TV reviews: Jamie's Best Ever Christmas | Christmas with Gordon | Nigel Slater's Simple Suppers

Published on Sunday 26 December 2010 15:25

JAMIE'S BEST EVER CHRISTMAS Channel 4 Monday and Tuesday, 9pm CHRISTMAS WITH GORDON (Pt 1) Channel 4 Wednesday, 8pm NIGEL SLATER'S SIMPLE SUPPERS BBC2 Wednesday, 7.05pm

SHOPPING malls may have been blasting carols since October, but undisguised panic in the streets proves that despite the return of Christmas each and every year, no one is ready. Except, that is, for telly chefs whose job it is to inspire the likes of you and me to culinary glory on the big day.

Any cook – or boy scout, for god's sake – knows that it pays to be prepared, so why on earth did programmers wait until the very week of the holiday to wheel out their big guns' festive menus? Jamie's Best Ever Christmas aired on Monday and Tuesday, while Christmas With Gordon aired Wednesday and Thursday. And Nigel Slater's Christmas Suppers, albeit focusing on leftovers, airs tonight.

Those hanging about waiting for inspiration from telly's heavy hitters will find it damn near impossible to source a designer turkey – much less many other ingredients – this close to Christmas, especially given the high seasonal demand coupled with weather-induced shortages.

That's not the fault of the cooks. Nor are they to blame for the ADD-style editing that plagues cookery programmes, which juliennes the action so rapidly that it ensures no more than ten-second glimpses of what's going on. The visuals are so kinetic that they ought to come with a warning, like those accompanying strobe lights.

But how was the food, you ask? Fattening, in a word. Both Jamie and Gordon plumped for traditional turkey dinners; both were found ramming their hands between skin and meat to smooth out enough flavoured butter to keep cardiologists quids in for millennia. Gordon took it one step further, smearing the excess along the top, until his bird resembled the stars of Last Tango In Paris.

Citrus featured heavily. Gordon grated his body weight in lemon zest, but Jamie's devotion to clementines was staggering. Few of his dozens of recipes went without, and if you'd taken a drink every time he added a clementine, you'd have slept through Christmas.

Children were very much in evidence, and darn cute they were, too, though the animated Oliver inter-titles were extremely cloying (and OTT, partnered with daddy's "Aren't I cute, me?" persona). A Christmas maniac decorated his kitchen to within an inch of a cat's nine lives.

Not even Hamleys' windows are that junk-laden. At one point, Jamie materialised completely randomly in a befrogged purple frock coat (somewhere a panto dresser is raging), then a sleigh appeared in his studio kitchen. But Gordon coaxed an actual live reindeer into his garden, so that round goes to him.

Endless close-ups of hands crunching in mixing bowls proved that both are nail biters and need cutlery from Santa. At least Gordon's nails are clean. In future I recommend pulling the camera back: the sight of fingers writhing around in sausage meat or glistening with turkey juices is off-putting. These are not shows for the hygienically squeamish. Therefore Gordon gets points again, for spoon usage.

He loses them, however, for incomprehensibility. I've heard speed freaks speaking more languidly. There wasn't a single expletive – he had his kids and his mum on hand – but it was still a case of "do as I do, not as I say", because who the hell knows what that was. He is also – no surprise – the bigger perfectionist. Thus his handmade truffles were perfectly round, whereas the altogether more relaxed Jamie casually shaved his up with a spoon.

Verbally, Jamie's only marginally easier to follow, between the lisp and the inventive vocabulary. I am not the first to argue that "to wazz" isn't a recognised verb. And sadly, his shows felt repetitive. It wasn't only the surfeit of clementines. For instance, he cooked both a jerk ham and a breakfast of scrambled eggs and gammon. All the recipes in both Jamie and Gordon's shows looked scrummy and manageable, but Gordon's featured a wider range of flavours.

Yet what a contrast they make to His Serene Highness of Culinaria!

Nigel Slater's Simple Suppers riffed on all the same themes, pointing out that it only takes a modicum of organisation to reinvent leftovers, transforming them into wholly new meals that are neither arduous to confect nor tedious on the tastebuds. His editors are equally frenetic, but the man himself is laid back, proving that you don't need to shout at speed to convey your joy in the art of cooking and the pleasure of eating.