I'm Giles Coren. I'm a writer and a restaurant critic,
not to mention a time-traveller through the history of food.
HE WRETCHES
Travelling with me is writer, broadcaster
and part-time vegetarian, Sue Perkins.
Each week, our bodily functions are examined up-close...
Who's got wee that colour?
Before we're let loose on the breakfasts, lunches and dinners of the past.
This week, we're eating our way through the roaring '20s.
It was THE era to be young and beautiful.
In the few hours we're sober, we'll be living the highlife,
I'll delve deep into Sue's psyche and she'll take on a new personality.
Ja, my darling.
1920s London -
frivolity and gaiety are in, wartime gloom and austerity are out.
George V is on the throne
and Lloyd George's coalition government is in its last days.
The First World War saw nearly a million British men killed on the battlefields...
...with the result that the '20s became a historic decade for women.
This week, Sue and I will be living the high life in the city -
but before we can become bright young people,
like the stars of Evelyn Waugh's novel, Vile Bodies,
Sue's got an appointment to keep.
OK, now step on it. You know how to do this.
'Dirk Budka is a specialist in nutrition and gastroenterology.'
Here we go. Oh, no! Don't give me sixes.
It's 60kg.
That is the heaviest I've ever been. OK, you look fine.
Wartime rationing had seen off the curves of the Edwardian woman
and now, promoted by magazines and film stars,
the new fashion was to be thin.
Do you know what you're going to do?
I'm going to dance, drink, dance again, drink,
take a couple of laxatives, go to the toilet, dance, pass out.
Good. You are aware of what the side effects or downside to it might be.
But it's not all frivolity and dancing.
I want to achieve the perfect '20s figure
and that means cutting back on the calories and dieting.
So, we had your blood tests done.
OK, yes. The good news is everything is fine.
Good. Perfect.
Liver function, cholesterol, blood sugar - all perfect.
The bad news is, when we repeat this after your diet,
it won't be like this.
You're gleeful when you say that. There was a little smirk.
Your iron level might drop - being anaemic, becoming more tired.
The zinc might go low a bit.
OK. Vitamin C maybe goes down.
Your cholesterol might go high, even if you have a low food intake.
Another risk is your serotonin gets a bit low.
So, do I get depressed? Yes.
So, I'm going to be hung-over and depressed when I see you?
Yes. But thin!
Sue is determined to look the part this week.
Rather than wear a wig,
she's taking the drastic step of getting the real thing - a 1920s bob.
I wouldn't do this for a million pounds.
You'd be surprised how far off that they're paying me, wouldn't you?
The bob arrived in Britain in the early '20s, taking the country by storm.
Copied from the glamorous stars of Hollywood movies, it was a racy look
that symbolised a new-found freedom and self expression.
SHE LAUGHS
I look...
I look...like an evil doll.
Oh, that's just awful.
I think it's all in the spirit of the '20s.
It makes me want to drink and take drugs, so I'm ready to go!
Our home for the week is a modish flat
in a purpose-built art deco block.
THEY LAUGH
Tweedy. God, that IS a haircut.
Dominatrix.
Swing Out Sister. Mmm.
Taking charge of our '20s diet is food writer and chef,
Allegra McEvedy.
The most important thing is that we're going away
from the big, heavy, gluttonous Edwardian...
That's a shame! I know you're devastated, Sue.
I loved that. You've gotta lose some Edwardian weight.
I've got a lot of Edwardian kilos.
There are some things here that can really help with that - nice, simple dishes.
This doesn't look simple.
This looks like Jurassic Park where they find a mosquito in amber
and then recreate the dinosaurs. Do you know what it is? No.
It's a Camembert in aspic. A Camembert in an enormous jelly?
A Camembert en gele, oui.
It shouldn't be done. It's extraordinary.
For the raw stuff, we've got good white fish, oysters,
what will be the beginning of a beef daube,
which is just a simple beef casserole. Very nice.
You're calling it a daube to be sophisticated and French?
These French terms were coming in - food from Italy, risotto, rice,
pasta, parmesan has been here for a while, good use of pulses
and then the first of the prepared foods.
In an era of fast living, there was no time to spend on elaborate dishes.
Cooking was about convenience.
But the '20s was not just about food.
Of course, very excited on the booze front - absinthe, Hock, Mosel...
That's your absinthe.
Give us a spoon. Let's go. Sherry...
"Nunc est bibendum", it says.
Never drink that.
That's all right! Get it down you.
I don't think you want to start the day with... For God's sake...
It's from the Czech Republic,
a country which doesn't exist in the '20s.
Go down?
Game lass. Apparently it makes people go crazy,
but how will you tell with Sue?
It doesn't make me crazy. I level out after a couple of glasses.
For high society revellers,
breakfast would have been taken in the late morning.
