Episode 3 Floyd on Food

"Pilchard! A thousand times as good as herring!

"Pilchard! The idol of a Popish nation!

"Hail, little instrument of vast salvation!

"Pilchard, I ween, a most soul-saving fish,

"On which the Catholics in Lent are cramm'd;

"Who had they not, poor souls, this lively fish

"Would eat flesh, and consequently be damn'd."

This is crazy, isn't it? Absolutely stupid!

What we're really going to do here this morning,

we're going to set up a nice little white table,

tablecloth, bottle of wine,

some flowers... Oops-a-daisy. Don't worry about that.

..a few flowers, and have a nice little snack

and talk about pilchards.

But, on second thoughts...

MUSIC: "Waltz In Black" The Stranglers

As you can see, if you think I'll stay here and talk about pilchards,

you must be out of your tiny minds. This is absolute madness.

I'll hitch a ride with my mate Enzo, who's a pilchard expert,

and talk about it in the comfort of his little bar.

Great.

MUSIC: "Non Piu Andrai" Mozart

'Why, whenever we come to Cornwall-

'and this whole programme is in Cornwall -

'does it always blow a gale?

'You might have gathered that my director has to throw a six

'before he starts thinking,

'especially when it comes to pilchards.

'You remember the debacle of the last time we tried to find them.

'Apart from the weather, he has got his act together,

'so here we go - pilchards mark two.'

Hello. How are you?

Sorry we missed you on the fishcakes.

Well, in this weather, I didn't stay very long.

This is the place to be. It certainly is.

Pilchards. Right, did you find any?

No, of course we didn't. No? The last time we went out

with some Cornish dogs - old seadogs -

we caught three. That was all.

And they said, "We catch tonnes of them." I haven't seen any.

They come and they go. The only way to really keep pilchards

is to have them salted and this is how we do them in Cornwall.

Don't they look beautiful.

This is exactly the same way they've been done for just over 100 years.

This is a quarter cask. The fish are salted

and then pressed to get all the oil out.

Why can't I go to my local delicatessen and buy some?

We have a job selling them in England. It's a beautiful fish.

Enzo, being Italian, knows how they are. We send the whole lot to Italy.

Year after year, we send them to Italy and they love them.

The way the Italians do it - we had a lady in the shop last week -

and everybody knew how to do pilchards.

There it is salted. How many of you know how to do pilchards?

They don't, do they?

This is one way of doing it. You take the head off,

you just take the gut out...

These are preserved with the gut in them?

With the gut in. It might upset you but that's what happening.

There's a salted fish, very similar in taste to an anchovy,

you just wrap it up in tinfoil and put it in the embers of your fire.

Richard, come to me. Come to me.

Because we've heard from Nick all about that kind of thing

but how do we eat them, how do we prepare them?

I want to introduce my friend Enzo. You saw his van earlier on today.

Enzo, thanks for letting us come here.

And cheers, it's really nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.

Tell me about what you do with pilchards.

In Naples, what we do is soak them in vinegar...

for a couple of days. These are Nick's salted ones?

Yes, we don't do them in Italy, they all come from England.

And we prepare them and after a couple of days...

we prepare them as an hors d'oeuvre.

You can mix them with anything you want -

potatoes, haricot beans, artichokes, and make a nice hors d'oeuvre.

Years ago, in my father's time,

when there was no television,

people used to play cards

and in the middle of the table

there were pilchards or sardines, things like this,

with a good glass of red wine to go with it.

Of course, with a highly flavoured fish like this,

you wouldn't drink a delicate white wine - you want a rumbustious...

This Barbaresco is splendid.

It's a good wine.

But antipasta, let me explain...

antipasta, of which this is one kind,

there are many, many others. If you'd like to come over here

you can see some of the things that Enzo has prepared for us

by way of hors d'oeuvre, by way of antipasta.

Those are sardines, fried,

and then we do a sauce with...

garlic, mint, vinegar,

maybe black pepper

and you serve them cold.

They look absolutely fantastic. Richard, look at this.

