I had a very strange habit of drinking vinegar out of the bottle.

As a kid, everything had to have brown sauce on it.

Then just to mix things up, I'd put a bit of HP sauce in the lid and drink it, like brown sauce.

When I was a child in Africa,

food was something that one's servants created for you.

When I was young, I went through a period of only wanting small food,

so things had to be cut up into very small pieces.

The service was always impeccable. The food, a little less interesting.

My sister hated vegetables. When my mum and dad weren't looking,

she used to shove it down the back of the radiator

which was behind the dinner table.

Me brother would go nowhere near a vegetable. Anything orange or green.

Which was fine until we turned the central heating on in the winter,

and then the whole house had this kind of, rotten, cabbagey smell.

I used to get called a human dustbin. The little Hoover.

-I used to eat everything.

-Fatty!

I still get called fat girl by this stupid cow.

What I love about that, is it's nice to see two sisters getting on well.

They go "I love her, the fat girl, stupid cow."

Soon as the camera went, "Who you calling a stupid cow?"

The thing is, food has changed from when we were kids.

A butty used to be a butty. A butty. I'm saying butty,

I forgot there might be some posh people in here from Chester.

Sandwich.

But it was a thing that you understood.

You could go into a cafe and say, "Can I have a butty?".

Now, you can't have that, you've got an array of options.

You've got this other thing, now, called a wrap.

What a load of bollocks.

A wrap is basically just a sleeping bag for food.

Cos you roll it up. The idea is that if you eat a wrap,

there's less calories than eating a sandwich,

and there is, because everything you put in the wrap comes out,

as soon as you bite into it.

The other thing as well,

which I don't even know where this thing came from.

Paninis. Paninis.

Did everyone notice when paninis arrived?

We used to have sandwiches that were a sandwich.

It was bread and inside there was food

and then someone said, "No. No, you don't want that.

"You want to get what you call a sandwich,

"you want to run over it

"and make it red hot, so you can't eat the contents of it."

It's ridiculous. Like a sandwich used to be... Your butty used to be something you could enjoy.

Something that you would savour.

A panini?!

You get this thing in a bag, they flatten it, they steam it and they give it to you

and you bite into it and it dribbles down your frigging face

and as far as I'm concerned, for men in their forties,

eating a panini is like wearing flip flops.

It should only be something you do when you're abroad.

But as a nation, we love food that other people make.

We love it when we go out and eat it,

we love it when they bring it to our house,

but sometimes, you've got to cook it yourself.

When I was 16 years old I did very, very quickly realise

that cooking was the way to steal a lady's heart.

My parents used to go away to a holiday home,

almost every other weekend,

so, I was left to fend for myself and I was an only child,

so, I learnt to cook pretty quickly on that one.

My mum left me a packet of chicken lemon mix, some chicken fillets,

green peppers, celery, mushrooms

and that was my aphrodisiac for the ladies, and absolutely amazing.

The only problem was, we lived in a close-knit community.

It did become quite a cause celebre,

that my only meal that I could ever cook and that you were going to get,

was chicken in lemon sauce.

If a girl was coming round and I'd say,

"I'm going to cook you a meal tonight",

she'd go, "Is it chicken in lemon sauce?" And I went, "Oh."

So, a magical, magical time.

We used to get something very, very nice for dessert. Definitely.

It was something prolonged and ecstatic but very tasty.

Let's be honest. His mates have just watched that.

Can you imagine how busy his phone is with text messages going,

"Hey, you're a cock."

The thing with that,

at least he's thought about food, relationships and love.

That's true. You always have that. I've been married now for 18 years

and you know, it's still part of what we do.

It seems to be what you need to do to keep a relationship alive.

Recently, before I was going on tour, my wife said,

"You're going to be away for ages." I said "So?"

She said "Do you want to go out?" I went "Oh, for..."

I thought, I don't want to go out.

I said "Why do you think I go on tour for nine months of the year?"

And I said, "Nah, I don't want to."

And then she said those magic words. She said, "Oh, come on, I'll send the kids to me mum's."

I think we know what's going on there, don't we, guys?

I'll send the kids to me mum's.

If you happen to be watching this at home,

and every now and again, you get sent to your grandparents,

it's cos back at home...

..your mum and dad are trying to remember what life was like before you were there,

and they don't want you walking in when they've both got gimp masks on.

She says, "Oh, come on, I'll send the kids to me mum's."

I says, "All right." She sent the kids.

Now it's a different thing. We're in our forties.

When you get the message "Send the kids to your mum's,"

and you're in your twenties it's different cos then you're just married, you might have a baby.

