The Mild Gourmets

Once again work and Internet access conspired to throw a spanner in the creative works last week, meaning a delay in that rarest of creatures – a timely Sunday dispatch. However, as nothing is ever my fault, and no-one but me cares anyway, I’ve won’t bang on about this time, instead getting straight down to the nitty gritty.

Last week The Wild Gourmet’s flopped onto the screen like a used condom tossed casually aside in a grotty bedsit. Taking the current unfathomable foraging and freeganism craze to the nth degree, The Wild Gourmet’s saw well-heeled London-types Male Gourmet and Female Gourmet start their epic mission around Britain to “find it, kill it, cook it and eat it.” Not a bad premise, for a show, but when these two got going they made Indian Food Made Easy look like Escoffier.

Driving around Britain in their vegetable oil powered car, the duo hit Cornwall first, much to the bemusement of the local peasants. Male gourmet took us through his inventory of weapons first, telling us he always carried three kinds of knives, a shotgun, and at least two axes, before stalking off to engage in the supremely manly task of spearing a motionless flatfish in a stream.

Meanwhile back at camp, female gourmet endeared viewers with her squeamishness when putting a snail on a hook, protesting “I’ve never killed anything before!” Although she failed to catch anything, her killing confidence certainly got a boost, as we see her negotiating the slaughter of fourteen rabbits in exchange for a basket of fruit from a farmer later in the episode.

Having also failed the fishing expedition, male gourmet (with a severely dented ego) and female gourmet skipped off into the woods to forage their supper. Coming across some big mushrooms by a tree, the pair over-compensated their earlier losses and acted like they just hit the jackpot. Male gourmet seized on the opportunity to rebuild his bruised masculinity by referring to the mushrooms in meat-like terms, enthusing that they were “just like steaks” and that he was a man after all because picking a mushroom is much like killing an animal. Female gourmet used her bargaining skills to trade the mushrooms for some eggs and milk at a farm shop so that they could eat that night. There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that if the cameras weren’t there, they would have been told to fuck off.

There was one redeemable feature in this episode however: When hunting wood pigeon a farmer produced an innovative and macabre device for attracting birds, which involved sliding two dead birds onto poles protruding from a wheel. By dint of human ingenuity and some Frankenstein man against nature themes, when the wheel turned the two corpses flapped their wings.

I am sure there is a metaphor in their somewhere…

Last week I also returned to Heroes, consuming a three-episode value meal in one sitting. Having practically bummed (I’ve been watching Nathan Barley) this series in an earlier entry, I was a little worried that I would return to find it a bit of a let down, and therefore loose all my TV credibility.

Fortunately I was not disappointed, as Heroes proved to be the crack-cocaine TV I thought it was. David Byrne look-alike bad dad is still confusing us with his bad/good dynamic, “The cheerleader” is still managing to attend practice at least once a day, (and never get changed afterwards) and the professional romantic sap is still irritating his political candidate brother with his “saving the world” speil.

Armed with a faster internet connection and www.tv-links.co.uk, it’s never been easier to score, and I’m in danger of developing a serious habit.