TV review: Rick Stein's India
Keith Floyd has a lot to answer for. The late TV chef, traveller and bon viveur, who loved more than just the odd tipple, paved the way for a lot of charisma-challenged chef clones who only seem to have to boil an egg efficiently to become a fixture on TV screens.
Floyd perfected the recipe back in the eighties which gave us cookery with travel to exotic locations. A dirty job, but someone had to do it and he gave us some hysterical moments.
Now we have an army of cooks who have somehow been elevated to the status of superstars, earning millions.
Rick Stein, when he first came onto the scene with his Taste of the Sea series, was a welcome counterbalance to the Floyd excesses giving fans a more intimate insight into seafood cookery from his base in Padstow in Cornwall.
He quickly became established as a TV favourite and success followed.
Take a trip to Cornwall and he appears to own more businesses than the Grand Old Duke of Cornwall himself, Prince Charles.
Now after countless other TV series and a library of books, he is danger of becoming overcooked.
But the Oxford graduate is certainly one of the more articulate of his breed and has an easy, informative delivery.
His latest jolly takes him to the Indian sub-continent in search of the spices, recipes and ingredients that make up what is now one of our national dishes – curry – which apparently is a catch all made-up word for Indian food.
Hardly the most original of ideas, but over the course of the series he is looking to discover some lesser-tasted treats, including the regal flavours of Rajasthan.
He also experiences the temple and food hub of Tamil Nadu, house-boat hospitality in Kerala, and gourmet grub in Punjab.
Last night's journey started in Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta, well, actually, still known as Calcutta by many of the locals.
This sprawling, teeming Bengali city has shades of Slumdog Millionaire, with extreme poverty suffered with stoic good humour.
It got off to a good start with Stein getting his knickers in a twist with his producer on what constitutes a good curry – the irate chef insisting it is more than 10 pints and a vindaloo on a Saturday night.
This he professionally demonstrates with various dishes from fried prawns in butter to curried eggs and exotic fish as he travels the streets of the city, visits a poor fishing village and returns to a women's refuge in the city for more lessons on spicy cuisine.
Eccentric ex-pat British chef Angus joins him and guides our host on a culinary journey of discovery through the city, sampling and copying the street food that is available on just about every corner.
Stein is obviously an accomplished chef and for those who love their cooking the dishes he recreates with rice, fish and vegetables will have the mouth watering.
The search for the perfect curry doesn't reveal too many secrets, with ingredients like chilli, turmeric, coriander, cumin and garam masala all too familiar to your average home cook.
There's nothing much new about the format though. Exotic travel with decent cooking thrown in, smidge of social commentary and trite statements about how the people may be poor but seem so happy, even in the shadow of a huge rubbish tip.
Stein is articulate and intelligent, but Floyd was much more fun.
Bill McCarthy
