I am really sad to see the personal insults re appearances that this thread seems to have turned into.
I'm not in any way trying to be insulting but I work in healthcare and given it's a programme focusing on food and its preparation in detail, passing comment on a chef who has what I would personally deem an unhygienic appearance and demeanor feels like a fair point to highlight. 'Tis only my own opinion though .
Didn't it only get two 10s, though, despite three of the judges telling Chris at the end how amazing it was (and Pru having to "eat her words" after dismissing it completely immediately)? I seem to remember Oliver only giving it an 8, which given the comments he made seem to have dropped points when they were adding up at the end, making it a "close" loss for Chris. Someone else gave it a nine. I remember being shocked when they displayed the scores along the bottom of the screen for that dish.
This possibly demonstrates the problem of the judges trying to judge each chef fairly against the other with regard to the whole menu yet having other chef's courses in their minds at the same time.
Marking individual courses and then going by the total is fine if the judges are going to take each course as it is without implicit comparison to other weeks. However, if, even unconsciously, the judges have other dishes in their heads (and said dishes' suitability for the banquet) while tasting the ones in front of them, the "overall totals" method becomes problematic.
Individual course totals become less fair when the judges are sub-consciously marking said course against ones from a previous week as well as the one that they are in direct competition with.
With regard to the main, there seemed to be 3 front runners - Chris, Michael and Aiden.
Prue loved all three
Oliver preferred Michael's and Aiden's to Chris'
Matthew preferred Chris' and Aiden's to Michael's.
With that in mind, Aiden's would seem the favourite for the banquet.
I'm not in any way trying to be insulting but I work in healthcare and given it's a programme focusing on food and its preparation in detail, passing comment on a chef who has what I would personally deem an unhygienic appearance and demeanor feels like a fair point to highlight. 'Tis only my own opinion though .
That's where I'm coming from. It's not personal, but instead coming from professional expectation. I don't think there's another profession where hygiene is as important, except surgery. If my surgeon appeared to me in such an unhygienic way, I wouldn't let him near me or my insides. The same applies to chefs and their food.
If I was being personal, I would probably attack the chefs with something like looks or age (kind of like M.A.G. with the latter in the way she spoke to Luke all week, where Luke displayed more maturity than her), which I hope I haven't sunk so low yet.
I do feel a bit guilty now about the comments about Mary-Anne. There was no intention to hurt anyones feelings just stating what we all saw on the telly. I suppose its easy to be a armchair critic.
Well done to all the chefs that made it and to the ones that didnt.
Bring on the finals and lets see if anyone has raised their game.
Rather than putting so many of those poor chefs through the torture of having to look up the word "comedy" in a dictionary, and then expecting them to be creative enough to include an element of "comedy" in a dish, wouldn't it have been a lot easier to just let them cook whatever they wanted, but provide each of them with a selection of "comedy plates"? I'm convinced that's all the judges are looking for! :rolleyes:
Next year we could have "The British Countryside" as the theme. The brief could then be "Cook what you like, and we'll provide a lump of wood to slap it on! (Note to Ray ... please try not to look as though you're actually celebrating the devastation cause by Dutch Elm Disease.)"
[QUOTE=coughthecat;
Next year we could have "The British Countryside" as the theme. The brief could then be "Cook what you like, and we'll provide a lump of wood to slap it on! (Note to Ray ... please try not to look as though you're actually celebrating the devastation cause by Dutch Elm Disease.)"[/QUOTE]
It would be nice if next year's brief would be 'back to basics'.
No gadgets, no chemicals, no water baths. Just proper old school cooking.
This week's show really angered me. Jeremy Lee was clearly showing a more positive attitude towards Mary Anne - who made no real effort towards gastronomy, presentation or meeting the brief. I do not doubt that her food was tasty - but it had no place in the competition.
It was one of the worst weeks in all the years I have been watching. They should not allow it to happen again.
Next year - for a theme I would suggest Shakespeare!! 450th anniversary of his birth. Plenty in the plays to use as inspiration for dishes from all round the world. Have the final on the stage of the RSC!
Rather than putting so many of those poor chefs through the torture of having to look up the word "comedy" in a dictionary, and then expecting them to be creative enough to include an element of "comedy" in a dish, wouldn't it have been a lot easier to just let them cook whatever they wanted, but provide each of them with a selection of "comedy plates"? I'm convinced that's all the judges are looking for! :rolleyes:
Next year we could have "The British Countryside" as the theme. The brief could then be "Cook what you like, and we'll provide a lump of wood to slap it on! (Note to Ray ... please try not to look as though you're actually celebrating the devastation cause by Dutch Elm Disease.)"
