The Great British Menu  

We are now in our fifth year of this, and I cannot believe I am still enjoying it. I thought I detested doing telly (I’m so vain I hate how I look, you spend all day filming for 20 usable minutes, studios are always freezing or stifling etc), but I just love the GBM. Oliver and Matthew, my fellow judges are a hoot, the crew members are funny and delightful and never snappy, precious or antsy.  But how long can an old duck like me (I am 70 for Pete’s sake) go on doing this?

Mathew Fort knows more about food than anyone I know, and he and Oliver can be informative and funny, and often outrageous, for hours on end. My job is to be the bossy nanny in between them, telling them to behave.

I like the idea of a food program that spotlights the best chefs and the best food suppliers. Underneath all the banter there is a  serious intent to raise the profile of British cooking, encourage more chefs to try harder and to introduce the public to great produce on their doorsteps.

The Great British Menu is made by Optomen TV. The first competition was a hunt for the best British chefs to cook the Queen’s 80th birthday lunch at the Mansion House, the second was a Christmas mini-series in aid of Children in Need and saw the four winners of the first series (Marcus Wareing, Richard Corrigan, Nick Nairn and Bryn Williams) compete to cook the best family Christmas dinner (Richard won). The third series saw those winners compete against new chefs to be chosen to cook a banquet for the British Ambassador in Paris, to be eaten by the great chefs and gourmets of France.

Stargazy pie with wild rabbit and crayfish		Perry jelly with elderflower icecream

Last year chefs competed to cook a banquet for returning service men and women in the Army, Navy and Airforce, (and their families) who have been in Afghanistan. The previous three programmes had all been about feeding the toffs. This one was for ordinary folk more used to lunch out of a box at 40 degrees centigrade or supper in a tent at below 20 degrees.  A welcome home to people who really deserve a wonderful menu celebrating the very best of British. 

	Dishes from the 4th Series
Daniel Clifford - Fish braised lobster with chicken gizzards, baby root vegetables and white port sauce		Glynn Purnell -  Bakewell tart with double cream ice cream and instant cider fruit jam

 

Prue with Oliver and Matthew

So for the fifth competition, we teemed up with the National Trust to set the chefs the task of sourcing their ingredients from the immediate vicinity of the National Trust Estate they are allocated, and cooking a menu to please Britain’s best food producers. Among them was the most famous advocate of local, fresh, sustainably grown good food, Prince Charles. And Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall was also with him, so it was quite a do.

	Dishes from the 5th Series
Lisa Allen - Wild rabbit leek turnover with piccalilli		Tom Kerridge- Slow-cooked duck with duck fat chips gravy

Kenny Atkinson - Line-caught mackerel with gooseberries		Niall McKenna - Poached rhubarb with strawberry jelly yellow man lavender ice cream -