Food - Part 2 The Grumpy Guide To

Love a bit of food, me.

I'm lucky, because I can eat and eat and not put a pound on.

Food, we know it's essential to our existence and so do those who provide it.

They've got us over a barrel, making us gastronomically grumpy and food furious.

If you go to a seafood restaurant, what have they done with it? Boiled it. Well, well done, you.

Whether they be restaurateurs, supermarkets or wine makers, they all agree on one thing...

..we've got to pay through the nose.

It makes us sick and we're ready to bite back.

I saw a poster for a major supermarket that said

"100% pure beef", you know,

and I thought, "Well, yes! That's what goes in a beef pie.

"What was it before?"

With rising prices, more plastic packaging, five-a-day fever,

celebrity chefs and cleverly marketed superhero superfoods,

it's hardly surprising that we're left with that bitter aftertaste.

I don't know where this five-a-day thing came from.

It think it's bullshit that just got made up by green grocers.

From rationing to roly-poly rotund fatties in 50 years,

we've had enough and we're not going to swallow any more.

I don't want someone at home to serve me like Gregg Wallace and go,

"We cooked this for ya, you'd better like it, or we'll send the boys round."

One thing guaranteed to get us Grumpies groaning

is how those supermarkets ravage towns all across the UK.

Transforming quaint little places

into nothing more than roundabouts and car parks.

It's a love-hate thing going on with supermarkets,

because they put up these massive, giant, hangar-like places

and fill them full of nicely attractive polished up food.

And things don't get any easier when you enter the culinary coliseum.

There's simply too much choice.

Do we really need 1,000 different breakfast cereals?

And then it's a battle of conscience over cost.

The carbon footprint, the sell-by date,

air miles, plastic packaging.

it's a ruddy minefield.

You get into this dilemma, where you think, the Kenyan fine bean.

It's flown in from Kenya, it's beautiful.

The sugar snap pea, flown in from Kenya, it's beautiful.

We don't have them over here, there isn't an alternative.

But you think, if I don't buy them

I'm affecting Kenyan farmers who are making a lot of money out of that

but the irrigation is taking a lot of water out of Kenya.

I'm like, I don't really care, you know, carbon footprint to me,

the only carbon involved in my life is when I overcook me dinner.

It's a nightmare, constantly trying to juggle things.

Are air miles or packaging more important?

If it's come from Israel, it's probably tastier

than if it's come from Southend.

I don't like the fact that I have to be the entire world's conscience

when I'm just trying to get a bit of dinner.

Sell-by dates themselves are this constant tease of like,

"do you believe me?

"Are you going to go past me? What do you think?

"If you eat me after this date you might get botulism,

"but are you big enough to take the risk?

"Come on, try me, it's only two days since I expired, what do you think?

"Three days is pushing it, but two? You want that, don't you? Come on."

Of course, if the supermarket leaves you bamboozled,

with its row upon row of products,

you could always pop on your wellies and hunt out a farmers market...

..where, supposedly, everything is nicer, tastier, organic, free range,

and has had a happy fulfilling life. And costs the earth.

I mean, you're actually paying for the earth.

Being a bit of a foodie, I do try and source, you know,

good, organic, local, I always think,

provenance-based goods to cook with, but they are few and far between.

I mean, I love the local farmers market I go to in Ally Pally,

but honestly, you need to re-mortgage before you go up there.

If I go to the farm shop up the road from us,

known locally as the £50 shop.

It's like, no matter what you buy, it seems to come to around £50.

I'm not really into this farmers market stuff. The only time you'd find me at one

is if there was a kebab shop and snooker table.

The difference between that and a French market, unbelievable.

French markets are farmers who come with their produce,

the same as they do in England,

and it's cheaper than the supermarkets.

It's cheaper, it's better, it's fresher.

And they come along with their wares and their chattels

and all covered in the usual crap, and mud

and like, things crawling out of it to give it that extra authenticity.

In England, farmer's markets are only made for the aristocracy.

You've got to go down in your roller and wear your finery.

Nibble on bits of cheese and go away with a 40-pound chicken,

and not in weight, by the way,

that's how much it costs you for a chicken for two people.

Because it's got cow poo on, it's twice the price.

It's got cow poo on, it's from the farmers market. Then I don't mind paying £20 for it.

Here's an apple, it's covered in bird poo but it's from the farmers market.

If it's covered in poo, pay twice the price.

Not for me.

Kebab and chips, please, Mr Farmer.

And now I'm on to THE perfect red wine.

And nothing shows how cultured or classy you are as a fine wine.

Mm!

