Fine foods (From Messenger Newspapers)

Fine foods

3:41pm Monday 2nd March 2009

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SO the shouty duo, John Torode and Greg Wallace, have finally chosen their MasterChef for 2009 (BBC2, Thursday) in a final that had all the ingredients of a well balanced meal.

Mat Follas, who looks like Ming the Merciless after a hearty feast, came out on top with a winning three-course menu featuring wild rabbit, spider crab with hand cut chips and sea vegetables and a dessert of lavender mousse with hokey pokey (honeycomb apparently) and a blackberry sauce. Not exactly the sort of food you will find at your local restaurant.

Why anyone would want to put themselves through this competition I have no idea.

In the final, for example, the three rivals were dispatched to Michelin-starred restaurants in Europe and asked to deliver the signature dishes of the award-winning chefs there - for the chefs themselves to eat!

Winner Mat was sent to Copenhagen to work for a supercook, who appears to use half of Denmark's vegetation in his recipes, while fellow finalists Andy and Chris had to contend with French and Spanish dishes.

Not being a fan of nouvelle cuisine with its tiny portions served in some kind of abstract art design, I failed to be impressed by this Continental fripperie, but still marvelled at the way the amateur chefs stepped up to the plate.

And I'm sure, when Mat is finally able to finance his dream restaurant, there will be queues of people waiting to sample his wild ingredients.

But I will stick with good plain food, thank you very much.

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