This is brilliant.

Mmm...!

Garlic, mint, lemon juice

and vinegar and oil

into a fried sardine which, at 4½ inches, becomes a pilchard.

Didn't know that, did you?

Mm! Bring on the next one. What have you got next?

Peppers. Peperonata.

Now, here's one for the vegetarians. Yes.

Peppers...

cooked with onions, garlic, black olives,

maybe parsley

and maybe just a touch of oregano.

That, my dear gastronauts,

should satisfy all of you who are vegetarians.

Why have a pile of brown rice or stale spaghetti

when you can have super-duper peppers cooked that way.

That's absolutely brilliant.

Sunshine dish. THE sunshine dish.

Mmm...

Would you like to try some octopus?

I would. I'd love octopus.

That's octopus. They've got to be boiled.

When you boil them,

you put a cork in it. You put a cork in it?! Yes.

I don't know if it's superstition - I never try different

because my mama told me to do it like that.

For the first 25 minutes,

you don't take the lid off the saucepan

because they get tough. It's got to be for 25 minutes like that.

Brilliant! Superstition or because "the way my mama told me to do it",

you must boil your octopus with a lid on it

with a CORK inside - essential.

Then you strain it and make a wonderful dressing

of peppers, lemon juice, parsley and garlic.

And, boy, oh, boy, isn't this fun?

Richard, come back down to my plate.

I've mixed my fish, and my peppers,

and my octopus and the essential thing here

is a piece of bread to dip up the sauces with

because... Come back to me, my dear.

..one of the things I find sad about English cooking -

we spend more time on our place settings,

and our elegant crystal, and our fine decanters

than we do on what's actually on the plate.

This is the way to eat, my friends.

I hope you're enjoying it like we are.

Pilchard.

Red mullet.

And some prawns.

What I do, I usually...

finish to dress...

with the sauce.

As I said, it's all in garlic, vinegar,

parsley and mint.

Then it's absolutely ready for you to try, Keith.

Oh, Enzo, Enzo, Enzo, that is fantastic! Thank you very much.

Use your finger. I will. I will.

People spend too much time with the knife and fork.

Prawns should be eaten with the finger.

Actually, it's quite true.

This is how you eat a prawn - you rip off the head,

even though it's burning my fingers, peel off the skin...

I don't feel anything. You feel no pain? No.

There's no pain in good fun, is there?

Mm, beautiful.

For your hand. Thank you.

For one thing, that is a beautiful, beautiful dish -

no question about it.

Do people in your restaurant react properly to that?

Do they get frightened about heads and things? All the time!

All the time - head off, tail off.

They make so much fuss instead of sitting down and enjoying themselves.

When my mum was here last month,

she saw somebody

eating king prawns with a knife and fork and she was going mad.

"What are they doing?!

"They should eat with their finger." Like mussels,

they try not to get dirty their T-shirt or tie.

That's stupid. People should make noise and be rude.

That's the way to enjoy food,

not to look elegant, I personally think so.

You're so right.

Listen, step out the way. Let's have

a look at these other brilliant things that we've got here.

Enzo, talk me through these,

Tell me what these are made of. This is aubergine.

I peel them then fry

and slice.

When they're cold, I put some ham and mozzarella cheese...

That's the mozzarella cheese.

There's the ham underneath.

..tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese on top.

Then bake it again until the cheese has melted.

This is courgette.

The stuffing is as we do in Naples with cannelloni.

But instead to use pasta,

I use courgette.

It looks more interesting.

The stuffing is... You saute the onions,

then you put minced meat in it,

white wine, salt and pepper,

and then mix with cheese - mozzarella, Cheddar, Parmesan -

and you stuff the courgette and bake it again.

Sorry about that. Bye.

If the pictures don't tell you, I can't.

It's absolutely lovely.

MUSIC: "Waltz In Black" The Stranglers

'And here's another one of me

'having a bracing stroll along the cliffs to clear my head

'before meeting the restaurateur Ann Long.

'Actually I don't like walking.

