Episode 4 Floyd on Food

Talking of great things, we've had millions of letters,

most of which have been full of praise, cheering us up,

and encouraging us to make these programmes.

I'm sorry, I can't reply to them all,

there's just been too many,

but thanks for all your lovely invitations

and all your kind offers, especially that, er...

Anyway, the other trouble is, we've had a few complaints too.

And people keep saying,

"What's all this cream, butter, cholesterol, and all that business?

"It's most unhealthy, and you drink far too much."

Look, we only make six programmes a year -

it's like six dinner parties a year.

Obviously, if you ate like that every day, you'd be ill,

of course you would.

But every now and again, it does you good.

Um, and then there's this other thing about my casual attitude.

I wouldn't have said I was terribly casual, actually.

But, I mean, it's just for fun!

And it's not just a cooking programme, I mean,

tune into the others

if you want to really painstakingly follow the CSE course.

This is to inspire you and cheer you up, have a laugh, have a slurp.

And then they say things like, um, other people say,

"You keep abusing the BBC personnel."

Well, who ever said they were human, anyway?

And they're not here against their will, you know.

I mean, they do have to actually do what they're jolly well told.

Do you understand? And I think the other...

Do you not think we've had enough letters?

Is that all right?

Do you want to do one more? Can we get off the letters fairly quickly?

Er, that's enough letters! Oh.

MUSIC: "Waltz In Black" by The Stranglers

If I'd carried on eating fish like I was doing in the last series

I'd have developed fins by now, by now.

And, actually, I'm bored to death with fish,

and I want to get back to some simple peasant cooking and some red meat.

And for those of you who are vegetarians, switch off,

because this programme is really going to upset you.

Richard, who is our cameraman here, come down,

look at the ingredients, and I'm going to show you what it all is.

This is some lovely, fatty and gristly shin of beef.

It's important that it's shin, because the veins and the gristle

make it a very unctuous flavour when it's finally cooked.

I've picked in some little holes,

and stuffed in some garlic into all of them.

That's quite an important thing to do.

Over we go, Richard.

Little shallots, beautifully peeled.

Fresh garlic.

Orange peel.

An onion stuffed with cloves, can you see that all right?

Just three cloves in an onion, like that.

Some very fresh herbs, rosemary, a dried bay leaf,

that's not a fresh herb!

Fresh thyme and fresh parsley.

Some chopped-up tomato, OK?

Some fatty pork or bacon...

and some bacon without any fat on it.

And a bowl of mushrooms.

But because this is a Floyd programme,

and we always cook in lemonade,

as you know, one of the most essential things is going to be

a bottle of good, strong red wine,

because you'll probably need half a bottle to go into the dish

itself, and you're going to need half a bottle to go into yourself

to make things really cheerful.

So, with a little olive oil and our lean and our fat bacon,

we get the pan up to frying speed. Highly humorous, isn't it?

Frying speed.

And whack it, now that it's golden-brown, leaving the fat behind,

into our marmite, which is this lovely earthenware pot,

from which slow-cooking beef really benefits,

from being popped into that kind of thing.

But if you really have to use aluminium or tin,

it doesn't really matter.

Then, into the fat we put our pieces of beef,

which, you'll remember, I stuffed little cubes of garlic into.

This is the importance of frying speed, you see,

because it quickly browns the meat. BEEF SIZZLES

And there's a little tip here - we're going to put some salt on,

but you never put salt on...

Isn't this crackling noise loud? It's funny, isn't it?

It's real cooking, you see.

Um, you never put salt on meat until it has been sealed.

Otherwise it lets out all of the flavours.

Salt on like that.

Black pepper like that.

Really hard round.

That's obviously got to cook for a moment or two.

I'll have a quick slurp...

..and then, you see...

Come back, Richard, you're too far away, please. Come back.

You've got that nicely sealed and browned,

and it goes straight away - now, this is quite difficult.

Can you see into this pot?

We lift it into the bacon, which is already there.

One... There's a piece per person here, by the way.

One piece per person.

"Give them plenty," my old sergeant major used to say.

"One per man per day."

There we are. There is the first part of our daube.

Now we add the rest of our ingredients.

