Anybody who knows me, will know that I look up to Heston Blumenthal something silly. If I was a woman, I would probably stalk him, asking him to marry me every day, eventually earning me a restraining order, stopping me from living out my dream of visiting his restaurant… so I’m not going to do that. But here are 6 reasons why I love Heston Blumenthal!
1) Heston can cure peoples MSG fear
Yes, it’s recently come to Heston’s attention that hospital food is bloody awful, and after his success in improving the sub-hospital quality food of Little Chef. But he’s not just curing the hospitals dreadful food, he’s cured the nations fear of monosodium glutamate! Yes, MSG, that little flavour enhancer, everyone freaks out when they see it… but if you have an article talking about the 5th taste, “umami”, and never at any point mention “MSG”, everyone worships him.
2) He has the patience of a saint
During Heston’s time trying to improve the quality of Little Chef’s dreadful menu, he constantly had to deal with one of the worst people in the world, Ian Pegler. Unfortunately (yeah right) Ian has left his position with Little Chef. Ian was an annoying jobsworth jerk. Heston wanted figures, he wouldn’t give them him. Ian wanted 3 Michelin Star quality food, at Little Chef Prices (which although ain’t that cheap, still not going to afford him 3 star standards!!) and constantly saying “blue sky thinking”, “I want blue sky thinking, Heston”… he wanted a punch in the mouth, that’s what!
3) He’s all about the retro
If Heston was at the height of his career about 10 years ago, he would have been on those BBC2 programmes, “I Love the 60’s”, etc. He is the king of retro! If you watch his Channel 4 series, Heston’s Feasts, this years series has been more about retro foods than ever! Even to the point of creating his own Pot Noodle!! If you are lucky enough to get a seat at his Bray restaurant, The Fat Duck, you will be sent in the post an atomizer (for want of a better word) with the essence of sweetshop in it, you are given a web address, and then you put together your ideal sweetshop bag of sweets. As you leave the restaurant, you visit Heston’s Sweet Shop, and you are greeted by the smell of a sweetshop, and you get your bag of sweets you chose online!
4) He will cook meat for three days
In short, meat is brilliant, it deserves respect. 3 days at a ridiculously low heat shows respect for meat.
5) SCIENCE!!!
I absolutely love science, I do. I’m fascinated by chemistry and physics, biology, not so much, but all the best scientists specialise! This is why I love molecular gastronomy, the science element. Using centrifuges, usually seen in hospitals with vials of blood, to separate food into it’s component parts. Using whisked egg whites with bubbles blown from flammable gas to flambé a dessert… the man is a lunatic… and yes, there may be many other chefs out there using similar techniques… but do any of those look like a mad scientist, quite the same amount as Heston? No. No they don’t!
6) His cookbook also doubles as a weapon
I don’t approve of violence, but when I save up enough money to buy The Big Fat Duck Cookbook, it will always be next to my bed… not just because it will be compelling reading, not just because it’s over 500 pages, and will take at least a fortnight to read cover to cover (which I will invariably do!)… it weighs 6.3kg!! And I want to be able to say before I die, that Heston Blumenthal saved my life, because if a stranger creeps in my bedroom at night to steal my ukuleles (which they all want to do!), a 6.3kg book will make a brilliant blunt weapon… but only in self defence… well, I say self defence. If I know Olly Smith is going to be appearing somewhere close to me, perhaps masquerading as Lord Flashheart at a Blackadder convention, I’ll find him, and test my theory that The Big Fat Duck Cookbook is a brilliant weapon, and you’ll be the first to know.
Like I say, I love Heston Blumenthal