Heston's (Chocolate Factory) Feast on Channel 4 (UK)

[JudyB]

There is a new Heston Blumenthal series starting on Channel 4 next Tuesday at 9:00pm for those in the UK.

The Radio Times (and Tivo) lists this as "Heston's Chocolate Factory Feast", but Channel 4's website lists it as "Heston's Feasts 2".

Whatever the correct title, it sounds promising:

The second series of Heston's Feasts follows celebrated chef Heston Blumenthal as he sets out on a gastronomic adventure to reinvent famous period and mythical feasts for the ultimate 21st century banquets

Heston's philosophy is that food should be fun: a delicious, spectacular adventure in which every bite is a surprise to the senses. To Heston, the future of cooking lies in the secret recipes of the past, so he's travelling back in time to explore all manner of culinary worlds.

In each episode, Heston explores a period of extraordinary gastronomic innovation, recreating 'lost' recipes, and discovering forgotten flavours and ingredients. He also travels to remote areas to source unusual foods and along the way he meets some passionate food experts who help him in his quest. He then uses his unique scientific approach to cooking to assemble his own versions of great historical and mythical feasts.

Among the lavish banquets Heston prepares this time are a Willie Wonka feast based on Roald Dahl's famous Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He also conjures up a fairytale feast inspired by his favourite stories which thrilled and scared him as a child, including Snow White, Cinderella and Hansel & Gretel. And Heston goes ghoulish in an eye-popping Gothic feast that takes inspiration from iconic works of horror such as Frankenstein, Dracula and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Edited March 30, 2010 by JudyB (log)

[Tri2Cook]

So far I've watched the Chocolate Factory Feast, the Fairytale Feast, the Titanic Feast, the Gothic Horror Feast and the 70's Restro Feast from the new series. The man is completely insane in the best possible way. I watch the episodes and listen to the insights on how he approaches the ideas then I usually end up laughing like some kind of lunatic when he reveals the results. It's like being at a good jazz session and having the drummer jump into some utterly ridiculous but incredibily difficult pattern or something and then come back in right on time just when you were sure he'd lost it. I don't really care what anyone thinks about the culinary value of what he's doing, the thought process behind it all is pure genius.

[Tri2Cook]

Finished up the series with 80's Feast and Ultimate Feast.

80's Feast was great. He actually did a couple things that I've contemplated before while brainstorming a technology-themed dinner with gfron1... but he saw it through and figured out how to make them work. I didn't. Once again, he had me grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

Ultimate Feast was basically a recap of his favorites from the first series and a bit redundant if you already watched the first series but a good push to go watch it if you haven't.

I'm sure there are plenty of critics, foodies and traditionalists looking down their noses at these series. It places fun, nostalgia and boundary-pushing on almost equal footing with taste. He doesn't sacrifice taste, he just raises the spectacle and theater to a level to match the food and forces you to open up and interact whether you're completely comfy with it or not. I love it. If financial circumstances ever permit, I'm going to beg him to let me be a volunteer cabbage juicer and grapefruit-cell seperator for a month or two so I can soak up the environment he creates in.