Foam

Much as I'm enjoying the current series of Masterchef I nevertheless find myself shaking my head in unpalatable despair at the current trend for flavoursome "foams".

I say current trend but the reality is foams could have been on the menu of high class restaurants for the last 3 years for all I know; I'm not known for patronizing either Le Gavroche or Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons on a regular basis and get funny looks whenever I get sniffy about the size of the bread sticks in Carluccio's. I'm hardly a professional diner.

But Masterchef has brought foams to my attention. Suddenly I have a foam radar and, really, I'm amazed I've got through life so far without ever having one.

I've lost count of how many foams I have now seen on TV.

Foam of quail. Foam of celeriac. Foam of DFS sofa.

Without fail they all resemble cuckoo-spit. Or worse: real proper human spit. A great big gooey lugey that somebody has hawked up onto the plate. For all the customer knows the sous chef has swilled his mouth out with cream of chicken soup, sucked on the cork from a bottle of cheap red wine and then gobbed out the scrapings of his molars all over the dauphinoise potatoes and then charged some poor hapless diner £78 for foam of coq au vin.

The poor diner won't know whether to sip it up with a straw or wipe it down with a napkin. Either way he's as stuffed as Scotch egg. Not so much et tu Brute as et tu veloute.

Is this really the way fine dining is going?

Foams? Essences? Sprays?

Are we going to end up with some hoity-toity overly-superior waiter spraying an aerosol can across our faces and claiming we have just imbibed spray of beluga caviar with a fine jus mist of sea bass and then charging us a four figure sum for the privilege? Couldn't I just save myself a load of money by eating the contents of my bathroom cabinet?

I've got a can of Lynx upstairs... mix that with foam of Bisto and I reckon I've got a meal that would set most people back a few hundred quid. Suddenly Old Spice takes on a different meaning too; I could save a fortune by boycotting Pataks and my curries will be the most fragrant in the street.

Maybe I just ought to let my mouth water more and get onto the gravy train?  After all, I could charge for the steam... I'm sure I could rustle up some foam from somewhere too... something with a very personal touch that'll get your umami taste buds a-tingling.

So anyway, next time you're about town and you see some lowlife spitting onto the pavement, just remember you could be passing up the opportunity for a free meal.

Don't be proud. Hunker down and enjoy.

Heston Blumenthal will be charging £150 for it guaranteed.

Le Munch Bunch

Normally I don’t do French.

Not unless it features Audrey Tautou anyway.

But after forays into Scandinavian TV drama the wife and I decided to expand our European wings, so to speak, and try a French police drama that had been recommended to us: Engrenages or Spiral as it has been translated over here (though my wife tells me Gears would have been a more accurate translation).

It has been something of an eye-opener.

I’m not sure how accurate a depiction it is but the Parisian police force in Spiral operate like something out of a Gene Hunt wet dream. Foxy, elven Captain Laure Berthaud (Caroline Proust) seems quite happy to have casual sex with her male colleagues – indeed seems decidedly unhappy if she finds herself in a situation where she is not getting any at all. And then there is stunning redhead Josephine Karlsson (the magnifique Audrey Fleurot - see picture above), a maverick defence lawyer who is unhappy unless she is accepting casual monies from all and sundry for activities that cross and re-cross the legal divide as often as she crosses and uncrosses her perfectly stockinged legs.

My wife will no doubt accuse me of gross injustice if I don’t mention the high male eye candy ratio but... nah. Can’t be bothered. Apparently there is plenty of boy-sugar floating around for the ladies but personally I don’t see it. I mean, they’re French, for Heaven’s sake! Urgh!

The women, however... well. They’re French! Va-va-voom!

But actually what impinges most on me about this portrayal of the French police is the sheer continuous nonchalant brutality of how they operate. Gene Hunt would cream his polyester slacks. I’ve lost count of how many suspects I have seen handcuffed to a chair and bitch slapped, pate slapped, hair-grabbed and kicked over onto the floor. In fact the only suspects I haven’t seen kicked off a chair are young teens and women and I suspect the only reason for that is that it would make for questionable telly viewing.