'They make me do it to satisfy the director's obsession

'with tin mines and landscapes.

'I reckon he thinks he's David Lean.'

# The king was in his counting house

# Counting out the money

# I am in the kitchen thinking... #

Yes, as a matter of fact, hello, I AM in a counting house.

I'm in THE Counting House in Bottallack,

right on the edge of Cornwall with the sea over there

and the wind blowing us all over the place,

and today I'll cook you a rabbit.

Because my director tells me -

I don't believe everything he says - all tin miners used to eat rabbits

in the olden days. But we don't eat them any more

and that's a great shame - they're cheap, economical and delicious.

Richard,

if you come down to my ingredients I'll explain what we'll have.

First, some chopped, fatty bacon,

some finely diced carrot...

Ha-ha! That's not carrot, is it? That's onion!

THEY LAUGH

Never mind, it doesn't matter, we all make mistakes.

If you can't tell the difference between onion and carrot,

switch over to Sesame Street or back to Crossroads, or whatever.

If you're interested,

rabbit, then a bay leaf,

fresh rosemary,

chervil

and some thyme,

some prunes, which we've had soaking in white wine

but you could soak in tea or water if you wanted to.

We'll need a drop of cognac later

and white wine for cooking in.

Then, I've rolled up some butter and flour

for thickening the sauce,

parsley, tomato puree,

finely chopped garlic

and the liver and heart from the rabbit

which we'll put into the sauce.

OK, Richard, come on over

and we'll get things going.

This is the pan it will all go in.

A quick slurp here and a quick slurp there.

In we get the bacon, maximise the speed of the gas burner.

That's all right.

In with the onions.

And in with the carrot.

In a few moments,

those will start to bubble away.

In fact they're not going to, are they?

Yes, sorry about that, a bit of a slow take-off.

I wasn't up to frying speed. We are now, everything's going fine.

As you can see, it's bubbling nicely away, turning golden.

And it's at this stage... Ow! Burnt myself.

That'll delight you. Put the rabbit in...

like this.

SIZZLING

Oil and bacon...

some bits of onion.

Stay there, please, Richard.

A quick grind of pepper over all of that.

Like so.

Brown these off very quickly...

and then...

Because this is the good, fun way of doing things,

in we go with...

There we are!

Hooray!

In with the garlic.

In with our bay leaf,

little bit of rosemary,

little bit of thyme...

little bit of chervil. Doesn't that look really attractive?

Little bit of parsley, in with our prunes.

Like that.

Drop of white wine.

I hope you can hear me above all this fizzling and...fuzzling.

A little bit of white wine.

A tiny bit of tomato puree. Stir that in...

..like so.

A tiny pinch of salt

into the sauce.

Our rabbit's liver to give the stock flavour and...

..we now just let that simmer gently away,

turning from time to time. Richard,

I think they've seen enough of that. I haven't got all day.

Let that simmer gently for about, I don't know, 35 minutes.

Every now and again, turn the rabbit over.

I'm going for a walk out in the countryside.

Actually, I'm going down the pub for a quick one.

You're going for a walk in the countryside,

or whatever these whimsical, brilliant directors dream up -

probably a jog across the moors. See you in a little while.

A lot of you think I have a fantastically good time

just drifting around the southwest of England, cooking, drinking,

and eating and stuff like that.

Sometimes, I just can't think of what to say

and today is one of those things.

I don't really know how to introduce this rabbit, which I've cooked.

I know it's cooked properly, I know it is delicious.

I am a bit worried that my friend, Ann here,

halfway through the cooking told me, "I don't like meat with bones on."

I don't know how I'm getting over that. Ann... Yes.

..never mind all of that, would you please try it... I'd love to.

despite the fact that you are bit worried about the bone?

I know your style of cooking is much more refined

than my style of cooking, isn't it?

Not any better though. What are you doing after the show?

LAUGHTER

Tell me a bit about the way you like to cook.

I really find bones very irritating.

I think that reflects in all my cooking. So I would tend...