In pursuit of her ideal 1920s figure, Sue is on a strict diet.
For me, it's a simple affair, which, in the absence of a full-time cook,
I have to prepare for myself.
It's all right for you! I have to cook my own breakfast.
You've got breakfast to eat!
Oh, that is Bohemian! Look at that - hot water. Sexy! Mmm.
The vogue for thinness encouraged drastic measures,
which some disreputable laxative manufacturers were happy to exploit.
This is my first laxative. Mmm. That was a lovely breakfast. Thank you.
Gullible women were conned into believing that the pounds and inches
would vanish with a regular dose of laxatives.
Ah, now that's a decent egg!
How about that?
This is the first thing I've ever cooked.
It's got no yolk in it. Oh, yes. There it is.
Is piggy fat Perkins allowed some butter? No, I don't think so.
I don't think so.
Do you know how many laxatives you'll have to have if you eat that?
This is bad. This is bad form.
You all right with your laxatives? Do you know what I hate about you?
You've eaten all the toast. All I had was the toast.
You've put butter on it, more butter, shrimp.
Put a bit of brioche on that as well...
No, careful, I might save the brioche for later,
or I'll put the egg on first and then...
I'm going to sit here and listen to my colon dissolving.
A bit of brioche on the top?
Yeah. And some marmalade...
It does go better than people often think with egg and shrimp.
I thought women were supposed to be sexy and happy in this period.
We might as well be in the middle of a war for all that I'm eating!
Got to be thin. Shut up, Susan.
I feel... Yeah.
I'm so moved about my giant meal
that I have a fancy to become a restaurant critic. It's about time.
I gather pretty much anybody can do it. I've heard that.
With dwindling inheritances,
feckless young toffs increasingly had to supplement their allowances.
One of the jobs considered just about acceptable in high society
was writing the odd column for the popular press.
The '20s saw a boom in the restaurant scene and a corresponding surge
in the number of restaurant critics.
So, joining me for lunch at the Ritz
are Daily Telegraph restaurant critic, Jasper Gerard,
and Jennifer Sharp, formerly of Harper's & Queen.
How would you do it if there'd never been a restaurant critic before?
You'd be like a music critic, try and write seriously.
The restaurant critic, presumably, was a bit of a dilettante,
maybe somebody who was quite aristocratic.
Somebody who felt at home in restaurants.
It seems to be the 1920s job for a young fellow par excellence.
It's a meal ticket straight into the new world.
One critic wrote for the Daily Mail under the pseudonym Diner-Out.
In 1924, he published a review of lunch at the Ritz
in his Guide To London Restaurants.
Today, Executive Chef John Williams is recreating the meal.
This extraordinary...
It's almost like beef tea -
this really rich, beautifully prepared consomme is sensational.
Hooray for the chef.
Unlike any serious critic today, the restaurant critic of the 1920s
would call ahead to the maitre d' to confirm the menu in advance,
guaranteeing the best food and the best service.
Can I just take a small hiatus to tell you that this is absolutely sensational,
this crouton of bone marrow and truffle and I'm not sharing!
Really?
I've had one already.
Am I gonna have to share with Jasper? No, no. It's too soft.
And with this incredibly fragrant...
Mmm. Gosh, that is astounding. That is the clearest consomme...
It's not very '20s table manners, is it?
No. That was slightly wrong.
SHE LAUGHS
While Giles has pretensions to be a serious journalist,
I've got weight to lose.
1918 saw the publication
of Lulu Hunt Peters's bestselling guide to slimming, Diet And Health.
In it, she launched the revolutionary idea
of counting calories,
a word so alien to her followers she had to explain how to pronounce it.
By the mid-'20s, her regime was all the rage.
Maybe counting calories will be my salvation.
I'm joined by writer Lucy Moore at Quaglinos,
which opened in Mayfair in 1929.
Look, I'm gonna just mainline 20 cals.
I don't care who knows it. Gone.
The great thing about olives - when you have a Martini, you've got a meal.
There you go, I'm just giving five calories back to the nation, there.
It's extraordinary - almost all of the famous diets
that we think about today
date back to the '20s,
so the one you're eating with the idea of calorie counting,
very restrictive calorie counting.
Then you've got the hay diet,
which is about separating your proteins and your carbohydrates.
That dates back to the '20s, too. You've also got food combining...
See, I'd like to combine this with food. That would be really good.
Perhaps a little mayonnaise or something like that.
That would do it, yes.
Just as today, the role models young women looked to
were the glamorous actresses and celebrities
promoted on screen and in magazines.
You had stars like Louise Brooks.
Like your haircut...
Yes! Mmm...
Clara Bow, Gloria Swanson -
all these fantastic kind of flapper actresses.
Glamour was an integral part of their image.
People worldwide are seeing a film at the same time,
so everybody sees the film
with Louise Brooks with her haircut
and they all want a haircut like hers and a figure like hers.