Richard, you'll have to follow me back.

Because all of these other things have to go in.

And the first thing is a trig's potter. OK?

Trig's potter.

A little land mine - no, a sea mine. An onion with its cloves.

The four or five pieces of orange peel.

Plateful of little shallots.

Or small pickling onions, if you haven't shallots.

Some of these mushrooms, like that.

OK. Then one sprig of rosemary can go in.

This is looking rather pretty, actually. A bay leaf has gone in.

A spriglet of thyme - don't overdo the herbs.

And a little paquete, as we say in French, of parsley.

Cover the lot with the tomatoes, like that.

I'll just lift that to you, so you can see.

Looks rather attractive - like the front of an Elizabeth David book.

Actually, I shouldn't insult her like that,

she's one of the finest cooks there ever was. And then...

in with our...

lovely bottle of wine.

All you now have to do is put the lid of that onto that, and into the oven.

And I'm off, and you're off, for some magical trips around Newquay.

'20s JAZZ PLAYS

My correspondents tell me

that there are some of you that don't like me very much.

You complain about me, but some people really do like me,

like the Ms from Muswell Hill

who sent me this splendid iridescent green bow tie.

And also, I've been hearing, from Winifred Walton-Thomas

and others, you've been having trouble with your pollocks.

Now, pollocks, for those of you who don't know what they are,

are rather humble little fish, or large fish,

that people who would really love to catch bass or a cod

always end up with.

And they write to me, the expert on fish, hah...

Er, demanding, praying,

pleading for information on how to deal with a pollock.

A boring little thing, actually, full of bones,

and often not very nice.

But, happily, Valerie and Marianne Farrar-Hockley,

who seem to live in the Cameroon, but holiday in Dorset, have the answer.

They have sent me, from the Cameroon, some pepper paste.

And with that, I will relieve your pollocks problems.

Come with me.

Very simply, in this pan we have a fillet of pollock,

which has been sauteed gently in butter.

We're going to add a little lemon juice to that.

Fresh lemon juice, I hasten to add.

And, by the way, yes, I have put salt and pepper on the fish.

Then I put a little spoonful of my pepper paste -

"Peter Piper picked some peppers from the Newquay shore..."

Stirred it in, added some beautiful double cream, stirred the while...

till it became pale green and bubbled, and well-amalgamated,

and then, using a simple left-handed action over a right-handed sieve,

poured the simple hot pepper sauce over the pollock.

# Fish fish

# Gotta have some

# Fish fish

# Gotta have some

# Fish fish fish fish

# Gotta have some fish

# Fish?

# Fish. #

So, while my vegetarian cameraman takes a big deep breath,

turn to page six of the Radio Times and scratch and sniff the sachet.

OK, for the Floyd daube.

Doesn't that look wonderful?

Wonderful. Anyway, you've seen that, haven't you?

I want to introduce you to our hostess today, who's Trish.

She made the fatal mistake, and she'll never do it again,

I'm sure you won't, of saying, "You can use my kitchen any time,"

know what I mean? And we did. And we've wrecked it, eh?

But thanks a million for that, Trish, here's to you.

You're welcome. Thank you very much. Cheers.

Now, what I'd like you to do...

And I'm not going to pinch you, or anything like that, is to - ow!

That's hot.

Is to taste this and tell me, honestly...

We always say this, and we edit it out afterwards if you don't agree,

have a little go at this very simple, humble

Provencal beef daube.

Here's a little bit for you.

Have a tuck into that.

See what you think. I'm going to help myself.

By the way... Richard, come back to my plate so we don't embarrass Trish.

She's not used to eating in front of a load of people like that.

This isn't a thickened sauce.

You can see it's deliberately thin, but it has all the flavours of

wine and beef and the pig's trotter and all those excellent things.

How is it tasting? It's good. It's all right, is it? Let me have a go.

Oh, it is good, isn't it? Mm.

Anyway, we've got to go now

cos the producer's getting in a bit of a flap.

There you are. Cheerio, see you next time.

So, you're going to have a bit of your own...

Please.

No bread? No, thank you. Why not?

I prefer eating cheese with fruit.

SHE LAUGHS You're absolutely mad.

