Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Blumen marvellous – TV chef trains with the Navy


TOP TV chef Heston Blumenthal accepted the challenge to bring his unique cooking style to the world of submarines for a Channel 4 series entitled Heston’s Mission Impossible.
The crew of HMS Turbulent were chosen as the guinea pigs for Heston’s ideas for cooking in such testing conditions (you might remember the celebrity chef’s visit to the boat last year).
Heston spent time working with Turb’s chefs both at sea and alongside, and Turbulent’s crew thoroughly enjoyed having the celebrated ‘culinary alchemist’ onboard.
For the most part he was treated as any other sailor might be.

He was given the opportunity to see how the submarine operates on a day-to-day basis and also to take part in certain aspects of its operation.
Not all of Heston’s ideas were immediately a success with those onboard, as cooking meals that are popular for all with just ?2.34 per day per man is not easy.
However, his unquestionable skill in the kitchen proved useful and the submarine’s chefs and logistics department came away having learnt some valuable lessons.
Filming for the programme also took place at HMS Raleigh, where Heston was initially taught what it takes and what it means to be a sailor.
He took part in parade training alongside a class of new recruits, joined them for an assault course run and volunteered to be the duty swimmer during ‘swimmer of the watch’ training, jumping into the River Lynher from the Training Ship Brecon to rescue the dummy casualty.
Heston sent his two development chefs to the Defence Maritime Logistics School (DMLS) at Raleigh to find out how the Royal Navy trains its junior chefs.
He and his team also used the DMLS facilities to develop their ideas and prepare the food they eventually served up to the crew of Turbulent.
Heston’s Mission Impossible is a four-part series on Channel 4 on Tuesday evenings.
The RN programme was due to be the last of the run – see your TV listings for confirmation and details.

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