You send the kids to your mum's and you go out and you're full of energy.

You're full of beans. So you'll go out and go for a meal.

You'll enjoy the meal and then after, you're still full of energy.

You'll go for a few drinks,

you might even go to a nightclub, disco dancing.

And that's the way I dance.

And then even after doing all of that,

going for a meal, going for a drink, going to a club,

you'll still go home and you'll still have enough energy...

..to have a little bit of time with each other,

cos you're in your twenties and you're full of beans.

Then you get to your thirties, and you send the kids to your mum's,

generally then, if you've got kids, you've got toddlers

and you'll have more than one.

They're running round, and you're knackered,

all the time.

Cos all you do is work and look after the kids.

And you're shattered, and you send the kids to your mum's

and you go out and you sit there opposite each other.

And then after the meal, you just go home to bed and you just spoon.

But when you're in your forties and you send the kids to your mum's,

you just sit there looking at her like that, "Oh, come on!

"Get it down your neck so we can get it out the way and watch Match Of The Day. Hurry up! Come on!"

By the time you've reached your forties, what you have done,

is you've worked out the food you don't like.

Cos everyone has got food that they hate.

I hate things that taste like rubber.

I hate marzipan.

-Stuff like avocado.

-Cabbage. I can't be doing with cabbage.

Indian cuisine. Unfortunately, we do not go hand in glove.

What is it? Them red colour things... Beetroot.

Offal is the worst thing ever.

Kidneys are hideous.

-I don't like prawns.

-The texture.

-I don't like pate.

-The flavour.

I don't like sushi, which is very not fashionable.

They're grotesque.

I just like proper normal food.

I don't eat pork and I don't eat lamb.

I won't eat beef.

I would never eat horse. I would never eat dog.

You eat beefburgers.

They're HAMburgers.

No, we need to go over this later.

-It's not made out of ham.

-It is.

McDonalds hamburgers are made out of ham.

But I'll eat bacon, how bizarre is that?

I won't eat oysters.

Oyster, I think, is basically snot in a shell.

Just the thought of them make me feel bilious.

I don't like them. Slithering down me throat? No thank you.

-Oysters are kind of like heroin.

-Why are they an aphrodisiac?

Slipping it down your neck. I find the whole thing quite erotic.

They do slip down the throat so marvellously well!

My ex-late husband, bless him, he had about five oysters

cos you know what they say about oysters,

but he didn't need them, cos his name was Chopper!

You know what's brilliant about that?

There are some foods where you think, "Where did that idea come from?"

Whose idea was it to look at an oyster

and think "I want to suck that out."

There's some foods I've never understood,

like ham and pineapple pizza.

Who came up with ham and pineapple pizza?

That's like having your meal and your pudding all at the same time.

Know what I mean? It's like having a chocolate spud.

It make no sense whatsoever.

The thing is, now, with food, we've got two sides.

We've got all the food that we want to eat,

and all the food that we like, and then this whole diet industry.

The dieting industry has just ballooned, which is quite ironic.

But it has. You've got all of these shakes you can have.

All those adverts. Hey! Was that me? Fat Freddy. Look at me! Look at me!

Fat Freddy? I've only had a shake a day. Look at me! Fat Freddy.

No, you're an annoying twat, no matter what you're like.

And the thing is, you've got this dieting industry

that's directed toward women, but I don't know if anyone's had a wife

that's gone to Weight Watchers and they've gone, "Come on.

"Why don't we go on a diet together?"

"Cos I'm not fat, love."

Somehow doesn't go down that well.

The other complication is, you've always got these foods.

This food's good for you, that food's bad for you. It changes all the time.

You've now got good fat and bad fat.

How confusing is that? Good fat and bad fat.

That's like Dawn French and Ann Widdecombe.

You can't have that. Fat's fat.

So, everyone's tried dieting.

Everyone in this country at some point has tried to diet,

and at some point we've all succumbed to that big temptation.

The one you can't resist. Fast food.

-I love fast food.

-I love curries.

McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's - I love them all.

Even the action of going into somewhere like McDonalds

is quite a guilty moment.

I'd have a curry every night with about four or five naan breads.

Bit like maybe going into a sex shop or something like that.

A deep fried pizza is the taste of Scotland.

I guess my favourite fast food is Chinese.

Fish and chips on Monday.

Chicken balls, the chips, rice.

Burgers, chicken, doughnuts.

Pizza on a Tuesday, curry on a Wednesday.

The ribs, everything all mixed together. You can't stop eating it.

You can't just have one burger, can you? I generally have to have two.

This Chinese monster takes over me and I just keep stuffing my face

and I sit down and have a rest and chill out.