Actually, the whole thing about this programme is mad, isn't it?

I go to supermarkets and shops and you see these dazzling wedges,

multicoloured chunks of cheese, or are they wax?

We don't really know

because they never let us taste it before we buy it.

So the BBC in its generosity said,

"Come down to the shop and farm where they make really good cheese."

So I've driven down here to meet Isabella here,

who's an immediate friend of mine.

I'm a bit surprised I haven't found any cheddar,

I haven't found any west country cheese, I've found a kind of a brie.

What's that all about? What are we doing making brie,

if it is, cos that's what it looks like, in the middle of Devon?

Well, it's a Coulommiers, farm house Coulommiers

and it's made from unpasteurised Jersey milk.

Look, it's slightly runny. Should it be runny like that?

Mm.

They can be eaten either very young or,

depending on how strong you like it, you can eat it as it matures.

I don't like the idea of English cheese having everything

squeezed out of it.

I like a soft cheese with a lot of moisture

and where you're closer to the original milk that it's made from.

And so the shape of this cheese enables it taste in the way

that you want it to taste.

Anyway, listen, believe it or not despite our little merry time

here, Isabella's got some work to do.

There's a man coming in a minute, isn't he?

He's going to come and buy some of your cheese.

Hi, nice to meet you. Who are you? I'm Randolph Hodgson.

This is a small selection of what we've got today.

These I'd like you to try. This is a Devon garland, which I got earlier.

Garland and herbs through it.

It's a bit young to eat now, so we'll have some of these.

You must have an absolutely incredibly good lifestyle -

just charging round the country buying cheese. Hard graft.

What do you mean it's hard graft? 13 hours a day driving.

Cor!

RANDOLPH LAUGHS

What have you got here?

You're going to have to come in and look at this lot

and we're going to have to unwrap things.

You're going to have to tell us all about it.

There's a nice soft sheep's milk cheese

here from Round Oak near Mendip.

Another one of their goat's milk cheeses.

A small smoked cheese which they do as well,

which is delicious. Would you like to try? I'm desperate to try them,

particularly that small smoked cheese. Is that sheep or goat or cow?

That's a sheep, that's the same as this but just smoked.

Brilliant.

It's really rather lovely.

Quite delicately smoked. It's not too dark.

Thank you very much indeed. Isa, you have some too.

Oh, wow! Very moist, very delicate.

If you ever are stupid enough to buy those little brown Austrian sausages

in supermarkets when this kind of stuff is available, you're a lunatic.

This is brilliant. Delicious.

So what else have we got?

Well, there's rather a nice hard goat's cheese, also from the Mendip.

From Slate Farm.

That's quite a nice crusty one.

Have a look at that. It's about three months old.

I've been travelling all over the South West,

I've never seen one of these in the shops,

I've never seen one anywhere. Why can't we...?

You feel as though you could play a sport with this,

hurling or some kind of strange game, don't you?

It's like a stone. Very robust.

It's brilliant. Can we taste it? Yes, let's bite into that.

I think that's going to be quite a special one.

I ironed it earlier and it's got a little bit of blue in it,

which is quite unusual.

Better tell everybody what ironing means. I'll do it.

I've got my iron here.

When I try the cheeses, first of all

we just take a little core out of it. There.

Take a core. You see, that's how it normally is.

It's a nice white, smooth, creamy cheese.

But this one has got a little bit of blue coming into it.

Now is that good or bad? Can be either. Matter of taste or...?

Matter of taste, but quite often it's too blue or bluing

not in the correct way, and that's not acceptable.

But I think this might be quite nice and delicate. May I have a taste?

Have a little taste. Thank you.

Not too much.

Mm, I'd go for that. I think that's excellent.

Anyway, what else have we got?

I'm going to put the iron in. I can see a piece of cheddar.

Now my favourite meal is from the olden days

when they used to put a wire through a truckle

and slice a piece off, was to have a piece of toasted cheese.

As a kid I used to live on it.

Since then, sadly, I haven't really tasted much good cheddar cheese.

What should you look for in a good cheddar cheese and is that one?

This is. This is from Quicks near Exeter.

It's one of their extra mature cheeses.

Over a year old.