This possibly demonstrates the problem of the judges trying to judge each chef fairly against the other with regard to the whole menu yet having other chef's courses in their minds at the same time.
Marking individual courses and then going by the total is fine if the judges are going to take each course as it is without implicit comparison to other weeks. However, if, even unconsciously, the judges have other dishes in their heads (and said dishes' suitability for the banquet) while tasting the ones in front of them, the "overall totals" method becomes problematic.
Individual course totals become less fair when the judges are sub-consciously marking said course against ones from a previous week as well as the one that they are in direct competition with.
With regard to the main, there seemed to be 3 front runners - Chris, Michael and Aiden.
Prue loved all three
Oliver preferred Michael's and Aiden's to Chris'
Matthew preferred Chris' and Aiden's to Michael's.
With that in mind, Aiden's would seem the favourite for the banquet.
I think there was a bigger problem, one that was introduced for the first time this year, which was letting the judges know who's cooking which dish right from the start and the results from the chef judging. The only possible reason for doing this would be to allow personal bias, or at the very worst manipulation of the results, to come into play.
I would love the producers, or even the judges, to explain how this change benefitted the show.
This week's show really angered me. Jeremy Lee was clearly showing a more positive attitude towards Mary Anne - who made no real effort towards gastronomy, presentation or meeting the brief. I do not doubt that her food was tasty - but it had no place in the competition.
It was one of the worst weeks in all the years I have been watching. They should not allow it to happen again.
Next year - for a theme I would suggest Shakespeare!! 450th anniversary of his birth. Plenty in the plays to use as inspiration for dishes from all round the world. Have the final on the stage of the RSC!
That's actually a fantastic idea, but given this season's evidence I could still see chefs just taking other dishes already on their menus and surrounding the plate with foliage for A Midsummer Night's Dream (with customary liquid nitrogen for mist), or even worse just plating it on Stratford-on-Avon china.
I'm sorry, but I feel so jaded after this season (in particular this week has worn me down). I genuinely think it's a fantastic idea for a theme, though.
I was imagining dishes that could be inspired by Falstaff and his excesses, the exoticism of Egypt and Cleopatra, an evocation of the Roman excesses of Julius Caesar, something Danish for Hamlet - and so forth...
But I agree with the jaded comment - there has been some great food - just not always on theme.
And the judging has been perverse. How can it be more risky to serve a dessert with coffee as an element than to confront diners with cod's tongue?
It all feels so contrived - and maybe even fixed.
That beef pie should never have lost out to a TItanic.... grrrr
Yes, revealing the scores and the menus does seem to have altered the dynamic this year.
The brief has also not been clearly written - leading to some very variable responses (and some bizarre results)
How anyone could have put through a Titanic based dish for a comedy event is clearly mad - and not in a good way.
It was Ray's explanation, and all of the judges acceptance of it, that was so frustrating. Outside of mumbling under his breath that it's "a bit of fun"(?), his explanation was that it was the centenary of the Sinking of the Titanic LAST YEAR, and that he felt he should "celebrate" it.
So not only is he 12 months late "celebrating" the deaths of the passengers and crew of the ill-fated voyage (allowing the diners to eat the meat out of the model of the communal coffin in some bizarre cannibalistic ritual metaphor), but he decided to totally throw the brief out the window and create his own, AND STILL GOT PUT THROUGH TO THE FINALS!!!!
I was imagining dishes that could be inspired by Falstaff and his excesses, the exoticism of Egypt and Cleopatra, an evocation of the Roman excesses of Julius Caesar, something Danish for Hamlet - and so forth...
But I agree with the jaded comment - there has been some great food - just not always on theme.
And the judging has been perverse. How can it be more risky to serve a dessert with coffee as an element than to confront diners with cod's tongue?
It all feels so contrived - and maybe even fixed.
That beef pie should never have lost out to a TItanic.... grrrr
This is how jaded I've got: I read the above and immediately imagined a variation on a starter of Caesar's salad with bacon bits being made on a weekly basis.
But there could be something Venetian for the Merchant of Venice (although that could become a million dishes served in gondolas), or a rose flavoured or scented dessert for the Rose Theatre (or even "a rose by any other name...") there are so many possibilities.
