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Dani on TV
Supersizers Eat…
BBC2, Mondays 9pm
I love this series, and I loved the previous one – try and catch it if you can. For those of you who haven’t come across this and developed a crush on Giles Coren yet, here’s what it’s all about. Writer and comedian Sue Perkins and restaurant critic Giles Coren eat their way through different periods of time, sampling not only the food but the outfits, hobbies and interests of the era in question.
While this might not sound like your ideal Monday night viewing, bear in mind that many of the past ages had no water sanitation, leaving the population with nothing to drink but ale. You will soon discover that there’s nothing funnier than a drunk Sue Perkins. Her discomfort at having to wear every form of ornate costume, none of which includes jeans or trainers, makes for amusing viewing along with Giles’s constant hope to meet a girl and his brave attempts to try everything on the dinner table regardless of how disgusting it looks, smells or tastes. I would not recommend, however, that you watch this while eating yourself, as the chances are, you will be put off by what appears on your TV screen.
Being a vegetarian, I don’t necessarily enjoy watching a piglet’s rear end being sewn onto the head of a bird but it just can’t be helped. This is not in any way a cookery programme, so don’t expect to pick up some ancient recipes as I doubt anyone would actually want to eat them anyway. The strange thing is that Sue Perkins normally doesn’t eat meat – how she manages to go from vegetarian to nibbling on a sow’s udder I’ll never know but I take my hat off to her – she has balls, both figuratively speaking and on the plate in front of her.
All of us have ancestors who would have eaten similar meals to these, and if anything the show makes you feel grateful to be in 2009 – although at the same time it really underlines just how much we waste and rely on the freezer. Perhaps there is more to this funny and bizarrely interesting programme than meets the eye. If you have a sense of humour, an interest in food or our history, then you may just enjoy this. Catch it while you can as this is apparently the last series they will be doing. Shame really, as Giles Coren and Sue Perkins make a great TV team.