They've recently... They're quite a big creamery

and they've just recently started making unpasteurised cheeses for us.

They're sort of trying it out for us.

They've really come on very well. I think you'll find this quite nice.

Isabella, are you going to comment on the cheddar?

Oh, that's beautifully strong.

Now the one thing I'm really fascinated by is this blue cheese.

Ah, that's made very nearby.

At Sharpen Barton by Robin Condon. It's a sheep's milk cheese.

That's a very rare cheese then.

It's a blue sheep's milk, which is even rarer - very difficult to make.

Similar to a Roquefort.

Which is a highly expensive cheese and highly esteemed, of course.

As is Robin's.

Have a little piece of that.

That's very, very difficult to cut.

Oh, that's beautiful. Sheep's cheese...

Hands up everybody who's had a sheep's cheese.

I bet you haven't, but if you can get some, it's well worth trying.

One thing I'd like to say to you all is this cheese is available.

If you live somewhere near a farm that makes it, go and buy it.

Go to your supermarket, demand that they stock it because they will.

They want your business.

You've got all these people around us here doing their best

to get it to you. Randolph, Isabella, that's absolutely fantastic.

I have to say to you, really corny though it is,

cheese.

Here's one of me in my new boots. Like them?

You know, it's not easy to find the culinary craftsmen of yesteryear

when England was truly merry,

but my spies tell me here in ancient Frome there is one -

Margaret Vaughn, with whom I'm going to have a teddy boy's...

I mean teddy bear's picnic.

As you can see with Richard's brilliant camera work here,

I'm in the baker's kitchen.

This is bread.

One of the worst expressions that has crept into the English

language is "The best news since sliced bread."

There has been NO good news since sliced bread.

It was the most terrible thing that ever happened to us.

This is the living... And bread is a living organic thing.

This is the living proof of the mistake we as a nation

and the bakers of the new vogue have made.

My friend, I know nothing about bread.

Look at this - Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men, I think.

Does that come from there? But my friend Margaret... Margaret, hello.

Hello. Tell me all about this wonderful bread.

There are so many varieties, I don't know any of them.

I know I'm an expert in many things, bread isn't one of them.

What have we got here? Everything.

Everything. What is this one, for example.

That's a vegetable bread. That's tomato bread.

Tomato. A tomato loaf, just made with pure tomatoes.

A white dough and tomatoes. Brilliant. This one?

Yes, that's rather fun. That's a cheese... An onion. An onion loaf?

Can you come really close for us?

You can see the flecks of onion around in there. Can I rip this open?

Yes.

Smell it, smell it.

You can see the pieces of onion.

Oh, gosh, that's beautiful.

That's lovely toasted for supper with a slice of cheese on it, Keith.

Or dripping. Oh, absolutely marvellous. First class.

This is the cheese loaf. This is a cheese loaf?

That's a very light one. That's beautiful.

Very, very light. I wish you could smell. Can we have...?

Can we afford some little sachets to be attached to the Radio Times,

please, so they can break them open and smell what we can smell here?

Half the joy of breaking bread is wafting it out. Mm.

Everybody comes past the bakery in the morning...

SHE INHALES

..it's a great temptation to come in.

Now this one, you know, in the days when...

I've been baking bread for a long time.

You don't look old to have been doing it for very long.

Oh, I do love you, Keith. HE LAUGHS

You're one of my newest, nicest friends.

You're my best friend... Ever.

Well, I use... I remember once we were having a party

and I didn't have any tins, it seems extraordinary now,

I remembered being friends with an old village baker

and he told me they used to bake them in terracotta.

So I bake these in the flowerpots. Wonderful. They're tremendous.

You get this lovely crust here. Just look at this.

Just feel it. Oh, it's superb, isn't it?

You've got to rip that one, Keith,

because inside you get this beautiful continuity.

It is slightly... It's quite extraordinary.

It does taste different. And the crust is heavenly.

You've never read Private Eye? When people go on too much,

the editor says in brackets afterwards,

"(That's enough bread - Ed.)" Oh! No more bread now?

No more bread now, cos we've got to do a little work.

We need some dough. We're going to...

Richard, if I can just smile gently at you...

