‘I look at myself as a walking experiment’

IF there was ever a chef synonymous with wild imagination, creating things no-one had thought possible, it’s Heston Blumenthal. So, who else would appear on a cooking show where contestants forage ingredients from a giant, entirely edible “enchanted garden” to create dishes that play with the mind and the senses, and judges who sit at a cloud dressed as food “gods” in all white?

“I didn’t want someone else making these incredible, edible sets! I wanted to be part of it,” says Blumenthal. “Also, this is a cooking competition that really puts imagination – throwing caution to the wind, taking a leap of faith – first.”

The 53-year-old is joined by Swedish chef Niklas Ekstedt, American chef Carla Hall and comedian host Jayde Adams, for new Channel 4 show Crazy Delicious.

In true Willy Wonka style, the set includes edible blossom, chocolate soil and a drinkable babbling brook. Each week, three cooks compete to be awarded the gods’ “golden apple” - it could be elevating a hotdog to new (weird) heights, or celebrating the humble strawberry (think, strawberry cheesecake chicken wings).

“One guy took half a watermelon and skinned it but kept the white pith, basted it, barbecued it and, when you cut it, it was like a big steak with fat on the side,” recalls Blumenthal.

“Another did something that looked like a burger, but it was deep-fried ice cream – there was a wide range of creative craziness! Some were delicious, some made no sense. One of the things I’d love to see with this series is people thinking, ‘If they can have a go, why can’t I have a go?’” he adds. “Many people today are scared of failing – and that gets in the way of creativity.”

The series’ contestants are amateur cooks, a few food bloggers and Instagrammers, but Blumenthal believes a lack of professional training can help independent thinking and imagination blossom – after all, he was never trained in the classic sense of the word. He didn’t work in other people’s restaurants and taught himself the basics instead.

“On the plus side, I didn’t have anyone telling me what I could and couldn’t do. I just about believed everything was possible, and I questioned everything. You’re not paid to think. It’s ‘this is the right way, do as you’re told’,” he says.

“On the downside, at the time it meant my kitchen organisation skills... well, I had no idea. It was chaos.”

In 2016 he was diagnosed with ADHD and, crucially, he doesn’t see it as a drawback.

“I wouldn’t change me for the world,” he says. “But the education system doesn’t favour ADHD, autism, OCD.

“I was late and I don’t like being late, but I’d leave the house four times. I’d go upstairs to get stuff and come down with an armful of stuff and forget what I’d gone up for in the first place. If your head gets busy, it’s like a tumble drier, there’s continually new things knocking other things out.”

Finally getting diagnosed and having a “greater awareness” of himself has helped him enormously. “I look at myself as a walking experiment... It’s a continual learning, and that’s very different from being a victim.”

Welcome to the world of Heston Blumenthal – where absolutely anything seems possible.

Crazy Delicious, Tuesdays, 8pm on Channel 4