Forky Forky!

There is something romantic about a man who can cook a great meal. Whether it’s the delicate care and attention needed to prepare such a feast or simply the ability to make knees weak by stimulating nothing more than the humble taste bud, women love a man who can cook. This is why I’ve always thought it something I should learn, besides it being part of a healthy lifestyle. Take Gordon Ramsey for example. Would any woman give his saggy, creviced mug a second glance if he couldn’t bring them to orgasm with a perfectly seasoned quail’s egg? How about Anthony Worrell Thompson? Actually, as a man whose visage is incapable of eliciting human adulation this is where my theory falls flat. I suggest we move briskly on, as if the subject was a weather-beaten Big Issue seller desperate for a solitary pound. No change mate, sorry.

My point, if I may be as bold as to call it such, is that cookery and knowledge of cuisine is something to be celebrated and encouraged. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the television schedules. Shows such as Ready, Steady Cook (BBC) and Can’t Cook, Won’t Cook (BBC) used to suffice, as did the celebrity chef-led vehicle. Delia, excuse the pun, made her bread and butter from standing behind a dowdier-than-her-dress table top softly guiding the viewer through another tricky soup recipe.

However, in this modern reality-obsessed world a trained chef explaining very clearly and precisely how to create fantastic dishes is not enough. Because we know what’s going to happen; Delia will tells us what to do, we’ll do it and, let’s be honest, it won’t look or taste anywhere near as good. So what better way to console ourselves, as we weep into our sunken sponge cakes, than to watch other people fail? Welcome to the world of reality cooking shows.

The reality cooking show genre, at least in the UK, is best encapsulated by spinster’s favourite Come Dine With Me (Channel 4). Every show that has come after has been a direct copy. To create a successful reality based cooking show you must:

•         Find up to five “regular” members of the public willing to embarrass themselves socially. Deluded and psychologically unstable candidates will be considered. And preferred.
•         The contestants must prepare a three-course meal, the more ambitious and ludicrously beyond their skill set the better.
•         The meals will be served as part of a dinner party during which the host contestant will feebly attempt to provide some sort of entertainment. This is usually a variation on the popular name game in which everybody has a famous person’s name stuck to their forehead and is forced go through a tedious (to watch, let alone play) process of trying to guess who it is.
•         At the end of the meal the contestants must rate the host’s dinner party, considering not just the food but the overall experience, the results of which are revealed to them at the end with the winner receiving some sort of prize. It is, however, a small consolation for the destruction of one’s soul.

Every reality cooking show, from Come Dine With Me to House Guest (ITV) roughly follows this template. A current glut would suggest an over-saturation of the market is upon us, leading one to assume nobody in their right minds would agree to front yet another reality cooking show and risk being the straw that broke the camel’s back. Nobody in their right minds. Drum roll please, for Michael Winner’s Dining Stars (ITV).

In 2007 Michael Winner was the victim of a severe bacterial infection that, contrary to what you might think, was not God correcting a mistake he made 71 years previous but the consequence of eating undercooked oysters. The virus meant business; he almost had to have his leg amputated and was heard knocking on Death’s door several times. Luckily for Winner, and even more so for Death, the reaper was out to lunch and the Death Wish director lived to die another day.

This goes some way to explaining the constant strained look upon Winner’s face throughout Dining Stars. It’s the look of a man whom life has severely fucked in the rectum. You’d even be forgiven for thinking one of Jim Henson’s animatronic puppets from The Dark Crystal (1982) had been let loose in someone’s house and was stumbling about panicked, desperately trying to get back to Thra and Bowie’s codpiece.  His face contorts into such bizarre expressions he just doesn’t seem real.

And of course, he isn’t. This is made plainly clear through the video montages of Winner on his boat, at one of his several homes, dining in the finest restaurants. The man has a life so privileged that I would wager he had never set foot inside a “regular” house before this series was made. But I suspect that’s the point. He doesn’t seem to realise that when sitting at a dining table waiting for a meal that someone has spent hours slaving over it is the height of rudeness to shout “forky forky!” because you don’t have any cutlery. But to blame Winner seems unfair; he doesn’t associate with people lower down the social ladder than royalty. The programme makers, it seems, have orchestrated a perfect storm – send a bewildered, slightly unhinged upper class oaf who doesn’t know better into a normal, everyday household and train the cameras on the occupants’ faces for the moment when he delivers his crushing criticism.

It couldn’t be anything more than crushing. Winner is sent into these homes to find gourmet cuisine. He is sent into pokey, one-bedroom flats in Essex to find gourmet cuisine. Really? REALLY? There is no other way it could end but with a complete slating of the food. In fact, to date, there have only been two winners out of four (this is being written two episodes into the series), neither of which have won their one-star (out of three) trophies for their food. The first won because Winner was touched by her devotion to her kids, both of which suffer from terrible afflictions. This in itself was horrifying to watch as Winner broke down crying until his face resembled silly putty with Mr Potato features haphazardly stuck into it. The second victor won because of the two attractive Essex birds that kept Winner company all evening or, as Winner put it, “excellent hosting.”

However, despite how wretched the whole thing looks on the surface it’s actually a terrifically enjoyable show. And there’s one reason – Michael Winner. Yes, he is rude and arrogant. Yes, the whole programme seems designed to bring about the destruction of any self-confidence the contestants might have. But Michael Winner is funny. Once you get past the premise of the show and realise that Winner’s just having some fun and doesn’t realise the carnage he’s leaving in his wake you come to love him. He’s a bumbling fool, always armed with a humourous quip. And it helps that he is truly insane as well, full of all the eccentricities you’d expect from someone with his staggering wealth. This alone makes Dining Stars worth watching, and makes it one of the best television shows on the box at the moment, at least of its type. Reality television is here to stay so we’d better get used to it, and no matter how deplorable it may seem on the surface it can be excellent entertainment. At least until the powers that be commission Gary Glitter’s Naked Crèche...