Interviews seems to be conducted in the police captain’s office without a lawyer being present and without benefit of some kind of recording device being activated. Occasionally the Captain’s superior might pop his head around the door, give a Gallic shrug and complain about the noise being a little excessive but otherwise anything goes. The suspect then signs his statement – handily written by the police – and is taken to Monsieur Le Judge where his case is weighed up and a decision taken as to whether it’s worth taking him to the Justice Courts where Josephine Karlsson will either get him off or drop him further into the merde depending on who’s paid her wages this week.

It’s brilliant.

I don’t want to stoop to national stereotyping but just as The Killing portrays the cool, calculating essence of the Danes so Spiral seems to capture the essence of the French. Or at least the essence of how we, the ignorant, arrogant English imagine the French to be: driven by physical appetites, yet somehow cold with a limited emotional range and with a total of 3 facial expressions: smile, frown, moue. The greatest and most used of these being the moue. The moue it seems can be used when faced with insults, teasing, accusations of wrong doing, a refusal to have sex, demotion, an acceptance to have sex, before and after sex, possibly during sex and when you discover your chief suspect has just been torched in the back of a Citroen a la barbecue.

Is this really how the French police force works? Are they really, genuinely that French? French to the power 100?

Whatever, it makes for great drama and whereas Season One was a bit patchy, Season Two which the wife and I are just about to complete has been absolument superbe.

Do yourself a favour. Try a little French tonight. You might like it. And if in doubt just think of Gene Hunt with garlic breath.

Got to be a winner, right?

Très bon!

It’s You Isn’t It?

Now I’m not trying to say that I’m Mr Unforgettable; that I’m one of those people who, when met once, emblazons himself onto everybody’s consciousness for all perpetuity with a light that never goes out. But I like to think I impinge just a little bit on those around me. That I leave a slight impression on the memory. Even if it is only to recognize my face as opposed to my name.

Years ago I did an evening class at the local college – French beginner’s level. It only lasted a year but was pretty intensive and a good deal of fun. Our tutor was a strange Francophile whose name I forget (yes, I know, people in glass houses and all that) and who rode a bicycle around town like a Victorian lady wrestling with the idea that she ought to be riding side saddle for the sake of propriety.

She still rides that same bicycle in the same manner and I still see her every few weeks as she pushes those pedals round and round like a Gerry Anderson puppet attempting to walk realistically.

We’ve always caught each other’s eyes and smiled and nodded at each other in mutual acknowledgement.

You taught me French, I think to myself.

And I imagine that in her head she’s thinking, I taught that young ruffian French.

Well, on Monday she drew up on her bike at a junction and as I was close enough to speak I thought I’d say hello – or even bon jour – and swap pleasantries.

All seemed to go well at first.

“Are you still at the college?” she asked.

“Why, yes,” I replied, “I’m just completing a course in Level 1 Sign Language as it happens.”

She looked a bit askance. Like what I’d said wasn’t quite right.

“Are you still teaching as well, then?” She asked.

Eh? Teaching? “Er. No.” I replied. “You taught me French?” I said rather plaintively.

A look of recognition passed over her face. Not recognition of me; recognition that she’d made a mistake. “Oh sorry.” She apologized. “I thought you were David the woodwork teacher.”

David? Woodwork?

“No.” I said rather stiffly. “You taught me French.” I believe I may have growled that last bit.

I could see her thinking zut alors and praying for the lights to turn to green. Things had got suddenly uncomfortable so I said a quick goodbye and stomped off up the street wishing I’d learnt a few more German swear words when I was at school.

So there you go. Not only do I not speak French well enough to stand out in her mind as a star pupil but I also look like a ‘Dave’ and look like I might be able to make myself useful with a dowelling rod.

Honestly. My ego has hit le fond du baril.

And yes. I had to Google that.