“Death nettle white, sweet cicely, hairy cress, ground elder and lovage…” says Ben the Forager, “and Alexander.” I regard him with that look one reserves for enthusiastic amateur foragers. “Isn’t Alexander poisonous?” “No, no,” avers the budding David Bellamy, “that’s Alexander’s root.” Then, with the enthusiasm that comes from gamboling about in bosky glades with a wicker basket, Ben asks, “So, what are you going to do with all these goodies?”
“Perhaps I’ll…”
Excuse me folks, someone is screeching and bawling on the television as I write this…A man, in a chefs uniform, with a face like a parsnip with yellow roots, is fulminating about, well, human excreta. He’s in a darkened toilet with a curious contraption, which has the same effect as neon nightclub lights – in a club they highlight your dandruff or give you a Tom Cruise smile, here they highlight streaks of piss on the toilet walls – “Look, look,” he explodes, “there’s urine on the roof!” He drags the unfortunate owners, who look like a couple of smackhead rejects from the Jerry Springer Show, into a cubicle for a closer inspection. Welcome to Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA. The same tired old formula is in full effect. A woebegone Midwest town or, better still, somewhere in the industrial belt that has somehow managed to lose all its industries? Tick. A disused industrial estate on the outskirts of town where everything is boarded up? Tick. Save for one unit on its outer edges, which is a crushingly ugly concrete and cinder blockhouse? Tick. This cinder blockhouse houses – you’ve guessed it – a down at heel Italian restaurant that the bold Gordon is about to resurrect. There follows a great deal of filth and fury, before Ramsay does his Lone Ranger bit and then, like the Lone Ranger, he rides off into the sunset. Unlike the Lone Ranger however, he hangs around for the fulsome praise of the owners and their, mawkishly grateful, extended family. Bloody Groundhog Day.
“So, what are you going to do with all these goodies?” Asks Ben the Forager. “I’ll make a stock from the bruised leaves and stems, then we’ll add some Parmesan rinds, to make a sort of cheese infusion, then we’ll make a salad from the shredded foraged herbs and pour the warmed infusion over it.” I ad- lib, breathlessly. Ben nods approvingly whilst looking at me profoundly. “Next week I’ll bring you sea buckthorn…”