Monday, March 08, 2010

Egg On Face For Saturday Kitchen


You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs (or legs as in Raymond Blanc’s case last week). But what is it about this dish that brings out such competitive, ungainly behaviour in normally reserved, modest, gentlemanly individuals as TV cooks?

In what is easily the best story of the day, cooking-for-idiots TV show Saturday Kitchen Live has been rapped by Ofcom for broadcasting the F-word, months after escaping action for a similar blunder during another Omelette Challenge.

Last December, Tom Kime muttered "fucking hell" under his breath when his three egg omelette started to stick to the frying pan. Not enough oil, chef? Pan not hot enough? Forgot to use non-stick eggs? (But to be fair to him, his old boss Rick Stein couldn’t make an omelette when he appeared on the show either.)

The remark went undetected by the show's cyclophobic, mole-clubbing presenter James Martin, but then if a space ship filled with doughnut-eating Martians had landed on the set, he’d probably have missed that as well, so no on-air apology was made.

It was not until after the show, when a guest was asked about Kime’s swearing, that the BBC became aware of the matter.

The BBC banned Kime from the show and apologised to the one busybody viewer who had bothered to complain.

It follows a similar incident in May last year, when guest chefs Vivek Singh and Eric Chavot were involved in the omelette "cook-off".

Singh finished first and teased his adversary with the brilliantly witty put-down: "It's my turn to sit here now...la la la."

Chavot retorted with the Global-sharp, Wilde-esque jab: "You can la-la me, what the fucking la-la" before clamping his hand over his mouth like a girl (watch below...)



But the show was let off by the broadcasting watchdog as it issued two on-air apologies and immediately withdrew it from BBC iPlayer.

In the latest case, Ofcom said that, due to the lack of apology (wake up James you great Yorkshire Pudding...it’s time to open the Hull Truck Theatre's food festival), it would uphold the complaint.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I still haven't forgiven James Martin for driving those cyclists off the road. Hope he gets sacked and is forced to get a job in a cycle repair shop.

Killer said...

James Martin is a complete and utter c*nt!

Alicia said...

Good stuff here. I've been enjoying what I've been reading!