And then it's time to go again.

I think people that eat fast food are stupid.

My favourite takeaway would have to be KFC.

I love two hot wings and chips.

I want to shake them. "Do you know what's in this?"

Takeaways are injected with drugs to make people crave them.

I know it's going to destroy my heart, but it's still quite nice.

Apparently, we have the highest rate of heart attacks in Europe,

but it's worth it.

Your most fatty piece of chicken, please.

I used to love going to that falafel van on Hampstead Heath, no, not that, after... Yes.

-The falafel van...

-Who did you used to meet behind the falafel van?

I've never had a kebab.

-I love kebabs.

-What could be more delicious?

Getting Stavros to produce the most fabulous shish kebab.

It's a great delight.

If you have a good kebab, there can be no greater pleasure.

Now we all, in this room like fast food of some sort.

I'm not that keen on kebabs, to be honest.

I just think it's like pole dancing for dogs.

However, even though we like fast food,

I don't think any one enjoys it as much as this fella.

Can we just see the lad talking about Chinese again?

This Chinese monster takes over me and I just keep stuffing my face

and I sit down and have a rest and I chill out.

There was a point there where he was waving his hands around,

and you could see he got excited and thought "Sod it, I've just got to have a fluff."

But now, with food, we've got this whole industry

that brings food into a different level.

It's like, now, when you take kids for fast food, they get a toy.

Whose idea was that? Come for something to eat, here's a toy. You don't get it the other way round.

You don't go to a toy shop, and on your way out they go,

"Thanks for buying the Lego, there's a hamburger, off you go." Doesn't happen.

And to me, the big place where you can see happiness and sadness,

side by side, is McDonalds, Sunday afternoon.

Every man in this room who's been separated from his wife knows what that's like.

You'd walk in with your kids, cos you don't know what else to do.

You'd walk into McDonalds. There'd be other people, there'd be a birthday party

and it'd just be you, with your kids, looking round at all the other divorced men...

..with their kids.

You'd go up to the counter and order a Happy Meal.

Can I have some happiness in a box?

And you sit there with your kids, like, "There you go.

"It's your Happy Meal.

"It's your Happy Meal. It's your Happy Meal."

And the kids go, "Thanks, Dad."

They open it up and they'd get a Smurf out and go, "Look, I've got a Smurf."

They'd go, "Why don't you live with me mum?" I'd go, "I don't know..."

And because when you're travelling all the time,

it's very difficult, unless you're going to a chain, to know what to do.

So, what I did when I was on tour,

we travelled all over the country, so, we got the AA food guide.

We thought that would be a great way of finding out good places to eat.

So, we got the AA food guide.

I've got to be very honest with you, I was very disappointed in the AA food guide,

cos all it seemed to do was suggested kebab houses to go to

at one o'clock in the morning.

Having said that, next time I get a food guide,

I won't get it off Alcoholics Anonymous.

But it's true. When you travel round you go to different places.

I did a gig in Birmingham.

The thing that gets me about the people of Birmingham,

is they seem to think they invented the curry.

Cos as soon as you get to Birmingham, they said, "No, no, no.

"You can't leave Birmingham unless you've had a curry." He never said it like that.

They went (BRUMMIE) "You can't leave Birmingham unless you've had a curry."

So, you've got to go for a curry.

There was me, me tour manager and me driver. We went for a curry.

Went to a place called Sandy Lane. Walked along to this curry house

and it was a Friday night,

so we did what every bloke does on a Friday night.

We walked in, we ordered the food, for 50 starving families.

Went, "We want one of them, two of them, poppadoms, them big crisps, we want loads of them."

And then we got into that thing that you get into.

The ego thing.

You say "What curry do you want?"

What curry do we want? We'll have vin... I want super vindaloo.

I want my curry hotter than his curry, I want the hottest thing you've got. In fact, sod the curry,

let me lick the oven. I want to be in agony at the end.

I want to be in pure pain cos that's the ego thing that takes over.

We're having this argument over which curry to get

and then I got asked a question in Birmingham that I've never been asked

anywhere else in the world.

They said, "Do you want a naan?" We said "Yeah."

We got into that naan bread discussion. What kind of naan? Do you want...?

The whole list. I just said,

"Look, we'll have three naan breads. Three plain naan breads." And then the question came.

"How big?"

I said, "Well, naan big."

"Three big naans." They said, "Do you want three family naans?"

I said, "Yeah, three family naans."

I don't know if anyone has had a family naan.

If you haven't, go to Birmingham and order one.

They are massive.

They come out on their own trolley.

They're like a duvet made of flour. They come out...