I feel very...
Hungry? ...clean and serene.
I'm really glad I've done that and I'm gonna...
I've really learned something, I think,
from all this and...
Yeah, excellent. I mean, just 350 calories for all that.
Hi, there. Could I get the game terrine,
four pork chops, a full roast dinner,
roast beef, Yorkshire pudding with horseradish...
Oh, wow. It's all...
Do you think I have a future as a restaurant critic?
You're certainly not just an enthusiast. You're a glutton, clearly.
HE BURPS
He also has that edgy...disrespect for conventional manners
which I think was very, very appropriate for the time.
He manages to get away with it
because he's funny and good-looking... And handsome.
I said good-looking!
Do you fancy him then?
Oh, he is simply on a level that most women can't aspire to.
In 1918, a select group of women won the right to vote.
This gave them a new place in society.
They were free to be intellectual, unconventional and creative,
as writers like Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West proved.
Trousers became popular with these new, liberated women
and were worn mannishly as an expression of sexuality.
While Cook is preparing our supper and my brother Giles is struggling
with TS Eliot's latest offering, I'm trying my hand at being Bohemian.
"Here is the one-eyed merchant and this card, which is blank,
"is something he carries on his back which I am forbidden to see.
"I do not find the hanged man..."
There's something about the juxtaposition between you reading TS Eliot
holding a teddy bear, I find delightful.
'Published in 1922, Eliot's modernist epic, The Wasteland,
'was one of the most important poems of the 20th century.'
Teddy's bored with The Wasteland.
How long till Harry Potter come out?
Yeah, I think that's me done. She's done, Teddy.
Teddy. Look, Teddy!
There you go, Teddy. If you want Teddy done as a Cubist...
Teddy. My dearest, I do think you might have slightly misunderstood.
I don't think they drew only cubes.
Look... Unfortunately, I've learned how to express myself
but I haven't been educated alongside of that,
so it's all expression and no knowledge. Isn't that right, Teddy?
Tonight's dinner is taken from writer and philanthropist
Lady Agnes Jekyll's 1922 book of kitchen essays.
I've never read a recipe like this.
All that goes in it is wine, eggs and water.
These essays, by one of the most renowned hostesses of the era,
insisted that pretty much anyone could create elegant and appetising dishes.
Evening. Evening. What have you?
Well, this is called frothed wine soup.
Oh, not more wine? Oh, yes.
Not more froth. And it's all about the froth.
So it's basically like a wine cappuccino.
It's like an eggy wine cappuccino.
Oh. Well it smells like the body odour of a hung-over giant.
It's a spritzer. It's an eggy spritzer, yes.
It's not going to be hard for you to lose your weight, is it?
No. Just looking at that makes me think I'm done.
That's why they were so thin in the '20s. You're done?
I'm fine, yes. I'm beyond fine.
But there's good to come.
I'm not having more or I'll be miserable.
I can see how they could have drunk that in the '20s.
That was the jazz of wine.
They took wine and they went with it, they syncopated.
See, I could almost buy that because I'm slightly drunk,
but sober you'd have a fight on your hands.
Ah, OK, let's see if we can do any better this time.
Oh, that looks good. This is your lobster souffle.
It's very pink. Beautiful, beautiful style.
Yes. In what way is that a souffle?
No, I don't understand your question.
It hasn't risen and it looks funny.
It looks like all the souffles I've ever made.
Is it cold? Absolutely freezing cold.
No, you have to set it overnight. It's aspic.
'20s cooks loved to reinvent traditional dishes.
It's a whole new taste.
It's not like a prawn cocktail,
because it's not got any sour at all.
It's got that tomatoey flavour and it's sort of bland
but a little bit interesting, rather like you.
Mmm. This is good stuff.
Are you all right?
After a meat course of fritto misto
made with sweetbreads and vegetables,
Lady Jekyll's dinner draws to a close with a savoury instead of a dessert.
And now... Oh.
...for my piece de resistance.
Ah, it's good. That is camembert in aspic.
The arrival of powdered gelatine allowed cooks to experiment
with dishes that had once taken hours to create.
Jelly could now be whipped up in minutes by just adding water.
Pretty much anything could be served in aspic.
On the other hand, it might just be weird.
It smells now. OK.
That looks beautiful. Ha!
It does look amazing. Sorry, Giles.
You've done brilliantly.
That is as well as it could have come out. How does it smell?
Cheesy meaty thing. Oh! Can I open up the other bowl?
Yes, that's really got a really lovely sort of bleachy...
It's like...
It is, it's slightly Toilet Duck but in a good way.
There you go. It is like a sort of modernist pudding.
It just hasn't got any sweet stuff in it at all.
It just looks... I'm chuffed to bits at that, I really am.
Anyway, see you later. Thank you.