There's a very special thing that happens to Margaret's bread,

and she makes things called trenchers. And this is a trencher.

And this is what people used to eat their food from

before plates were invented.

Hence the "trencherman", cos he was the guy who kept these warm

whilst spit-roasting the meat.

Keeping these warm. you'd slice your meat,

put it on there and you had a trencher.

And that is where a "trencherman" comes from.

Which brings me on to a little pet hobby of mine.

This is not dissimilar to a pizza.

In this country, we think pizzas have only just been invented.

Throw me over some pizza dough. Thank you very much.

Handmade dough, by the way,

which Margaret's going to show me how to roll out in a moment.

We all think that pizzas,

which have become, in my view, a kind of gastronomic dustbin,

a kind of pastry case filled with yuk,

is nothing to do with where pizzas originally came from.

They were made by a baker one day who had a little bit of dough left,

rolled it out and put nice things on it.

But we've been doing that in this country since the Middle Ages,

before the Middle Ages! You see? Nothing new under the sun.

While Margaret makes us a trencher, I'm going to make us a pizza.

And you're going to have to talk me through this,

because I've never done this before. Oh, well, I'm sure you have.

You've made pizzas, haven't you? I've made pizzas, yes,

but not with an expert baker overseeing what I'm doing,

so I'm bound to roll it out the wrong way.

I never feel very expert. I'm an amateur.

What do you mean, an amateur?! Well, I am really.

Doesn't it feel lovely? It's beautiful. Very sexy, isn't it?

I always feel I want to make love to it! Yes!

Very sensual. Later, dear, later. Is that a promise?

Oh, no jokes about buns in the oven, OK? From ANYBODY.

But it is a very sensual thing, isn't it? It's delightful, isn't it?

You're teasing me now. Have you got a roller? Yes.

Now, you really have to go at this. It's not like pastry.

You know, it's just like most lovers.

It tries to get away from you to start with

and then you really get hold of it.

Stop, Margaret! I can't take any more!

LAUGHTER

You passionate beast, you!

I've always said on this programme,

we've never had anybody on this programme

who's never been full of love and happiness,

often wine as well, it's true to say.

I haven't had any wine. Yes, you have! Oh, have I?

Yes, course you have. Did you pour me one?

Of course I did, my darling. I was too busy getting the dough ready.

I have been standing rather a long time. I've only got a wee one.

That's great. Mine's going to go on a small plate.

But mine's shrinking back again. What the hell...? Margaret!

Well, obviously you're not a gentle enough lover.

How dare you cast nasturtiums upon my...! You have to coax it.

Right. Now then, I think... That is coaxed.

Right. Now then, I think... That is coaxed.

Can you pass me a fork, please, Andy, from behind you there?

There is a thing called a docker.

All the bakers watching are going to be saying,

"Oh, my goodness!" This is docking.

Yes, but we're not all professionals at what we're doing.

It's nice to know the terminology, which is for pricking it...

For pricking it, yes. It's called docking.

Yes, it's docking. Which is very important.

We're putting these onto plates with a little bit of flour

and...lard underneath? Yes. Yes.

And the vegetarians amongst them, of course, can do vegetable...

They can use vegetable oil.

But then they're going to spoil the flavour of the things.

Well, I think so. Do you know, I used to make bread originally,

and we used to get real good dripping from the butcher.

Sorry to interrupt you, Margaret. For my little bit,

I hope it's self-explanatory what I'm doing here.

Tomato crushed up onto the...

onto the bread...

anchovy fillets...

..and a simple pizza should have no more than things like this on it.

It's not meant to have artichoke hearts and sweetcorn

and all the junk.

Elizabeth David very correctly spoke of the wonderful quiche Lorraine

that in the Sixties was degenerated into a culinary dustbin,

and I regret to say the same applies to the pizza.

It's become a travesty of its original, simple, delicate flavours.

And what's the bottom of them made of?

They're sort of hard cardboardy things.

And you get this lovely gooey stuff on the top.

Well, sometimes it's lovely. It goes through this lovely Gruyere cheese.

What cheese are you putting on? Oregano... Oh, grated Gruyere.

Ah! OK? And a bit of olive oil to make that look...

for it to shine a little bit later.