We couldn't eat two of 'em. We took 'em out to homeless people,

and wrapped them up and said, "There you go...

"That'll keep you warm, and in the morning, you got your breakfast."

But as a nation, we all love eating out.

Fine food, wine and the greatest of company,

is what makes life bearable.

Oh, I do love eating out.

I'm a 27 year old guy who lives alone. I live in restaurants.

It's a nightmare experience every time I eat out with Ruth.

We go to the local Indian,

but I can't get on with their knives and forks. They're a funny shape.

"Oh, I don't like this, this is undercooked,

"I don't know, see how expensive that is,

"oh goodness me, oh, the noise in this place!"

So I always take my own knife and fork to this local Indian."

Oh, it's terrible, we're so close together, this is..." Ah.

Dear, dear, dear.

If she's really pretty, I don't mind paying.

But average girls, you're paying.

I adore food. Especially gourmet.

The restaurants that I find a bit snobby, not anything on the staff,

erm, Harvester.

If there is a Michelin star somewhere, I'm definitely there.

I don't like fancy restaurants, really,

cos all the a la carte food, you don't seem to get enough.

£60 for a tiny bit of fillet steak.

And it just seems a bit feminine.

I'd like to say overuse of language in restaurants puts me off, but it doesn't.

And they're talking about jus and sauces and all that.

Verdant celery grown by blind Tibetan monks.

If it is a piece of meat soaked in something overnight,

then say it's a piece of meat soaked in something overnight.

Oh, that sounds nice.

I'd sooner have just steak and chips.

That's my kind of food.

But it's true.

There are some snobby restaurants and they've gone a little bit mad.

They go over the top. I went down to watch Liverpool play Arsenal.

I've got some mates who live down in London,

so afterwards we'd arranged to go to this Italian.

Some of my mates are Arsenal fans, yeah.

That's how cosmopolitan I've become.

So, I met them in this Italian restaurant,

and we're there, and we did the things that you do in Italians.

They give you these breadsticks, and we're all messing about.

And then, we got the olive oil, the extra virgin olive oil.

I quite like a little bit of extra virgin olive oil to dip me bread in.

I poured this on a plate, and as I was about to dip me bread,

me mate said, "No! Not yet. Let me pour some balsamic in.

"In the middle." He said, "I like to create an island

"of balsamic, in the middle of my extra virgin olive oil."

I said, "I didn't know you were such a wanker."

But the whole boom in fancy food

has been created by this other phenomena,

which I think has got a little bit out of hand,

and that's celebrity chefs.

I can't stand celebrity chefs. They're really,

they just get my goat.

I just really don't get the whole how you're a celebrity

cos you can cook a meal. I don't get that.

-I hate Jamie Oliver, he's a dick.

-He wouldn't have been our friend at school.

Jamie Oliver, he's another cheeky chappy.

I love seeing him cry on television.

The cheeky chappy. Very quintessentially British cheeky chappy.

"He's not coming in our kitchen and messing us about."

And then he cries cos they're not listening to him.

My favourite chef is Gordon Ramsey.

I thought you liked Jamie Oliver cos he's a hottie.

He's cute, but cute don't get you nowhere.

-I think Nigella Lawson is lovely.

-I love Nigella.

She's there, just working the bowl of cream.

She can crunch on a chicken bone and make you go "Ooh!"

You never see her from below the waist.

-I reckon she's probably about eight feet wide.

-Yeah.

She's got a massive arse. No, she doesn't. She doesn't.

I think she's really sexy. She's a real babe.

My favourite chef is Ainsley Harriot.

Phil Vickery.

He's quite fat and cuddly, isn't he?

I really can't stand people like Anthony Worral Thompson.

Worral Thompson, I can say, even if he offered a free meal,

I wouldn't eat it.

I think they're all plonkers.

There's something about him. His presence looks grubby and vile.

Especially that Gordon Ramsey. He's not very nice bloke.

Everything he does involves shouting.

Oh, no, I do like Gordon Ramsey cos he swears like I do.

The celebrity chefs I do like are the ones from MasterChef.

-Fanny Cradock.

-I can't remember their names.

-I hate them.

When she made doughnuts, and Johnnie turned to the camera and said,

"Well, let's hope all your doughnuts look like Fanny's."

Well, let's be honest, you wouldn't want it the other way round.

So, ladies and gentlemen, that was food.

Tonight, Britain has taught me that you don't need oysters if your name is Chopper...

..if you like Chinese enough to play with yourself,

you probably like it a little bit too much,

and all your doughnuts should be like Fanny's. Thank you.

Good night and God bless.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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