See you in a bit. It looks gorgeous.
Mmm. Cool. That's good. That's really good.
Oh, that cheese is fabulous. But it looks just incredible.
It's also like... It's almost like cream. It looks just like you.
It's got your hair cut. If only my hair were like that.
It's got a fringe. That's clearly a '20s thing,
it's a shiny round bob of a cheese dish.
You could bring that back.
It's such a novelty, so weird,
so unlike any kind of meal that you ever, ever see.
You could bring that back and serve that on a cheeseboard
in a three Michelin-starred restaurant
and people would be impressed.
I think that's incredible. Too much of a good thing.
Cheers. Rock and roll.
I feel that the diet's gone well.
I've eaten everything that came onto my plate
and everything that went onto Giles's plate
and then I went into the kitchen and ate that,
and then I started crawling round
on hands and knees licking stuff off the carpet and...
you know, because I felt guilty,
I then drank about three bottles of champagne
and so I'm feeling now desperate.
I just... I imagine how everybody on a diet feels.
Being bright young people, we can't just sit around at home.
We need adventure.
In this era of fast living, motor racing
became the favoured sport for high society.
You'll have to shout because I've got these glasses on.
It's affecting all of my senses.
It's nice that they let women into these sporting endeavours,
but you understand that it's not the winning, it's taking part.
The place to be seen was Brooklands Race Track, where the cream of London
flocked to guzzle champagne and be part of this glamorous new sport.
In order for me to take part in this race,
I need to know who's got the fastest car.
The one on the left. I'm with you, then.
The most daring and celebrated team
was a group of thrill-seeking society drivers
and hard partying mechanics known as the Bentley Boys.
With the price tag on a Bentley being more than £1,000 -
as much as a working man might make in three years -
this was a club for the elite.
I never went to Swiss finishing school
to show me how to get in one of these.
The boiler suit garrottes you as you get in! Are you in?
To my surprise, Martin and Julian don't trust us
behind the wheels of their 1929 Bentleys.
The most we're allowed to do is co-pilot.
SHE SCREAMS
It's amazing to think that 80 years ago,
these cars were capable of speeds up to 100 mph.
You were driving so fast that my knickers are still vibrating.
There's a hell of a poke on that engine, there really is.
It's like white noise but downstairs. You were very brave and very good. Thank you.
I enjoyed it. We could hear you squealing from our car.
That was the vibrating knickers.
That was my gusset getting into fifth gear.
Lunch for the drivers was a four-course silver service meal
taken in the members' clubhouse,
where the smell of engine oil
mingled with cigar smoke and Chanel No. 5.
Our meal today is taken from the original '20s clubhouse menu.
Delicious meal but it doesn't seem
particularly devil may care, hedonistic.
They say that they were the high-livers of the era, there's no doubt about that.
They used to drive whilst drinking on the way
and have a party every so often, just to cheer things up.
Driving is boring and champagne would have livened that whole experience up.
It's been said that wine improves the gear change on a Bentley.
It certainly improves the throttle on a Ford Fiesta,
so I don't see why it shouldn't.
Are there any of them alive today?
No, most of them died young from various things.
Car crashes, plane crashes... Smoking and drinking too much.
They did live hard and die young.
Oh, dear, after tart comes regret. Oh, dear, oh, dear.
See, I was feeling sick about ten minutes ago but...
Cover her up. I don't want to look at her any more.
The '20s saw the beginning of Britain's love affair with all things American.
By 1925, the craze for the latest dances from across the pond had conquered London.
Even the Prince Of Wales fell in love with the charleston,
spending three afternoons a week taking private lessons here,
at the fashionable Cafe De Paris.
No, you only go back on the left foot first of all,
with your arms in opposition as much as possible.
'It's up to choreographer Paul Harris to teach me the new steps.'
Right, on the three, four of that bar, you push out into second position, plie.
Oh! That's like osteopathy on my neck.
You just realigned my T4. Oh!
In, out, in, out, in, out, in, out, in, out, in, out, yes!
Dirty, dirty bugger.
THEY LAUGH
While Sue learns the latest steps,
I'm on the hunt for my own bit of '20s America.
In 1920, prohibition came into force in the United States
and the American public could no longer legally buy alcohol.
Jobless bar tenders headed to Europe in search of work,
bringing with them a new drinking culture.
And the cocktail hour was born.
What about having Alan make us a perfect '20s cocktail?
I'm joined by cocktail historian Jarrod Brown
and former head barman of the American Bar at the Savoy, Peter Durelli.
Did cocktails really begin in masking the flavour of bad spirits?
Yes, because that was actually... What are we going to do with this awful stuff?
The manufacture of raw alcohol
became big business for America's gangsters
but the booze they produced was undrinkable
without the addition of exotic ingredients to camouflage the taste.