Sadly someone would do a Caesar salad... or just be dense and turn up with something inspired by Dr Faustus...
A winning man could be inspired by the greatest of all of Shakespeare's chefs... Titus Andronicus - what he could do with a meat pie is beyond words...
I like the Shakespeare idea but instead present food they would have eaten back then in a modern way. It would be different than any other series because it would be historical but still have the usual modern twist.
I like the Shakespeare idea but instead present food they would have eaten back then in a modern way. It would be different than any other series because it would be historical but still have the usual modern twist.
It would be great if one dish out of the menu had to be inspired by period food - but, to be honest, Elizabethan and Jacobean food is not that exciting to me as using the world of Shakespeare and his works as inspiration
But I am glad people like the idea of it as a general theme!
I do like the idea of a Shakespearean theme, but alas, I fear yonder chefs would be even more confuse-ed!
As has been mentioned, I do think we'd get Caesar Salads and Stratford crockery (plus Nan's crockery "because I remember Nan really liked Shakespeare"!).
We'd get dozens of restaurant dishes served on bits of wood to "represent a stage".
We'd have a salad called "Parting is such sweet sorrel", a fish dish called "Once more unto the beach", and a starter called "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your (pigs) ears"!
Sadly, the majority of chefs would completely ignore the brief, or justify serving English lamb by saying "It's English ... like Shakespeare was"!
Mind you, I'd love to see what Ray would come up with when he realised that Shakespeare wrote tragedies!
... and someone would definitely serve a Findus Lasagne and call it "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!"
I do like the idea of a Shakespearean theme, but alas, I fear yonder chefs would be even more confuse-ed!
As has been mentioned, I do think we'd get Caesar Salads and Stratford crockery (plus Nan's crockery "because I remember Nan really liked Shakespeare"!).
We'd get dozens of restaurant dishes served on bits of wood to "represent a stage".
We'd have a salad called "Parting is such sweet sorrel", a fish dish called "Once more unto the beach", and a starter called "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your (pigs) ears"!
Sadly, the majority of chefs would completely ignore the brief, or justify serving English lamb by saying "It's English ... like Shakespeare was"!
Mind you, I'd love to see what Ray would come up with when he realised that Shakespeare wrote tragedies!
... and someone would definitely serve a Findus Lasagne and call it "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!"
More inspiration in this one post than all the chefs have shown this year!
Mind you, I'd love to see what Ray would come up with when he realised that Shakespeare wrote tragedies!
I love the Shakespere-themed idea too.
Although how many do you think will go for 'Pound of Flesh' for the main :cool:
(I'd also like to see some of the Cheffy-judges back cooking again and some of the people who have only appeared on one series, like Mark Hix and Simon Rogan give it another go.
It could be fun to have the competitors just made up of chefs who have had dishes at previous banquets - although that wouldn't work with the Regional Champion side of the proceedings)
Although how many do you think will go for 'Pound of Flesh' for the main :cool:
I reckon quite a lot! :cool:
... with a good number of Macbeth-insipred "Fowl is fair, and fair is fowl" thrown in for good measure!
Fish courses would invariably be from The Merry Wives Of Windsor ... "Why, then the world's mine oyster".
... and I hate to think how many starters would be from Anthony & Cleopatra ... "My salad days, when I was green in judgement".
Mind you, I reckon desserts would test 'em! I'm not sure "Out, damned spotted dick, out I say!" would work too well, although I suppose they could go with "Shall I compare thee to a Summer pudding?"
I'd laugh (a lot more than I have this series!) if they did have a Shakespearean theme and actually went with any of these!
... with a good number of Macbeth-insipred "Fowl is fair, and fair is fowl" thrown in for good measure!
Fish courses would invariably be from The Merry Wives Of Windsor ... "Why, then the world's mine oyster".
... and I hate to think how many starters would be from Anthony & Cleopatra ... "My salad days, when I was green in judgement".
Mind you, I reckon desserts would test 'em! I'm not sure "Out, damned spotted dick, out I say!" would work too well, although I suppose they could go with "Shall I compare thee to a Summer pudding?"
I'd laugh (a lot more than I have this series!) if they did have a Shakespearean theme and actually went with any of these!