But can any of us really tell the difference

between a bottle of plonk or a fine pinot noir?

That is just wall to wall fruit.

I think it's always nice to start off with something quite,

you know, maybe over the £10 mark, even.

Oh!

But then, after that, I can't taste it.

I just, I don't really...

I know there's going to be people watching this,

especially my family, going, "Oh, why are you so common?"

Sorry.

Mmm. Urgh.

It's like oranges, almost like orange boxes too, pencil shavings.

I don't tend to pay more than a fiver for a bottle of wine,

I've been lucky enough to be in a posh restaurant now and again

and you see bottles for £40, £50.

I genuinely can't taste the difference.

And when people say, "you just don't have a mature palate",

it's like, "No, I don't have a mature wallet."

It's like a great pile of grapefruits and lemons

all fresh cut and heaped together.

If you were in a Chinese restaurant and by mistake

you drank the finger bowl with those flowers in it, it's like that.

I was on holiday with some of my friends and we had themed nights,

and I chose the '70s as my theme and we had a bottle of Blue Nun.

I thought it was lovely.

Are you laughing?

It's as though someone has taken

an entire spice cupboard and hurled it into a vat of perfumed bath oil.

The wine industry, because that's what it is, essentially, now,

is a con, along with all the rest of the culinary nonsense.

You get these experts on television and they're going,

"Oh, yes, do you know what it's got? It's got a very arrogant bouquet."

Arrogant bouquet.

You get nettles, you know, the sort of taste of the smell and you also get new mown hay.

It's a bottle of wine, get over it.

Some people can tell, you know, its fruitiness,

and they can tell the year and they can tell the acidity

at which the vineyard cultivated the grapes...

I can't tell that, but I can sort of tell

if the bottle's been open and left for a day and a half

before a glass has been poured in because it's a bit like diesel.

I do get so frustrated with these people who go on about wine, particularly.

"It's not good. Oh, it's got a good head, it's got a good body..."

Either it tastes like vinegar or it's quite nice.

That's all you need to know.

Something of everything there,

apples rotting in an old school desk,

a dart board on fire near a toothpick farm,

a newt on holiday in Tangiers. What did you think, Oz?

I love you.

Going out for a meal can be more catastrophic than gastronomic.

For a start, the waiters are supposed to wait on us

but often leave us doing all the waiting.

And when they do decide to grace us with their presence

they peer down their noses at us,

giving us that look that says "The customer is always...

"a right pain in the neck."

And in return for being made to feel that you're inconveniencing their evening,

they want a tip!?

The British, we can be in a restaurant

and get the most abysmal food and service and the whole evening,

I've been out to dinner with friends,

where almost the whole evening was talking about

"Oh, look at that. Have you seen...? Oh. Look at the under side of that."

Waiter comes along and says, "Everything OK?"

-"Lovely thank you..."

-SHE MOUTHS

Could you make me a Waldorf salad?

-A Wa...

-Waldorf salad.

I think we've just out of waldorfs.

Whereas an American, they will order like, a tuna salad,

a tuna and tomato salad and always off the carte.

-Just go out there and see if he knows how to fix me a Waldorf salad.

-Of course, yes.

I've got that real English thing about me,

that if it says on the receipt you've got to leave a tip,

I'll leave it because I've been told that I've got to do it, so I better do it

even if they've been rubbish I'll still do it, you know.

I love this discretionary service charge,

discretionary service charge which isn't discretionary

because it's already been added to your bill,

sort of, metaphorically, you've got a gun to your head.

I've only ever once had them remove it though, I did once.

The service was so awful, that I actually quite relished

when the bill came and the service charge was on, saying,

"Can you bring that bill back without the service charge, please?"

and they didn't even, they couldn't even go, "Why?"

They were like, "All right, fair do's, yeah, you've got a point there".

And then, it depends, tipping.

You do it in England if you're told to do it,

you do it in America whatever,

you don't do it there because it's rude.

It's all too much for me, really.

I can never really get my head round it.

Having worked as a waiter, I have more sympathy.

I love it when you see a new waiter

who doesn't know what they're doing and I see a bit of myself in them

and I feel a lot of sympathy for them.

I think a lot of the service is very good but, erm,

how am I going to say this without seeming like a Daily Mail reader?

The relationship you have with your waiter can really make or break a meal.

It's great when you can talk and joke with them.

What happens more often is you talk to them

and they don't speak any English except being able to take your order.

-Excuse me.

-Yes?

-We've been waiting here for half an hour, now,

I mean, I gave the waiter our order.

-Oh, him, he's hopeless, isn't he?

-I don't wish to complain

but when he does bring something it's wrong.

You think I don't know?

I mean, you only have to eat here, we have to live with it.

I had to pay his fare all the way from Barcelona

but you can't get the staff. It's a nightmare!

It's kind of true that if you can't communicate as to what you want,

the experience is gone and I find it very difficult

when you ask for something and they bring you something else...

I'd better not get into that.

Actually, old boy, the form is that you catch the waitress's eye.

Look, I'll show you.

I went to a Michelin-starred place in Dublin once

and the staff were incredibly snooty.

And there was a thing that they had done wrong, basically...

..and I had a legitimate complaint.

Waitress!

And I kept trying to make it and the guy kept talking over me, you know

and eventually I would go, "OK, why don't you stop talking and then you'll know what my problem is?"

you know, I actually said. And it's quite gratifying to learn

that because of the recession, that place has closed down.

I was very pleased to hear that.

I can't stand surly waiters and waitresses and they come down, like,

like this, with the knife and fork.

"Can I have some salt and pepper, please?" Salt and pepper.

You see them gather in the centre of the restaurant going,

"Did you see them at table 3?" They're having a good time and you go, "Excuse me".

I just want to slap them.

It seems that every time you turn on the telly,

there's a new chef jumping on the celebrity chef band wagon...

..from Sophie Dahl, who never got model-thin eating what she cooks,

to foul-mouthed Ramsay, who made a fortune f-ing and blinding across our screens.

You, shut it, OK? Back in your corner.

Listen to what's going on.

Celebrity chefs in general, they're overpaid and they're over here.

I've not got into the whole cooking programme thing,

which is a bummer for me cos there's nothing else on TV.

It's all about cooking.

Antony Worrall Thompson!

Celebrity chefs, I think should all be lined up and shot.

That's pukka, well sexy, you know what I mean? Beautiful, nice.

You'll be laggered by the end of this meal. Beautiful.

I'm done, mate. Have a nice sleep, pukka.

Celebrity chefs always seem to be on some crusade,

telling us stuff we already know,

all for some ruddy book or to endorse their new kitchen utensil.

Give us a break! A fork will forking do just as good a job.

Ready, steady, cook!

What, it's been 10 years now that we've been putting up with Ramsay

and Oliver and Nigella, and what's she about?

Every week it's melons and bananas. You tell me, all right?

She should just do it topless and just get it over and done with.

That's my opinion, you know.

Well, it's my fantasy, really.

..Smells so heavenly and my oranges, they are bobbing about.

I wouldn't actually eat any food from Nigella

even though her recipes are great -

the fact that she'd have licked her fingers

all the way through the preparation of my food. No. No.

I only saw Nigella's programme for the first time recently.

It looked like someone doing an impersonation

of Ronni Ancona doing an impersonation of Nigella Lawson.

I have here chopped onions.

Hot bacon.

-Spring onions.

-Cold turkey.

-Summer

-onions, some aren't onions.

White bread.

-And there we have it.

-Cut.

Nigella, I think we caught a bit of the wand in shot.

Did we? Oh, look, I'm so sorry.

She'd open her fridge and she goes, "Look." She'd take out a bag

and say, "I always have these frozen wolf nipple chips.

"You just don't know when you're going to... They're so useful!

"Always keep a bag of these because you don't know

"when you're going to use them. How easy is that?" What?

The thing about this time of year - you want to have your friends over,

you want to be hospitable, you want to have a party

and yet it can be a complete nightmare.

I do know that.

The thing I find a bit weird about Nigella Lawson is that

she's always talking about how she hasn't got time to cook anything.

So the food has to be really great to eat but, above all, easy on me.

So, she'll always be saying,

"Right, I need to make a meal for six tonight,

"but I'm too busy to do it, so here are my cheats."

And I just think, "What does Nigella think she does for a living?"

What is she too busy doing to cook?

Is there a whole other fantasy career that Nigella Lawson has,

that we don't know about,

that means she doesn't have time to cook the meals

for her TV cookery show? I don't understand.

It's your job to cook it. Where are you off to?

They're all chefs now. Sophie Dahl, which is pretty handy,

cos her surname is the name of an Indian side dish,

so that's quite clever really.

-Jamie

-Olive-er,

-no, don't work, really, does it?

I do quite like Jamie Oliver, I do like Jamie Oliver.

There's something nice, rugged and sweet about him.

Rosy cheeks, lovely pretty wife and cute kids.

Mmm, thank you very much.

Good on you, mate.

Let's have a little taste. Blinding, pukka.

Quite like that.

Sweeeet.

I had a great love of food before I went on MasterChef.

These celebrities are all passionate about food.

You've got the chefs, there, with their arms folded

taking it all far too seriously.

We're looking for that exceptional cooking star.

I didn't like MasterChef.

Someone who's more than just a good home cook.

"Food does not get any more serious than this".

Someone with that extra something special.

"This is the moment of truth".

It's not the moment of truth, it's a cake!

How far can you go on MasterChef?

I'd like to go very far, all the way to the end. Bye-bye.

What I found most stressful about doing MasterChef,

here's a bit of behind the scenes for you,

is the fact that there's no food behind the scenes.

So, if I was crying it was because I was hungry,

not because I was stressed out.

I was just hungry.

The celebrity chefs that I don't like are the ones that do the bullying thing

and to me it's such a manufactured ill temper,

it's like watching those wrestlers on Sunday morning when you're a kid,

"Waa!" and they're all jumping on each other's head

and doing moves that, if they were real, the other person would be dead.

My pudding is similar to a traditional Christmas pudding in many ways.

It looks great, it's full of naughty ingredients and can be made in advance,

but is easier to make and much lighter.

I guess it's a bit like a Christmas present -

the wrapping looks great

and when you open it there's a wonderful surprise inside.

That's shit!

Ramsey's a bit of an individual case,

he was a kind of meticulous, you know, top international chef

who has dubious people skills.

You're going to think I'm a right arsehole.

I've watched his thing recently, for the first time

and there are all these people who want to be chefs

and people come in to have dinner and can see through to the kitchen,

and he's screaming at them all!

-I can't just think about one

-BLEEP

-table.

"You call that a starter?"

-Move down, you

-BLEEP

-doughnut.

"If that had come out of my arse, I'd be ashamed."

-Oh, for

-BLEEP

-sake.

"Get out, you scum, you're worthless! You're worse than a centipede!

"Lay down on the floor and be trodden on,

"you stinking, filthy, despicable moron."

-I don't want

-BLEEP

-33 customers refusing to pay for the main course.

I've sort of, for want of a better word, been in TV for 15 years or so

and I was always told you're not supposed to swear.

-All I want is 50 customers served 50 souffles and 50

-BLEEP

-bills paid.

I sound like such an old man, but when someone comes along and goes

"He's a chef but he swears!"

Right, that's an interesting twist on cookery.

"Get out, get out of my sight! I hope you're stabbed to death,"

and like, I think, if I was sort of,

if I was at that place, I'd think, "Ooh, I'm going somewhere else."

I don't care if the starter is a little bit cold

or something's not right,

but I do care that in order to make this starter

seven people have been murdered.

His books are the most complicated books on Earth,

I mean, I tried to follow, I'm very good at making scrambled eggs

and I tried to follow his recipe.

They weren't as good as mine and it took nearly an hour.

I wonder how many suicides are caused by this,

I wonder how many piles of corpses at the bottom of Beachy Head

have been created because people have thought,

"I tried to get my cupcake the same as Nigella's

"but I just couldn't get the icing to stay level".

Gordon Ramsay. I've never watched one of his programmes all the way through

-because I can't

-BLEEP

-bear

-BLEEP

-people who

-BLEEP

-swear all the

-BLEEP

-time.

Today it seems that everyone's allergic to something

and things that used to be bad manners like bloating and wind

are now all blamed on an allergic reaction.

I'm intolerant of people who are intolerant.

They come round and ask, "Has that got air in it?"

And you're like, "Yeah, it's a sponge cake."

"Yeah, but has that air been passed over a cashew nut

"at any point in the last millennium?"

And you're like, "Not sure." "No, I can't have it."

"Have you got any anti-histamine just in case?" I'm like, "Get out!"

And then there's the wheat allergies, dairy intolerance

and monosodium glutamate phobia.

Remember how, as a child, you had an imaginary friend?

Well, now you're grown-up, you can have an imaginary illness.

There was an experiment done recently on a programme that I saw,

not that I watch much TV, it sounds like I do,

where they had someone, a bunch of people who said,

"I always have a reaction to MSG, monosodium glutamate,

"an allergic reaction, no, I can't!"

So this particular chef took them out to a Chinese restaurant.

They said, "Oh, no, they all use MSG, we're going to blow up and burst" and all this,

and they gave them all this food, chicken fried this,

noodle fried that and some nasi goreng or whatever,

and they all munch away and go,

"Oh, it's happening, I'm getting the tightening of the head,

"no, I can feel it, I'm getting all headachy.

"Oh, no, no, I can't. I need to eat some fresh food.

"Water, is there some water to wash away this MSG?"

None of the food had MSG in it.

They were all just bullshitters.

And then they took the same bunch of people to an Italian restaurant

where they loved the food and then told them it was packed with MSG.

You know. Any headaches now? No, they didn't suffer at all.

Chris Rock has a great routine about that, about how much food...

"Do you think there's anyone in Rwanda with a lactose intolerance?"

It does seem slightly strange that it's only, sort of, chubby

white, western people who seem to have all these food allergies

and a lot of them are always fat, as well, aren't they?

"Do you think I want to eat cakes? Let me tell you, I don't, babe.

"I would love to be eating vegetables

"but if I eat 'em, I come out in this rash.

"It's really...disgusting... Why don't men like me?"

My first girlfriend had a nut allergy

but I don't really want to go into that.

People are looking for something to blame,

whereas what's to blame is they're fat and lazy

and drink and eat too much.

It's nothing to do with these intolerances, you know.

It's just, they want to stuff their faces but want something...

then they feel dreadful and want it to be the fault of some food group.

It's not, it's the fault of you, you greedy git.

-My boss.

-Sorry?

-She has to have brown bread. She's got Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Oh, that's just become a status symbol, that has.

I get annoyed when people say, "I can't eat bread,

"I don't want bread," or, "Bread's bad for you!"

When was bread...? It's in the Bible, daily bread,

it's always been good for us. Why's bread suddenly this evil?

Irritable Bowel Syndrome! What happened to flatulence by the way?

I think it is the same people who say "Cats shouldn't have milk."

You think, cats want milk! If they see milk, they have it!

That's got to say something, surely?

Genetic evolution over thousands of years.

If the cat didn't want the milk, if it wasn't good for him,

he wouldn't have it. If bread wasn't good for us...

"Oh, no, bread makes you feel very bloated, you can't have bread, no."

Those clever scientists who firstly sold us the dairy allergy

are now cashing in with the cure,

selling us those little bottles of magic

that make our tummies all better and smiley.

What the heck is friendly bacteria?

Does it like, call you up about 9.00 and say,

"Do you want to come out for a pint, son? You've had a long day."

Friendly bacteria? What is that, I don't know?

I don't know about it.

God knows what friendly bacteria is.

You mean L. casei Immunitas?

L. casei Immunitas?

I'm afraid not, that's a planet in Dr Who, wasn't it?

Bifidus Digestivum.

Kind of an acidophilus base?

Basilius made-up-ium?

What is this invented bullshit that they've...? L. casei Immunitas?

It's like, shampoos are no better,

they are full of stuff like boswellocks and rejenium.

What is that?

There's only so much friendly bacteria can do.

I'm not saying it doesn't work because I drink it daily,

but I think sometimes we rush to make false correlations,

so the already healthy middle class people start drinking bacteria and have quite good health,

whereas it would be quite interesting

to feed them to 16-stone Terrys, Garys and Leannes.

Could you imagine that tiny bacteria?

"Look, I'm here to try and help you, mate,

"but there's only so much I can do, you fat bastard".

Not since drinking bottled water has there been,

not since that was marketed to us, has the idea of...

You can imagine that meeting.

"Right, we're going to teach people to drink bacteria."

"How we going to sell them on that?"

"By telling them that there's good bacteria and bad bacteria."

"OK, we'll give it a whirl."

And they managed it. I say, hats off!

There are all kinds of natural things you can put into your body

which force reactions and things.

I'm a bit suspicious about them, because "Yakult"?

Cult!

I do know about friendly bacteria, actually,

because it helps break down naughty bacteria that are in your body. We're full of them.

Saliva has got friendly bacteria in it but you wouldn't want to rub it in your wounds, would you?

Your stomach contents need friendly bacteria to help digest food,

it will prevent pumpy smells. You've got friendly bacteria in your colon.

You know where your colon is, don't you?

I mean, it's just above your Secombe

and you don't want to go down there either, small intestine, Secombe,

colon full of friendly bacteria,

all the little fusillis, all full of it,

breaking down your food for you

into various compartments and departments

so that you can then enjoy your life. They're good.

And if you're still hungry after all that,

get stuffed.

# Food, glorious food

# Don't care what it looks like

# Burnt, underdone, crude

# Don't care what the cook's like

# Just thinking of growing fat

# Our senses go reeling

# One moment of knowing that

# Full up feeling

# Food, magical food

# Wonderful food, marvellous food

# Fabulous food, beautiful food

# Glorious food! #

HE BURPS