That's how the Martini got its olive,
because the brine took away the bad taste of the bootleg gin.
The bootleg gin which had been stored in casks previously used for fish?
Yes, they had to disguise it. Anything to avoid the law.
You could still get a drink for medicinal purposes.
Oh, yes. You just needed to go to the doctor and...
For medicinal purposes, like I've got to go to a party,
I'm not much in the mood, can I have a fifth of vodka, please?
Because, of course, alcoholism is one of the diseases...
Was treated with ECS, of course.
Just a maintenance level. I believe it was two ounces, four times a day.
Oh, that's all right, that's quite civilised. Yes.
Cheers. We'll try this bloodhound...
This bloodhound, it's the '20s here folks, you know, we are... Eh?
Made with French and Italian vermouth, gin and strawberries,
the bloodhound was an early arrival on London's cocktail scene.
It's an acquired taste. You like this?
Like the vinegar in a pickled onion jar!
I think he's acquired it.
THEY LAUGH
It's been acquired. Right, what's another classic '20s cocktail?
One, two, three, four, two, two, three, four,
three, two, three, four, shimmy, two, three, four.
Exactly, that's it.
Look at the charleston. That's what you do when you've had nine of these
and drinks full of sugar and caffeine
and then you have to start the...
That's where all that jazz dance came from, isn't it?
That's right. Suddenly, the ladies played a huge part,
not only on the party scene
but also on the cocktail, the cocktail taste.
Because girls traditionally don't like the taste of alcohol
but if girls aren't drunk, they won't do you're after.
Give them a couple of these, "Don't worry, here's an Aviation,
"it tastes mostly of maraschino cherries..."
Couple later, argh, knees everywhere. Yes, we soak the fruit in grain alcohol
and freshman girls would come into the frat and say,
"I'm not going to have a drink, I'll just eat the fruit."
Oh, another one fell over. What are we having next?
OLD JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS
Lifting us out of post-war gloom, American culture was here to stay.
Back home, it's cook's day off. If Giles and I are going to eat tonight,
I'm going to have to venture into the kitchen,
but I don't have time to waste at the stove.
I'm after something simple.
Lucky for me, the 1920s is the age of one-pot cooking.
I'm attempting a French boeuf en daube,
a fancy continental way of saying beef stew.
Boeuf en daube, sexy dish.
Virginia Woolf talked about it in To The Lighthouse,
her seminal stream of consciousness book of 1927.
There's this incredible description of this one dish
which I'm now going to make in a stream of consciousness fashion.
In Virginia Woolf's modernist classic, To The Lighthouse,
Mrs Ramsey rejoices in the boeuf en daube prepared by her cook.
"She peered into the dish with its shiny walls
"and its confusion of savoury brown and yellow meats
"and its bay leaves and its wine and thought,
"'This will celebrate the occasion'".
The great thing about this is if you're making a casserole type dish,
you can put it in the oven and you've got three hours to have a couple of affairs
and six or seven cocktails, say goodbye,
say, "I'd love to but I can't", "But surely", "We mustn't",
"Never again", "I'll meet you",
"No, goodbye, leave me, this is awful", come back, serve it up.
Feeling just a teeny bit the worse for wear,
I'm in search of a less intoxicating pastime.
It's very hard to know what I'm going to get out of one bounce.
The pogo stick was not just for kids.
Publicity stunts, like endurance pogo-sticking contests
and a pogo-sticking marriage ceremony,
launched the simple spring-loaded stick into the record books.
That is the worst craze I've ever heard.
Eight martinis...
...and a pogo stick. Nutters.
Those are rather large, peasanty looking pieces of meat in my dinner.
Yes, absolutely. I've gone all rustic.
Do you fancy a real peach melba?
No, I fancy a fake peach melba. Ah, that's just the thing.
New recipe books for the novice cook
embraced the arrival of convenience foods.
Why waste time with real ingredients when entire dishes could be created
from time saving substitutes, like this mock peach melba,
which can be conjured up in minutes using instant custard and tinned peaches.
This is going to look like an as yet uninvented Cadbury's Creme Egg.
There's clearly an art to making instant custard.
Why? How hard can it be to make...?
For you? Impossible.
It's the person operating the whisk that's got the issue.
I can see you want to get your hand in it.
I want to rescue... If you think you can turn that into custard...
Come on, get on with it. Chop, chop. There's some sherry.
Yes, bung that in there, but slowly...
Slowly. When adding sherry to Bird's Custard, always do it slowly.
Just trickle, drizzle. Oh, that's nice sherry, isn't it? Mmm.
Careful.
Bit of a Marsala would be the thing.
That would... If you said that first.
Cointreau, although...
No Cointreau. Marsala though. Why not Cointreau?
There isn't Marsala. Oh, it's too... peaches and oranges. Smell.
It is pretty. It will be really...
Ow, ow, I'm really annoyed with that, but it's fine.
It is basically now scrambled eggs and aftershave, isn't it?
It is, it is. Here, let me try.
It says in the ingredients, make a thick custard.
Oh, I think it says get a thick person to make custard.
Pas mal du tout.
Oh!
While we wait for the casserole to cook,
I'm trying my hand at one of those lively new cocktails I've discovered.
Sue!
Cocktail time.
Drinkipoos, chin, chin.
Well... That's certainly useful for sterilising an open wound.
Whether I'd like to drink it again, I don't know.
How are you gonna be a bright young thing after this?
I'm virtually comatose.
I thought you'd given up.
Usually I'd have cocaine but we don't have any in the house.
Ha! That's what you think. Teddy, don't say anything.
Smoking and drug use were common amongst the bright young people.
Can't reach?
Endorsed by glamorous Hollywood stars, smoking reached its peak
in the '30s, with 80% of men and 41% of women in Britain indulging.
Filthy habit. Can I have a drag?
Cocaine, which had been sold across the counter at Harrods until 1916,
had been banned under the Dangerous Drugs Act of 1920.
But it still remained the drug of choice
amongst the bright young things,
causing moral panic in the popular press.
Ah!
That's why people do jazz hands, it's so hot.
My word, now that's...
Four hours and several cocktails later, my one-pot meal is ready.
It smells really proper. It smells really provencale.
It's weird for such a fast living society
that they make meals that take four and a half hours.
Yes, the kind of food that I cook. Really, really easy.
Any idiot can do it. Is that why you cook it? Yes.
Why can't I stop eating, just for a second?
This is really, really tasty. Yes, it is.
I think we could probably give Cook her marching orders
and you can do all the cooking.
You must be joking.
This is my one sort of trip into the kitchen for this decade.
I'm glad you liked it, though.
I can't wait to see the peach melba that you've made.
That'll put a smile on your face.
My triumph in the kitchen is rather overshadowed
by Giles's remarkable mock peach melba.
You must be very proud.
I don't know what constitutes a good pudding.
Let me tell you. That is the opposite
of what constitutes a good pudding.
Did you hear that?
Hmm, it's like a tuning fork.
Can't you say it's actually really... I love it.
You can tell from the way it's clagged to my mouth.
Were you going to tell me that they invented Polyfilla not long after?
I was about to say, I'm trying to eat it
but my eye is catching the cracks in the wall and
I'm thinking "I could do that now".
You haven't eaten your custard. Have a really eye-y bit, hang on.
Just custard and look me in the eye and tell me you like it.
Look me in the eye and tell me that you like it. Chew. Look me in the eye.
Tell me it's nice. It's nice.
No problem with that. It's nice.
It's got a slightly ropey aftertaste, but it's OK.
Don't force feed it to me. If it's nice you'll want more.
Stop it... If it's nice you'll want more.
You're compromising my...
You still talk to teddy bears and you say that I'm compromising your
maturity by trying to force feed you?
Open wide, mousy's going skiing. Actually, I'm not going to eat it.
Oh, my fillings.
The '20s is often referred to as the jazz age.
Bands from America transformed Britain's popular music,
as new rhythms assaulted the older generation and liberated the younger.
SHE PLAYS CLARINET BADLY
Despite Sue's unholy racket, I'm attempting another American import.
Britain's first newspaper crossword
was published in the Sunday Express in 1924.
Do you know what?
This is the first crossword ever, you should try and get a clue.
Is the first one P for patronising?
Yes. Do you know, they don't call them across and down,
they call them horizontals and verticals?
Very nice. It's the way it should be.
Period, seven across, three letters, beginning with E.
Um...era. Yes, got it. I'm just making you feel better.
Tone deaf television presenter, three, seven.
Sue Pollard. Ha ha!
My word, the '20s is taking its toll.
And the thing you can say for the pogo stick,
is after all that jumping about, at least I puked,
got rid of all those cocktails and I'm not feeling that ropey now,
after the second round and after the fantastic revelation
that Sue really, really can cook that boeuf en daube,
absolutely delicious.
Whether or not it was because I was drunk, I don't know,
whether I had my beer goggles on, but yes, no great losses there.
If we haven't got a cook, Sue can do that every night.
I think probably I won't be allowed loose on the pudding again,
and that's no bad thing.
1922 saw one of the most exciting discoveries of the 20th century,
when Egyptologist, Howard Carter, uncovered the lost tomb
of the young pharaoh, Tutankhamun.
In this era of adventurous globe trekking,
there was one place the intrepid traveller had to go for provisions.
The Fortnum & Masons expedition department
had supplied all the great explorers of the day,
including shipping tins of quail and champagne up Everest,
and so it was here that Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter
went to stock up for their trip to Egypt.
Now, I'd like this one, the cheese bell jar, but I think,
I'm on a diet, I'm going to have to go for the mini one.
Pot of blue stilton.
As well as stilton, the food order included claret, fois gras and lobster,
a particular favourite of Lady Carnarvon's.
Armed with his inflatable baths,
tents, mosquito nets and luxury provisions, the expedition set off.
Within days of their arrival in the Valley Of The Kings,
Carter made the discovery of the century,
and with it, Britain went crazy for all things Egyptian.
Standing looking at you and mummy, it's hard to say...
Sue, mummy, mummy, Sue.
It's too Oedipal. You need to go and see Freud.
Ibis, ibis, bird, ibis, bird, ibis, ibis.
They're different kinds of bird.
Do you think it's the Observer's Book Of Birds in hieroglyphs?
We can't quite afford to go out to Cairo, where most of the treasures are held,
so we've come to the next best place.
The British Museum's Egyptian gallery.
At least there'll be fewer flies and we won't get sand in the lobster.
When they were queuing up to take it in turns
to peek through the hole into the tomb,
I would have just left them to it and gone and eaten.
Would you really care if they found some old desiccated prince?
No. Go for the lobster in aspic.
When you're on an expedition, there's nothing like curried fowl.
But you see, I think there is nothing like curried fowl.
You're right, there is nothing like it. Oh, you've made...
Can I just say, I could have done it with my teeth better than that.
That was quite a good noise. Yeah.
The empty Fortnums crates that had held Carter's fancy provisions
were then carefully repackaged with each newly discovered treasure
and shipped back to England.
Can you imagine what the locals thought as they passed by?
There's a couple of toffs eating jellied lobster in a cave
surrounded by baubles and Egyptian heads.
Do we have... Oh, that's... Have you got a serving spoon?
That's a fertile little aroma.
That's the sort of smell that would stay with you
all the way back to England.
This is some seriously good curried fowl.
There's so much fun in Egypt.
We spent two weeks trying to get the lid off the stilton jar,
then we went home again.
See, stilton's one of the few things you think...
you would miss on an excursion,
although I wouldn't want to necessarily eat it
in the 40 degree heat of Egypt.
No, but you're in the cool of the crypt, surrounded by dead Egyptians.
Now hurry up and eat up, I want this whole box cleared.
There's a sphinx with my name on it,
I want to put it in there and ship it home.
I'm pigging out for archaeology? Absolutely.
Morning.
I've come dressed this morning as a Fu Manchu.
Breakfast. Da!
Where's the eggs?
There are no eggs.
This is a new you, this is the new Giles,
the colonically cleansed Giles. What about...
No sausages. Bacon, black pudding, no.
After four days of indulgent eating, I've got to get back on my diet,
so I'm trying the latest in new health foods.
That's so bad, you have to try it. Shut your eyes and eat it.
Urgh. Eat it, swallow it.
Waa! You do these faces, not me.
No, it's bedding.
Ugh, ye gods.
I don't know how you eat these.
Not with your fingers and not from the box.
You don't know that because they're new.
In 1924, American businessman, WK Kellogg, introduced his new,
healthy breakfast cereal to a sceptical British public.
What's it like?
I mean, it's no bowl of potted shrimps.
I've possibly eaten three calories and I need to burn them off
right now so I've got two options.
I can either talk at you for 15 hours or I can go and do some yoga.
With his brother promoting flaked corn,
John Kellogg was enthusiastically advocating a healthy lifestyle
and was an early fan of the exotic discipline of yoga.
SHE HUMS IN A TRANCE
Over here, the adventurous were quick to adopt it as the latest thing.
SHE QUIETLY WAILS
Everything all right? Yes, I'm trying to do the engorged chinchilla
but it's quite hard because you have to...
SHE GURGLES AND WAILS
Feeling frisky after all that bending, I'm after a good time.
Oh, but I don't want to get myself into trouble.
In the 1920s, contraceptives for women were hard to procure,
usually only found in back-street chemists.
For most, there were few options
and the fear of an unwanted pregnancy was constant.
Although I seem to be wearing a condom,
I'm keen to try out other alternatives.
I'm a highly emancipated woman. I want freedom,
I want to drink, smoke, dance all night.
I can't do that with kids, so I need to get myself sorted.
Thankfully, I can nip into the Marie Stopes clinic
and all will be well, but there's one problem -
I need to be married, which I'm not, so I've slightly cheated a bit
and this should fool them.
There you go.
That's what it takes.
See you in a minute.
Married woman coming through.
In 1921, women's rights campaigner, Marie Stopes,
opened Britain's first birth control clinic in London.
Here, a clientele of predominantly working class women
could consult for free with an all-female staff on matters of contraception
and be fitted with a cap, provided you were married.
Great. All sorted.
Apparently, you wear it like a swimming cap
and then no-one wants to have sex with you.
