Heston's Feasts

Seasons

2009

8.4

Michelin three-star chef Heston Blumenthal reinvents historical cuisine with modern sensibilities, crafting inventive, memorable feasts for guests who are unaware of what dining experience awaits them.

Episode List

S1 • E1

Heston's Victorian Feast

Heston's Victorian feast is largely inspired by Alice in Wonderland, and his want for his guests to experience the excitement and awe Alice felt going down the rabbit hole. His menu incorporates the vibrant sexuality and substance induced "trippiness" of the Victorian era. His aperitif, what he calls 'Drink Me' Potion, is a five layer concoction taken straight from the story, which includes essence of turkey. His version of the drink, meant to be consumed in its individual layers, requires a specialized drinking glass complete with built-in straw. For his starter, he wants to create a turtle or mock turtle soup. After tasting turtle, he feels a mock version would be better for the meal, one made from the traditionally used cow's head. But his version is presented as the Mad Hatter's tea party. In the main course, he wants to feature a protein of the poor during Victoria times: insects. He creates a completely edible garden (including the soil and pebbles) with insects as the centerpiece. And for dessert, a flavored gelatin is in order. Although not exotic by today's standards, he feels it is necessary to complete the Victoria theme. He decides to use as its main flavoring something he doesn't particularly like in taste or effect, but which is characteristic to the era: absinthe. With an earl grey ice cream, the molded jellies are served with the sexual excesses more commonly found hidden in bedroom nightstands.

S1 • E2

Heston's Medieval Feast

During medieval times, meals were the entertainment of the day. For Heston's medieval feast, he wants this sense of entertainment to be front and center. For the hors d'oeuvre, Heston is making meat fruit. During medieval times, it was believed that raw fruits and vegetables were disease laden. Hence, meat was often used to resemble real raw fruit. For Heston's version, he uses many different types of meat, but adds one special ingredient: bull's testicles. For the entrée, Heston uses as the main ingredient something that was popular for the day but that is virtually not seen on dinner tables anymore: lamprey. He wants to present the dish as if the fish was still alive in its natural habitat. With this dish, Heston learns that there is a fine line between "wow" and "disgusting". His main course is a straight take from the old rhyme "four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie". Because blackbirds are a protected species, Heston instead uses pigeon. Included with the individual pie servings, Heston serves one big pie literally with four and twenty live pigeons. And for dessert, Heston wants to create a bit of illusion by serving ice cream that resembles a pork pie, and serving edible cutlery, candles and napkins.

S1 • E3

Heston's Tudor Feast

In creating his ultimate Tudor feast, Heston envisions excess in all its forms. He starts the meal off with the classic Tudor drink, butterbeer, which has been made famous of late in the Harry Potter novels. Heston only makes one change to the classic recipe to make it seem more like the beer of today. As an appetizer, Heston wants to make a blancmange using a delicacy of the day: frog. In tasting a classic frog blancmange, Heston is underwhelmed, and thus is determined to use more of the frog meat in the actual final dish. And the dish will be presented in its "natural habitat". Because meat was so revered as food during the Tudor era, Heston plans on serving a cockentrice as the main course. Cockentrice is a mythical beast which is comprised of several different animals pieced together. He consults some plastic surgeons on how to construct such a beast so that it is structurally sound, and a taxidermist and a chemist to complete the presentation. For dessert, Heston makes a rice pudding, using both sweet and savory elements. He cooks it in a method so as to resemble what it would have been cooked in in Tudor times. With the entire meal, Heston has a challenge in pleasing one of his guests, Kelvin Mackenzie, who Heston knows does not generally like his food.

S1 • E4

Heston's Roman Feast

Heston wants his Roman feast to be lavish and theatrical. His first dish was considered a Roman delicacy: pig nipple scratchings. The recognizable nipples may have an effect on his guests' ability to eat them. His second dish is calf brain custard; it was standard fare in Roman times to eat savory custards. The traditional recipe sounds and smells off-putting even to Heston, the recipe which includes rose petals and garum, which is fermented fish guts. He adjusts the amount of garum used to account for today's tastes, and serves the brains in a public friendly manner. He serves Trojan hog as his main course. The hog is presented whole, cut open at the table with its intestines spilling out from its insides. The intestines, however, are really sausages. Heston's challenges with this dish are to prepare the sausages so that they look like intestines, and to find a vessel large enough to slow poach an entire hog whole. For dessert, Heston wants something with a sense of humor. As such, he decides on an ejaculating cake. He has to find what best works as the ejaculate, and how best to have it come out of the cake without ruining the integrity of the cake itself. He adds one more surprise that acts as an extra explosion in one's mouth.

S1 • E5

Heston's Christmas Feast

Heston creates the ultimate Christmas feast including a lavish appetiser loved by King Charles II made from whale vomit. Heston also treats his celebrity diners to edible dormouse, venison and tasty snow. The feast is served to celebrity diners including actor Charlie Higson, broadcaster Mariella Frostrup, comedienne Arabella Weir, former rugby player Matt Dawson, actor James Purefoy, and journalist Kate Spicer. Strong language, adult themes and the killing, skinning and cooking of deer and dormice