TV review: Food, Glorious Food

"But this isn't just any old new food programme, this is Simon Cowell doing food and it's got that Countdown woman Vorderman on it," I replied.

Tipped to be the X Factor of cookery programmes, this one promises to be "warm, funny, and irresistibly entertaining, this will be the biggest and most inclusive food show on British TV" (this from Cowell's production company's own website).

But still Becky continued to look underwhelmed – and, frankly, she was right because this is one programme that should be sent straight to the slop bucket of history.

The format is simple. The aforementioned Miss Vorderman and her panel of judges are looking for Britain's best home-cooked dish. So, not a meal (a la MasterChef), not a dinner party (a la Come Dine With Me) and not a competition to see who can cook one dish the best (a la Great British Bake-Off). Nor is there a celebrity chef anywhere in sight.

The judges are a strange bunch, best known of whom is Loyd (whatever happened to the other l) Grossman. He was the one with the rather tortured vowels in the original MasterChef series and whose face now adorns many a supermarket pasta sauce.

Tom Parker Bowles is the upper class foodie, there's MasterChef finalist Stacie Stewart and finally the vice chairman of the Women's Institute – the rather formidable Anne Harrison.

The overall winner receives a £20,000 prize, plus their dish will be available in Marks & Spencer the day after the final is shown on ITV1. The best dishes that don't win get to receive a rosette.

Appropriately enough, last night's offering kicked off in the Midlands and we started off with the delights of sausages in milk. The competitor admitted that it didn't look very nice and she was absolutely spot on - it's wrong on every level, as Anne agreed.

Chilli lasagne, Pheasant paprikash, lavender biscuits that smell like a "knicker drawer" and Honey Ale Hotpot all quickly followed.

Staffordshire oatcakes (approved by heavy metal star Slash) managed to win a rosette but it didn't take long to sort of get the feeling that the judges themselves were starting to doubt the wisdom of taking this particular gig.

The first night's winner was a Star Bistro Pimms jelly which had so much alcohol in it that M&S would have to give it some sort of health warning.

One of the problems is that the programme doesn't allow enough time to get to know the dishes. The cameras only seemed to spend time with what the producers would probably term "characters" and most of their cooking skills seemed at best flawed.

The fragrant Miss Vorderman, who's gone a long way on being good at sums, described the programme as having a very British "eccentric" feel.

Trouble is if you want eccentric the Bake-Off has cornered the market.

What could be more gloriously Britishly bonkers than a group of people getting together in a tent in the middle of a field to make rum babas?

The last season of X Factor saw its ratings go through the floor. If Mr Cowell was looking for something to put a bit of pep back into his production company then this simply isn't it.

Tim Walters