I've a feeling Ray may go with a main course pie based on Titus Andronicus :eek:
Titus agrees and sends Marcus to invite Lucius to a reconciliatory feast. Revenge then offers to invite the Emperor and Tamora as well, and is about to leave when Titus insists that Rape and Murder (Chiron and Demetrius) stay with him. When Tamora is gone, Titus cuts their throats and drains their blood into a basin held by Lavinia. Titus morbidly tells Lavinia that he plans to "play the cook" and grind the bones of Demetrius and Chiron into powder and bake their heads.
The next day, during the feast at his house, Titus asks Saturninus if a father should kill his daughter when she has been raped. When Saturninus answers that he should, Titus kills Lavinia, telling Saturninus of the rape. When the Emperor calls for Chiron and Demetrius, Titus reveals that they have been baked in the pie Tamora has just been eating. Titus then kills Tamora, and is immediately killed by Saturninus, who is subsequently killed by Lucius to avenge his father's death. Lucius is then proclaimed Emperor. He orders that Saturninus be given a state burial, that Tamora's body be thrown to the wild beasts outside the city, and that Aaron be buried chest-deep and left to die of thirst and starvation. Aaron, however, is unrepentant to the end, regretting only that he had not done more evil in his life.
Comments
I'm not in any way trying to be insulting but I work in healthcare and given it's a programme focusing on food and its preparation in detail, passing comment on a chef who has what I would personally deem an unhygienic appearance and demeanor feels like a fair point to highlight. 'Tis only my own opinion though
This possibly demonstrates the problem of the judges trying to judge each chef fairly against the other with regard to the whole menu yet having other chef's courses in their minds at the same time.
Marking individual courses and then going by the total is fine if the judges are going to take each course as it is without implicit comparison to other weeks. However, if, even unconsciously, the judges have other dishes in their heads (and said dishes' suitability for the banquet) while tasting the ones in front of them, the "overall totals" method becomes problematic.
Individual course totals become less fair when the judges are sub-consciously marking said course against ones from a previous week as well as the one that they are in direct competition with.
With regard to the main, there seemed to be 3 front runners - Chris, Michael and Aiden.
Prue loved all three
Oliver preferred Michael's and Aiden's to Chris'
Matthew preferred Chris' and Aiden's to Michael's.
With that in mind, Aiden's would seem the favourite for the banquet.
That's where I'm coming from. It's not personal, but instead coming from professional expectation. I don't think there's another profession where hygiene is as important, except surgery. If my surgeon appeared to me in such an unhygienic way, I wouldn't let him near me or my insides. The same applies to chefs and their food.
If I was being personal, I would probably attack the chefs with something like looks or age (kind of like M.A.G. with the latter in the way she spoke to Luke all week, where Luke displayed more maturity than her), which I hope I haven't sunk so low yet.
Well done to all the chefs that made it and to the ones that didnt.
Bring on the finals and lets see if anyone has raised their game.
Next year we could have "The British Countryside" as the theme. The brief could then be "Cook what you like, and we'll provide a lump of wood to slap it on! (Note to Ray ... please try not to look as though you're actually celebrating the devastation cause by Dutch Elm Disease.)"
Next year we could have "The British Countryside" as the theme. The brief could then be "Cook what you like, and we'll provide a lump of wood to slap it on! (Note to Ray ... please try not to look as though you're actually celebrating the devastation cause by Dutch Elm Disease.)"[/QUOTE]
It would be nice if next year's brief would be 'back to basics'.
No gadgets, no chemicals, no water baths. Just proper old school cooking.
It was one of the worst weeks in all the years I have been watching. They should not allow it to happen again.
Next year - for a theme I would suggest Shakespeare!! 450th anniversary of his birth. Plenty in the plays to use as inspiration for dishes from all round the world. Have the final on the stage of the RSC!
Also,
no feet coupled with mouths
no Quorn Hunts complete with disemboweled foxes
no rabbits with myxomatosis.
Wow, that's a dangerous spoonerism you have there.:eek:
I think there was a bigger problem, one that was introduced for the first time this year, which was letting the judges know who's cooking which dish right from the start and the results from the chef judging. The only possible reason for doing this would be to allow personal bias, or at the very worst manipulation of the results, to come into play.
I would love the producers, or even the judges, to explain how this change benefitted the show.
The brief has also not been clearly written - leading to some very variable responses (and some bizarre results)
How anyone could have put through a Titanic based dish for a comedy event is clearly mad - and not in a good way.
That's actually a fantastic idea, but given this season's evidence I could still see chefs just taking other dishes already on their menus and surrounding the plate with foliage for A Midsummer Night's Dream (with customary liquid nitrogen for mist), or even worse just plating it on Stratford-on-Avon china.