A fraction too much there, but never mind.

Can I have the docker? You can have the docker. Can I be your docker?

You can be my docker! Great!

That's the final bit, you see.

Into your sexy dough we'll make a few marks with this fork.

So, they're ready, but they can't go into the oven for...what?

Oh, I would say about ten minutes. They ought to prove.

What does "prove" mean? Well, you've still got this live yeast in there,

and it has to come to its full maturity. It has to rise.

It has to rise, yes! OK!

Now, there's a marvellous old test, very quickly, a marvellous finish.

I think a lot of people who are making bread

get really worried about how long to prove it.

A tiny piece of the dough, the same dough, pop it into tepid water.

It goes to the bottom, and when it comes to the top,

it's ready to put in the oven. OK. Simple as that.

Well, by the magic of television, that has come back to the top.

No, not quite. I know it hasn't, but by the magic of television it has.

And so off this goes. Bring the spatula in, bring our baker in.

There we go. The peel, the peel! The peel! Yes!

Right, run along with the peel and into the oven, please.

Thank you, Robin.

'Trenchers are great, it's true,

'but with a slice of beef and a drop of real gravy, they're BRILLIANT.

'But of course, the Beeb couldn't afford a joint this size,

'so I've bought it myself... with the fee from my last series.

'A bit extravagant, but you can't beat a good British roast, can you?'

Right, Margaret and I would like to register a protest

that we don't approve of lean bread beef,

and we don't think housewives really want it, either.

We think that they've been conned and hyped

by the doctors and advertising world.

It's beautiful. Just those veins through it like that,

just to give it the flavour.

Delicious. It's not quite ready, but...

Well, let's pop it back in the oven. It needs to go in.

I would suggest without the top.

Without the top now, cos the vegetables have got to brown,

and so on. Thank you, my darling.

Oh, that looks lovely! Looks all right, doesn't it? Yes!

Do you know, I think even my... Aren't you clever? Yeah!

Even my Italian friends, who make real pizzas, would approve of that.

You've taught me something today.

I mean, I'd never made a pizza. I suppose we have the trenchers...

It's the same thing! Exactly the same things. Of course they are!

You are so clever. There we are, there's a little bit for you.

See if you like that. Thank you very much.

Oh, is it too hot? Oh, it's terribly hot! Have a quick swig of wine.

Cool your fingers down.

Here, here's a little tiny bit.

See how that is. I like your filling. Oh, I've missed my olive. Oh!

Oh, now that's a real crust! Can you tell? It's real!

And the middle is soft and gooey. Look at that!

That's excellent, isn't it?

And of course it's doing exactly what the trencher does.

It's all soaking in, look, Keith, instead of it all sitting on the top

and you cut through and you get that hard piece of cardboard. Right.

Aren't you clever? I'm pleased. Oh, do you know...

Oh, I think you're brilliant. ..all we need to complete a brilliant day

is, as they say, "If music be the food of love, then play on".

A little music, a little relaxation would be the thing.

How lovely! Could we? We could. I think we've earned it, don't you?

Oh, I would like to. Shall we go? Yes.

..imagine you're making love to it. Terrifying!

Oh, that's marvellous! Yippee! Thank you very much.

Thank you, David, that was absolutely brilliant. That was our lutanist.

Oh, yes, thank you, David! I love the music. It was gorgeous.

"Lutanist" sounds a bit like a strange religion. It certainly does!

Oh, yes. It really does! Anyway, this is the business, chaps. Richard?

You can have some, since you've been such a good cameraman.

In the good old-fashioned way -

you put the meat and I'll put the vegetables. Right.

You hum it and I'll play it, darling, all right?

Did you cook that fairly high?

You did, I noticed my oven was quite high when you put it in.

That's all unctuous. Bound to be delicious.

And the goodness has come out of these. Mm.

Lovely.

Anyway, here's to us

and here's to everybody who loves food and friendship and fun.

We don't know when we'll be back. Probably next week,

with another crazy programme. It might be goat's cheese. See you then.

With the serving wenches.

You've got to be a serving wench.

You've got to become a serving wench. Come on!

MUSIC: "Peaches" by the Stranglers

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd