1 x 60′, BBC 4
Edwardian Supersize Me takes a hilarious look at the diet and lifestyles of the Edwardian upperclass, by forcing our two presenters, food critic Giles Coren and comedian Sue Perkins, to gorge themselves on a diet of endless foie gras, truffles and champagne for a entire week… all the while dressed in high-collared, corseted Edwardian splendour.
A standard family’s menu plan for a single day eating at home would contain a staggering 20 courses over 4 meals!…. with dishes rarely seen in today’s family kitchens: rolled ox-tongue and offal, oyster patties, creamy bowlfuls of curried eggs and rumpsteaks followed by whole roast goose…
With Sue following a vegetarian diet in her real life, how would she cope with the serious lack of greens in a turn-of-the century diet? And how would Giles system cope after taking Edward VII’s favourite bedtime snack – goose, Madeira and cigars – to bed with him every night?
Day after day, Giles and Sue chomp their way through all the meals that a society host and hostess would eat over a London season: a Chew- Chew muncheon at Rules Restaurant, a pudding of stewed cheese at the Chop House, a 9-course society dinner at home cooked by food writer Sophie Grigson, a luxurious train meal on the ‘Southern Belle’ to Brighton… all topped off by an extraordinary 10-course banquet at The Savoy, complete with a dramatic recreation of Escoffier’s original Peach Melba, served between the wings of five-foot-high, carved ice swan.
At each meal, Giles and Sue gamely attempt to explore the enormous changes in eating habits that occurred after Edward VII took the throne. For this was the age when ladies were allowed to dine out in public for the first time; when the vegetarian restaurant became the breeding ground of the militant Suffragettes; when vile concoctions of raw beef tea and yeast brews were the only things you were allowed to feed the sick; and when obesity became a public issue for the first time in history.
At the end this extraordinary week, what conclusions do Sue and Giles make about our attitudes to food, then and now? More importantly, after a visit to an Edwardian doctor, what effect has this extraordinary diet had on their health?
“I do not think,” Christine confided afterwards to a friend, who re-confided it to Bertie van Than, “that I shall ever be able to touch pate de foie gras again”.
(Saki, The Way To The Dairy)
Producer / Director
Alannah Richardson
Executive Producers
Daisy Goodwin
