I sometimes worry that ITV — the middle child — doesn’t get enough of my attention and so this week I have decided to redress the balance: I devoted myself to episode one of Food Glorious Food (Wednesday, ITV). It’s a nine-part quest, hosted by Carol Vorderman, which aims to discover ‘Britain’s best-loved recipe’. O jubilate deo!
This is how it goes: treasured family recipes are cooked up at regional events and tasted by one of four judges who choose a favourite and submit it to be tasted by the other three. The judges are Loyd Grossman (smooth), Anne Harrison (stern), Stacie Stewart (bubbly) or Tom Parker Bowles (apologetic). One dish is pronounced victorious — on Wednesday it was a Pimm’s jelly — and it competes again, in a future episode, with other regional winners. The ultimate prize is £20,000 (for the recipe’s owner/manager) and (for the recipe itself) a recording contract with Marks and Spencer — by which I mean that it will be turned into a ready meal and sold from the supermarket shelves.
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