Whatever Happened To…

… decent programmes about food and cooking on the telly? In the last few years, the quality has gone down the toilet, as expertise, simply presented, has been replaced by the flash-bang-wallop of meeja-studies graduates’ crap. As the latest example, I see that the Hairy Bikers are returning with a new series cunningly entitled Hairy Bakers. Oh gawd. While there may be the whiff of sour grapes about it, Dan Lepard’s piece pretty much nails the horror that the Hairy Bakers will surely be.

 

I think I’ll just crack open another cookery book and go exploring culinary delights that way.

 

By the way, anybody know where I can track down a source of crystallised violets in the Netherlands? I’ve got this wonderful recipe for an Edwardian trifle from Nigel Slater, and he says that they are absolutely essential as the topping… I’d make my own, but I’m fresh out of violets, and I also can’t get gum arabic from anywhere around here either.