I'm sorry, but I feel so jaded after this season (in particular this week has worn me down). I genuinely think it's a fantastic idea for a theme, though.
I was imagining dishes that could be inspired by Falstaff and his excesses, the exoticism of Egypt and Cleopatra, an evocation of the Roman excesses of Julius Caesar, something Danish for Hamlet - and so forth...
But I agree with the jaded comment - there has been some great food - just not always on theme.
And the judging has been perverse. How can it be more risky to serve a dessert with coffee as an element than to confront diners with cod's tongue?
It all feels so contrived - and maybe even fixed.
That beef pie should never have lost out to a TItanic.... grrrr
It was Ray's explanation, and all of the judges acceptance of it, that was so frustrating. Outside of mumbling under his breath that it's "a bit of fun"(?), his explanation was that it was the centenary of the Sinking of the Titanic LAST YEAR, and that he felt he should "celebrate" it.
So not only is he 12 months late "celebrating" the deaths of the passengers and crew of the ill-fated voyage (allowing the diners to eat the meat out of the model of the communal coffin in some bizarre cannibalistic ritual metaphor), but he decided to totally throw the brief out the window and create his own, AND STILL GOT PUT THROUGH TO THE FINALS!!!!
Still, "it's a bit of fun, you know".
This is how jaded I've got: I read the above and immediately imagined a variation on a starter of Caesar's salad with bacon bits being made on a weekly basis.
But there could be something Venetian for the Merchant of Venice (although that could become a million dishes served in gondolas), or a rose flavoured or scented dessert for the Rose Theatre (or even "a rose by any other name...") there are so many possibilities.
A winning man could be inspired by the greatest of all of Shakespeare's chefs... Titus Andronicus - what he could do with a meat pie is beyond words...
i like this idea
But I am glad people like the idea of it as a general theme!
As has been mentioned, I do think we'd get Caesar Salads and Stratford crockery (plus Nan's crockery "because I remember Nan really liked Shakespeare"!).
We'd get dozens of restaurant dishes served on bits of wood to "represent a stage".
We'd have a salad called "Parting is such sweet sorrel", a fish dish called "Once more unto the beach", and a starter called "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your (pigs) ears"!
Sadly, the majority of chefs would completely ignore the brief, or justify serving English lamb by saying "It's English ... like Shakespeare was"!
Mind you, I'd love to see what Ray would come up with when he realised that Shakespeare wrote tragedies!
... and someone would definitely serve a Findus Lasagne and call it "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!"
More inspiration in this one post than all the chefs have shown this year!
I love the Shakespere-themed idea too.
Although how many do you think will go for 'Pound of Flesh' for the main :cool:
(I'd also like to see some of the Cheffy-judges back cooking again and some of the people who have only appeared on one series, like Mark Hix and Simon Rogan give it another go.
It could be fun to have the competitors just made up of chefs who have had dishes at previous banquets - although that wouldn't work with the Regional Champion side of the proceedings)
I reckon quite a lot! :cool:
... with a good number of Macbeth-insipred "Fowl is fair, and fair is fowl" thrown in for good measure!
Fish courses would invariably be from The Merry Wives Of Windsor ... "Why, then the world's mine oyster".
... and I hate to think how many starters would be from Anthony & Cleopatra ... "My salad days, when I was green in judgement".
Mind you, I reckon desserts would test 'em! I'm not sure "Out, damned spotted dick, out I say!" would work too well, although I suppose they could go with "Shall I compare thee to a Summer pudding?"
I'd laugh (a lot more than I have this series!) if they did have a Shakespearean theme and actually went with any of these!
I've a feeling Ray may go with a main course pie based on Titus Andronicus :eek:
The next day, during the feast at his house, Titus asks Saturninus if a father should kill his daughter when she has been raped. When Saturninus answers that he should, Titus kills Lavinia, telling Saturninus of the rape. When the Emperor calls for Chiron and Demetrius, Titus reveals that they have been baked in the pie Tamora has just been eating. Titus then kills Tamora, and is immediately killed by Saturninus, who is subsequently killed by Lucius to avenge his father's death. Lucius is then proclaimed Emperor. He orders that Saturninus be given a state burial, that Tamora's body be thrown to the wild beasts outside the city, and that Aaron be buried chest-deep and left to die of thirst and starvation. Aaron, however, is unrepentant to the end, regretting only that he had not done more evil in his life.