Well dung, Gord
Gordon Ramsay had a big announcement for us on Wednesday night: “Normally, I draw the line at shovelling poo.”
A bold claim, for sure. Not least to the ears of any BBC1 viewers who have had the misfortune to sit through his current lame duck Future Food Stars. Or indeed any BBC1 viewers who still recall him stinking out the joint with Gordon Ramsay’s Bank Balance (RIP).
Luckily, Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted on Channel 4 is a completely different kettle of fish. For a start, it’s thoroughly entertaining. It probably helps that Gordon is much better at playing himself than he is at pretending to be Alan Sugar or a gameshow host.
He still swears too much and lays the action man stuff on a little too thickly, but at the heart of the show lies the one thing he is irrefutably brilliant at. Cooking.
The premise of
Uncharted is fairly straightforward.
Gordon travels to far-flung and/or hard-toreach places to find out about the local cuisine, such as a Tasmanian whiskey which is smoked using sheep poo for fuel (hence the shovelling).
If I was being picky, I might suggest he doesn’t actually go anywhere that’s uncharted – but I guess we can’t really have a go at him for not knowing what the word means.
Gordon’s Tasmanian trip began with a traditional aboriginal welcome, during which he had smoke blown into his face – which made a change from where I suspect he usually has it blown. Then a local, Shane, took him to sea to dive for giant crayfish – with this warning: “The man in the grey suit lives out there and he’s got big teeth.”
No, Alan Carr hasn’t moved Down Under. Shane was referring to the sharks that stalk the waters.
Unfortunately, Gordon wasn’t ambushed by any great whites, which was a shame on two counts.
One, it would have made for exciting telly. And two, we might’ve been spared a second series of Future
Food Stars.