I'm sure many of you, particularly those from the UK, will be aware of Heston Blumenthal's particular blight on the British landscape. Famous for his three-Michelin-starred restaurant 'The Fat Duck', he's had several television series dedicated to, as far as I can see, making food pretentious. He is a man who's recipe for baked beans would take up most of this page, and the only person in the whole world so utterly deranged as to think that putting snails in porridge would make for a tasty starter. From this I can only conclude that the people who award Michelin stars and the producers who keep green-lighting his TV shows are either pretentious fops, or simply as I am fascinated by the man's ideas in the same way small children are often fascinated by monkeys picking their own bottoms.
Now, I know that before I even start that someone, somewhere is going to call me out over the fact I'm criticising the man's snail porridge without so much as bothering to try it, and that is a fair point well made, but the only reason I haven't gotten myself down to The Fat Duck for a few courses of bizarre foodstuffs hurled together by some sort of culinary mad scientist is because not only is there an eight month waiting list for lunch, but just sitting down costs you a hundred and thirty pounds. There is nothing on this earth, no matter how carefully prepared, that for a hundred and thirty pounds wouldn't taste exactly like chewing banknotes.
So obviously you'll forgive me if I dissect his menu without waiting the better part of a year to throw money away. It's not like I have an expenses account.
First of all, this man seems to have an obsession with making a gel or a jelly out of absolutely everything. The budding flora and fauna of our planet are reduced, in one A4 side of reckless insanity, to oddly-coloured goops of various shapes and consistencies. His roast foie gras is prepared with almond fluid, and elsewhere, passion fruit, peppercorns and even tea is jellied and gelled by wide-eyed lunatics for your culinary enjoyment. He's even, against all the rules of God and science, managed to find a way to turn a quail into jelly. The man is in league with Satan.
Now, I admit that I am not any great master of the kitchen - I can knock together a decent spaghetti bolognese when the mood takes me, but my greatest culinary breakthrough was discovering putting chopped garlic on my toast - but you surely have to be a little dented to want to pay a hundred pounds or more for a mad-eyed man to bring you toast made from moss. Perhaps once you get promoted above a certain level in the advertising business a strange palsy overcomes you and grips you with a bizarre urge to spend your money in as ludicrous a way as possible. I can only assume from it's continued existence that being rich makes you an idiot; you'd never get a bin man saving up his wages just so he can take his family to The Fat Duck for a hundred pounds a head, because the bin man knows he likes his steak and knows where he can get it for a tenner, complete with chips, peas, one of those dodgy-looking mushrooms and far less risk of it coming out jellified and covered in some mad chef's personal smug.
Maybe I'm behind the times and this is what everyone's doing these days. Perhaps snail bacon ice cream is a culinary wonder my denial of which is doing me a great disservice. That may very well be the case, I will simply never know. I'm not biased, I just don't understand., and how you choose to spend your money is obviously no business of mine. I do think, however, that if you regularly had that sort of money to throw around, and you were a well-adjusted bit of an idiot, then you'd probably get more enjoyment out of buying yourself a dozen or so steak dinners. Or having a Christmas tree surgically grafted onto your face.
You see, it's dawned on me in the course of writing this that Heston Blumenthal is not a mad scientist who's medium happens to be food. He's not even, as the media would have you believe, a master chef, though he is exceptionally clever at what he does - he is merely a genius at selling status. The fact nobody in their right mind really wants to eat snail porridge coupled with the fact it will cost you a hundred pounds to do so is a great way to imbue anyone who shells out for an evening at The Fat Duck with a sense of elitism and exclusivity. His restaurant is the culinary equivalent of a Mercedes Benz - it's extortionately expensive, ugly and backfires on you every four and a half miles, but damn it, all your friends see you driving a Mercedes.
The Fat Duck is a status symbol you put in your mouth, and Heston Blumenthal must surely laughing at all of us all the way to the bank, because he's found a way to get toffs and braying city boys to hand over hundreds of pounds to eat the jellified contents of his fridge. In a way, he's getting a little bit back for all of us who don't have the luxury of being able to eat our status symbols.
The man is nothing short of a genius.
Now, I know that before I even start that someone, somewhere is going to call me out over the fact I'm criticising the man's snail porridge without so much as bothering to try it, and that is a fair point well made, but the only reason I haven't gotten myself down to The Fat Duck for a few courses of bizarre foodstuffs hurled together by some sort of culinary mad scientist is because not only is there an eight month waiting list for lunch, but just sitting down costs you a hundred and thirty pounds. There is nothing on this earth, no matter how carefully prepared, that for a hundred and thirty pounds wouldn't taste exactly like chewing banknotes.
So obviously you'll forgive me if I dissect his menu without waiting the better part of a year to throw money away. It's not like I have an expenses account.
First of all, this man seems to have an obsession with making a gel or a jelly out of absolutely everything. The budding flora and fauna of our planet are reduced, in one A4 side of reckless insanity, to oddly-coloured goops of various shapes and consistencies. His roast foie gras is prepared with almond fluid, and elsewhere, passion fruit, peppercorns and even tea is jellied and gelled by wide-eyed lunatics for your culinary enjoyment. He's even, against all the rules of God and science, managed to find a way to turn a quail into jelly. The man is in league with Satan.
Now, I admit that I am not any great master of the kitchen - I can knock together a decent spaghetti bolognese when the mood takes me, but my greatest culinary breakthrough was discovering putting chopped garlic on my toast - but you surely have to be a little dented to want to pay a hundred pounds or more for a mad-eyed man to bring you toast made from moss. Perhaps once you get promoted above a certain level in the advertising business a strange palsy overcomes you and grips you with a bizarre urge to spend your money in as ludicrous a way as possible. I can only assume from it's continued existence that being rich makes you an idiot; you'd never get a bin man saving up his wages just so he can take his family to The Fat Duck for a hundred pounds a head, because the bin man knows he likes his steak and knows where he can get it for a tenner, complete with chips, peas, one of those dodgy-looking mushrooms and far less risk of it coming out jellified and covered in some mad chef's personal smug.
Maybe I'm behind the times and this is what everyone's doing these days. Perhaps snail bacon ice cream is a culinary wonder my denial of which is doing me a great disservice. That may very well be the case, I will simply never know. I'm not biased, I just don't understand., and how you choose to spend your money is obviously no business of mine. I do think, however, that if you regularly had that sort of money to throw around, and you were a well-adjusted bit of an idiot, then you'd probably get more enjoyment out of buying yourself a dozen or so steak dinners. Or having a Christmas tree surgically grafted onto your face.
You see, it's dawned on me in the course of writing this that Heston Blumenthal is not a mad scientist who's medium happens to be food. He's not even, as the media would have you believe, a master chef, though he is exceptionally clever at what he does - he is merely a genius at selling status. The fact nobody in their right mind really wants to eat snail porridge coupled with the fact it will cost you a hundred pounds to do so is a great way to imbue anyone who shells out for an evening at The Fat Duck with a sense of elitism and exclusivity. His restaurant is the culinary equivalent of a Mercedes Benz - it's extortionately expensive, ugly and backfires on you every four and a half miles, but damn it, all your friends see you driving a Mercedes.
The Fat Duck is a status symbol you put in your mouth, and Heston Blumenthal must surely laughing at all of us all the way to the bank, because he's found a way to get toffs and braying city boys to hand over hundreds of pounds to eat the jellified contents of his fridge. In a way, he's getting a little bit back for all of us who don't have the luxury of being able to eat our status symbols.
The man is nothing short of a genius.
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