Mind you, that looks beautiful. Thank you. Very nice indeed.

I would tend to bone a rabbit and then cook it

and then slice it so that you have a stuffing

with the skin all round it. I must say, I agree with you.

But you are a professional and dedicated cook.

A lot of people don't have time for what

they think is that prissy approach to things.

How would you say about the fact it would be better

that they made better use of simple ingredients like a rabbit at least?

I think the difference is that that is superb,

but people are paying to come and eat my food. Precisely.

So therefore I feel that I owe it to people to present it

and spend a lot of time on cooking it and preparing it.

A lot of kids... One of the funny things about the Floyd programmes

is we've attracted the attention of children.

I mean children from seven-years-old to young college students,

who are desperately enthusiastic about cooking and eating,

but it seems to me they're not going to have a lot of chance

in getting to open their own restaurant

because nobody is encouraging them.

Oh. What can we do for kids?

Oh, no. Well, I think today you ought to encourage youngsters to help.

I belong to the Master Chefs Association and they are trying

to encourage youngsters to come and learn to cook in kitchens.

I would like to go and cook in famous chefs' kitchens!

I'm sure that nobody who... anybody that really enjoys cooking,

they would love to show youngsters how to do things.

I think that I get so enthusiastic about it that I would love somebody

to come and bang on the door and then you would show them all about it.

I haven't got a deep freeze full of inexhaustible things. Hooray to that.

A lot of you could take a lesson from that.

This place is in the middle of nowhere,

in fact only halfway in the middle of nowhere

because the rest of it doesn't exist - if you see what I mean.

She hasn't got a deep freeze.

Too many people live out of the deep freeze, don't they? I think so.

And they make too much use of microwaves. You've got...

That's my advertising contract gone. Never mind.

LAUGHTER

I despise microwaves too. It's a genuine thing. I really hate them.

I haven't got one at home.

MUSIC: "Peaches" The Stranglers

'For many, a day at the seaside

'means eating hamburgers and ice cream.

'Which is a shame when there are so many other wonderful things

'like crabs, lobsters, shrimps, prawns, cockles and mussels.

'It is an even greater shame that the BBC can't or won't afford to

'buy them for this next scene.

'So I've had to think a bit to get something a little unusual,

'and cheap, to confuse my old friend Rick Stein with,

'who I think is still recovering from our last meeting.

'But he's a good sport and he'll be thrilled with this little beast

'and is bound to know how to cook a shark, aren't you, Rick?'

I'm going to take a couple of nice steaks off here, which we're

going to, as you know, grill on the charcoal grill.

It's like meat, isn't it? It is. It's incredible.

We need another knife. You keep chopping. OK.

We need that skin off the edge, don't we?

I'm not too fussed. It comes away nicely when it's cooked.

Beautiful. There we are. That is a shark steak.

Excuse my finger - I had an accident with an old lady

crossing the road late last night.

I would have made it all right

but she trod on my hands as I was trying to get into the hotel.

Anyway, there we have a beautiful shark steak,

which... Stay there, Richard.

..I will bring this over to you.

This is a marinade which Rick has prepared.

What is in the marinade, Rick?

Olive oil, a little bit of lemon juice, salt and pepper,

chopped fennel, a bay leaf and a bit of thyme. Nothing too complicated.

So we're going to stick those in there.

Were going to leave them in there

for about an hour before we cook them.

Anyway, before we do that,

we're going to have a look at this monkfish.

Rick, why have we got a monkfish? And why with the head?

Because we never see them with the head. No. No.

I purposely bought it with the head to show you one or two

things about the monkfish.

This actual monkfish weighs about 20 pounds.

If you bought the tail, you'd buy about 7-8lb.

So, 13-14lb of weight is the head.

It's always thrown away in England, which is a tremendous shame,

because there's enormous pieces of beautiful meat -

which, in France, that's the best part of the monkfish - on the cheeks.

And the head makes an absolutely wonderful fish fumet.

So, if you were going to cut out these little cheeks...

Yes. ..these are sort of fillets, if you like, in layman's terms. Yes.

Succulent fillets. Succulent is the word.

And what would be the thing to do?

Perhaps just dredge them lightly in butter

and saute them in butter and fresh

lemon juice or something of that kind, or...? I think you said

in your book, which I totally agree with,

that monkfish doesn't take cream sauces very well.

I mean, I bought this because I'm going to cook it

on the charcoal grill, which it goes very well on.

Erm, I think it's a fish for fairly harsh treatment, really.

Sauteing in butter - fine, really nice. Yes. Grilling as well.

And grilling, too? Yes. Anyway, let's get back to our shark again.

We'd better get these over to the grill.

I'll take them over, if you like. OK. Fine.

Ah, that's what I like to see. Yeah, lovely. Really...

really, really hot grill there.

Yes. Now, that's right, isn't it?

The thing about these grills is, OK, people get very...

Purists get very sort of... er, difficult about the fact

that this isn't a pure charcoal grill, it's a pumice stone grill.

But the thing is, it's always hot, OK?

It's always hot, and that is the most important thing

about charcoal cookery, if you like. Or any kind of, er,

about charcoal cookery, if you like. Or any kind of, er,

grilling that you're doing -

whether it's a flat piece of cast iron in your fireplace,

a Boy Scout stove you've made on the beach,

you must have those coals hot before you attempt what is,

in fact, essentially a very rapid cooking process. Yes, yes.

So, how are we doing? Well, we're doing well. In fact,

I'd just give it a little bit longer. The thing is, with fish,

because it's quite delicate - although shark is the tougher

end of the fish spectrum -

it's better just to leave it on there to get the, er,

grill marks really well seared, otherwise when you try and

turn it over, it will stick to the grill bars.

I'm learning something every day!

Marvellous! So, they've got to go over now, haven't they? Yep.

They're freed. Marvellous. Marvellous!

Now, that looks really, superbly appetising. Now, then, come on,

tell us about what we've got here. Well, that's some dried marjoram

and some fennel twigs, a bit of fresh fennel and some dried bay leaves.

From where? Well, all from my garden, except for these,

which I actually got from a sort of nearby hedgerow.

What are these? How tall are these when they're in the hedgerow?

These are fabulous. You grill bass on them, you cook all sorts

of things on these. If ever you see these in the hedgerow,

pick 'em, take 'em home, dry 'em...

And make sure it's fennel and not hemlock! Right.

We've got to get that flavour into the shark.

Right, well, I'm just going to sort of bung 'em generally down here,

get some smoke round here. I'm going to put some of those branches

around the fennel thing as well.

What are you doing?! Well, I just thought,

because you're fiddling about there... Yeah.

..we could fasten this up a little bit. Right.

A little flash like that would get your herbs going more quickly

and release the flavours. Right. Absolutely.

Just a little tiny fraction more.

See, this is something you can do with a grill, isn't it? It is.

Put anything you like on.

A bit of sawdust, if you're cooking a steak,

and nice herbs like this if you're doing fish. Indeed.

So, while that is cooking, we're going to make a sweet-and-sour,

piquant tomato sauce to go with this shark.

Richard, come down to the tray of ingredients here -

a quick spin round. We've got peeled and chopped tomato,

bay leaf, salt,

black peppercorns, brown sugar,

strong mustard,

chopped garlic, chopped shallots, and then we have a choice

of, er, Worcester sauce, pepper sauce,

a drop of medium sweet sherry

and olive oil - those are my ingredients. Stay with me,

and as quick as a flash...

Oh, and some vinegar, which I've lost somewhere.

There it is. Stay where you are, here's the vinegar.

The first thing that goes into this pan -

best laid plans of mice and men...

PAN SIZZLES ..is vinegar!

In with the shallots.

In with some garlic.

Maximum heat, because we want to reduce that to almost nothing.

Can you hear me above the fizzing and the fire?

Floyd on fire, this is, no question about it! In with a bit of

olive oil, like that.

Have I got the heat going to the maximum? Yes.

Tomato into there...

like that.

A bay leaf,

a couple of peppercorns. Don't worry about the coarseness of all this,

because we're going to strain it later.

Worcester sauce...

like this. Notice that any of you who want to say, "Now,

"how much exactly did you put in?"

Well, I'm just putting in what I feel is right,

and I shall taste it. Some sherry to go into there.

A little bit of salt.

A squeeze of lemon juice.

Now, if we were in Provence, or if this was

high summer, we'd have really ripe, luscious red tomatoes.

We haven't. So, to take away the slightly anaemic,

er, colour of the winter tomatoes...

You'll probably be seeing this in the height of summer,

but this was made in the winter, you see.

..we're going to strengthen it with some tomato puree.

Now, all we've got to do -

because we never cheat on the Floyd programme,

we cook in real time, we don't take it out of the oven...

That bubbles away once the heat gets to it,

I have a drink, and we'll be back with the next phase

in, what? A flash.

That was jolly witty, wasn't it? Ha-ha!

Director likes things like that. Anyway,

Rick, here we are, the sauce is now completed,

it's been reducing away for 15 minutes or so.

We pour it onto the plate through a sieve.

Rick is now going to roll it round like that.

That's a beautiful sweet-and-sour sauce...

..on there. And what could be better? Do you want a taste?

Yeah, damn right I do.

I want your honest opinion, as usual, on my sauce, because

you wanted to put a vinaigrette on it, didn't you? I did.

That's very nice. What do reckon, me old beauty?

I think it's lovely!

'Will the intrepid cantering cooks prepare the meal in time?

'Will the O.K. Chorale be in tune?'

SILENT MOVIE-STYLE MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT

'Will this barbecue scene

'serve as a plug for my new book?

'Will shark become more popular than scampi?

'Will Keith Floyd shut up and get on with it?'

OK, I've done my bit - the Hemingway-style,

Rick Stein shark steaks.

But my mates, the Close Clifton Harmony O.K. Chaps Chorale Singers,

are going to sing for their supper.

A-one, two, three...

WHISTLING INTRO

# Do, do, do-do, do-do-do

# Ain't no fish

# Ain't no tuna, ain't no fish Oh, holy mackerel

# Some days, there just ain't no fish

# Ain't no perch

# Ain't no flounder flounder for fish

# Ain't no fish

# And although at times we get a mess full

# Other days are less successful

# Some days there just ain't no fish

# Do, bee-dle, eedle, ah-bah-bah

# Tomorrow... #

What?!

Oh, God!

Madness!

# ..Oh, holy mackerel

# Wish for a catch every day

# And you're wasting a wish

# For some days there just ain't no fish

# No fish, no fish no fish, no fish

# Some days there just ain't no fish

# Some days, there just ain't no fish

# Go get 'em, Floyd! #

That, actually... Steady, lads, you can't eat yet, sorry.

That does in fact bring us to the end of another dynamic

Floyd programme, and next week, we'll be doing something

equally stupid, off-the-wall - pigeons, pigs, fiddlers, tax men,

chicken and chips - I don't know what, exactly.

I'd like to thank the nearly O.K. Chorale

for helping us out today. And lads,

would you give me 30 seconds of music, please, so we can roll out

the thing that says, "By Keith Floyd, presented by Keith Floyd,

"with Rick Stein...and Keith Floyd, and David Pritchard..."

See you next week! One, two, a-three...!

# Hallelu-jah!

# Bones, dem bones, dem

# Fish bones

# Hallelujah

# Them bones, them bones them...fish bones

# Oh, hear the word of the Floyd Oh, yeah

# Oh, Floyd disconnected and... fish bones

# Oh, hear the word of the Floyd Fish bones

# Oh, hear the word of the Floyd

# Oh, Floyd disconnected and Fish bones

# Do you hear me, brother Ricky? Yeah, yeah

# Do you hear me, sister Annie? Yeah, yeah

# Oh, hear the word of the 'loyd. #

That's it, that's enough...