Sophie Dahl made her debut as a TV chef last night in The Delicious Miss Dahl (try and imagine Leslie Phillips saying that), a BBC Two confection even more absurdly artificial than the various Nigella Lawson food-porn shows. At least you believe Nigella can and does make food and eat it - with Dahl (despite two cookbooks to her name) it just came across like another modelling job. And while the saucer-eyed beauty may be easier on the eye than Bill Buford, there was only one destination for viewers serious about food. It was back to Lyon, or “Lee-own” as Buford insisted on pronouncing it in Fat Man in a White Hat, as if the gastronomic capital of France rhymed with a certain small West African state.
Last week Buford got in the way in the kitchens of various high temples to Gallic gastronomy as he attempted to learn haute cuisine (“The French for ‘give me your wallet’,” he quipped weakly). This week he went looking for simple food – the bread, saucisson and cheeses – in what was an altogether more satisfying film. That is if you can swallow Buford’s presentation style, speaking like a raspy unholy trinity of Norman Mailer, Captain Beefheart and an Americanised Clive James. Personally I don’t mind this muscular hobo style, although my wife, for example, finds it unwatchable, or unlistenable to. And sometimes it’s best not to hang on to every word - especially when he says something like, “Is wheat the most poetic grain on earth?” Actually, Bill, I find barley does it for me.
Anyway, after a while you stop looking at Buford or listening to what he is saying, and find your attention wandering to the background, where the butchers, the bakers and the cheese-makers are quietly, smoothly, skilfully, expertly (to spoof Buford’s repetitive oratorical style) getting on with their work. The difference between the manic presenter, his face and arms barely ever in repose, and the calm purpose of the artisans is marked – you wonder what they must think of this garrulous American in their midst. Very little, probably.
I did wonder for a moment whether the butchers who were slaughtering a pig were playing a practical joke as they got Buford to stick his arm in a bucket of the deceased porker’s freshly spilled blood and to slowly stir it by hand. Apparently, however, this is the way you stop it congealing until you’ve turned the blood into black pudding, or boudin noir - not that Buford could wait that long, helping himself to a ladle of the lightly seasoned red stuff before pronouncing it delicious.
“Bob the baker”, Lyon’s most celebrated boulanger, allowed Buford to shape some baguettes for him - the resulting loaf bearing the imprints of the American’s pummelling, a metaphor, perhaps for his presentational style. But then, as I said, I don’t mind it, and anyway I noticed Bob was cheerfully blowing his nose before he shaped his own baguettes. Hygienic or not, Bob’s loaves are apparently so coveted by the Lyonnais that when they visit restaurants which serve his bread with their meals, they slip it into their handbags and then ask for more.
Then it was off to the foothills of the Alps, to follow the production of a type of Gruyère cheese known as Beaufort, which, tracing his own Huguenot ancestry back through Louisiana, Buford reckoned originated in his family. Meanwhile a former mountain shepherd with the face of Benny Hill and a showman’s wide-brimmed black felt hat showed him which wild herbs to pick, the sun shone, the cows mooed, the birds tweeted in the trees, and it was as if Buford had read your thoughts when he said, “One reason I’m here is because, why not?” No wonder his face looks like it’s never far from a smile. My only problem with this rather wonderful film was the title - if the New Yorker journalist and former editor of Granta is fat then I’m in trouble. But then I guess The Delicious Mr Buford was never going to cut the mustard.
Anyway, after a while you stop looking at Buford or listening to what he is saying, and find your attention wandering to the background, where the butchers, the bakers and the cheese-makers are quietly, smoothly, skilfully, expertly (to spoof Buford’s repetitive oratorical style) getting on with their work. The difference between the manic presenter, his face and arms barely ever in repose, and the calm purpose of the artisans is marked – you wonder what they must think of this garrulous American in their midst. Very little, probably.
I did wonder for a moment whether the butchers who were slaughtering a pig were playing a practical joke as they got Buford to stick his arm in a bucket of the deceased porker’s freshly spilled blood and to slowly stir it by hand. Apparently, however, this is the way you stop it congealing until you’ve turned the blood into black pudding, or boudin noir - not that Buford could wait that long, helping himself to a ladle of the lightly seasoned red stuff before pronouncing it delicious.
“Bob the baker”, Lyon’s most celebrated boulanger, allowed Buford to shape some baguettes for him - the resulting loaf bearing the imprints of the American’s pummelling, a metaphor, perhaps for his presentational style. But then, as I said, I don’t mind it, and anyway I noticed Bob was cheerfully blowing his nose before he shaped his own baguettes. Hygienic or not, Bob’s loaves are apparently so coveted by the Lyonnais that when they visit restaurants which serve his bread with their meals, they slip it into their handbags and then ask for more.
Then it was off to the foothills of the Alps, to follow the production of a type of Gruyère cheese known as Beaufort, which, tracing his own Huguenot ancestry back through Louisiana, Buford reckoned originated in his family. Meanwhile a former mountain shepherd with the face of Benny Hill and a showman’s wide-brimmed black felt hat showed him which wild herbs to pick, the sun shone, the cows mooed, the birds tweeted in the trees, and it was as if Buford had read your thoughts when he said, “One reason I’m here is because, why not?” No wonder his face looks like it’s never far from a smile. My only problem with this rather wonderful film was the title - if the New Yorker journalist and former editor of Granta is fat then I’m in trouble. But then I guess The Delicious Mr Buford was never going to cut the mustard.
- Watch Fat Man in a White Hat on BBC iPlayer