While Sue's been sorting herself out,
I've been grappling with some more cerebral ideas
which I think might help me understand her a little better.
Is there anything else?
There was a train.
And there was a tunnel,
but just before the train got to the tunnel, it did an emergency stop
right there, just right in front of it and just blew smoke everywhere,
like a big cloud of it.
Your father's end was a... A train.
A train driver?
No, no, no, no.
He was a colonel in the army.
Are these sort of dreams normal?
Ah...
They're the kind of dreams I hear all the time.
I wait, wait and wait and wait for a patient
who does not dream purely in cliche.
During the war years, Sigmund Freud's methods of psychoanalysis
had been widely used to treat shellshock victims.
By the 1920s, his ideas were being promoted
to the general public in Britain, but the medical profession and church
mistrusted his approach, accusing him of encouraging an unhealthy obsession
with sex and sexuality.
You look to me like you are begging
for some sort of phallocentric diagnosis,
which I am not going to give you.
I've not been begging for...
Begging for what? Phallogocentric...
The women come to me with giant vegetables
and they want me to say that they have obsession with penis.
May I enquire about your qualifications?
In the 1920s, it was a barely understood science
which I used to get my leg over with women,
but it seems to me you are more interested in vegetables.
I've got a penis complex.
You learn something new every day.
All I've eaten today is cornflakes, thanks to Sue's ridiculous diet,
and frankly, that's not good enough.
Time to take the matter into my own hands
with the help of man around town's favourite 1920's recipe book.
They had a ten minute soup, but we don't have ten minutes.
They have a three-minute soup as well.
Put the tapioca and meat cubes with the water.
Oh, god.
Ah, meaty steam.
Two ounces of minute tapioca.
Add the sauce and seasoning and boil quickly.
Ketchup.
In fairly '20s impressionistic improvisational style,
I think a little bit of Claret
to give it that...tang.
That is minging.
The only thing that breaks my heart
is the discrepancy between my awesome outfit,
my beautiful silk dressing gown and my fez,
and this melted turd in a bucket that I'm eating for my supper.
This is not what a man dressed like me ought to eat.
You know, that said, it's really perfectly nice.
It's May 4th, 1926.
Sue and I have woken to find the country's ground to a halt.
While we've been living it up,
the miners have been fighting for better conditions.
Now, with the threat of a cut in wages and longer working hours,
the chant, "Not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day",
echoes across Britain.
And the TUC has called a general strike.
When the strike was announced, the Conservative government,
under Stanley Baldwin, called for volunteer workers.
What-ho. Morning. Morning.
Mr Glickman, I believe.
Hello, I'm Giles. Morning. This is Teddy. Hello, Teddy.
Reluctant to see their lives disrupted, the middle and upper classes responded.
Any particular route? I don't know, I've never been on a bus.
Just where there are nice people who look like they need a lift.
Even the rich and famous joined in.
Socialite Diana Cooper worked folding copies of the reduced one-page Times,
the young Evelyn Waugh enlisted as a special constable
and Graeme Greene worked on the printing presses.
This working malarkey isn't so bad.
We've been doing it for a minute and I feel fine.
I don't know what there is to strike about. Pay rise or something?
I would do it for nothing, I am doing it for nothing.
It's all right, isn't it, Mr Glickman, this working business?
Yes. Not bad. Not bad.
In the spirit of solidarity with the hundreds of young men who lent a hand,
I'm helping out on the buses.
Marvellous.
Ah-ha!
Our first punters. Ding, ding.
Morning. Morning. Hello.
Hello, I'm Giles, your conductor. Do have a seat. Hello.
How much is it?
For you, love, don't worry.
So how far are you going, then?
Marble Arch, please.
No problem, you go as far as you like with me, love.
With Giles causing mayhem on the road,
I'm providing sustenance to the volunteers at my makeshift canteen.
There'd be a queue in the 1920s for cooked sausage sandwich.
Once word got out, there'd be a hullabaloo.
During the nine day strike, debutantes and society ladies
did their bit for Britain, opening improvised cafes
where the volunteers could get a hot meal for one shilling.
Or near offer.
Sausage on the go? Fancy a sausage?
Hasn't even been cooked.
Well, not yet. I'm just tempting you.
Think about what it will become. I mean, I think that looks good.
SHE LAUGHS
In all, 300,000 men and women volunteered,
but not all took their new job seriously.
One upper class part time conductor
diverted his bus to Eton square to pick up his morning post.
He's got a beret, possibly he's French. Bonjour.
Can I interest you in a sausage sandwich? It's good.
No? You sure?
It's good, it's really good, taste it.
Cooked breakfast here if you fancy it?
I could feed it to you one bit at a time.
There's the sausagey bit. For the love of God, don't eat it.
It looks quite raw. Well, I mean, al dente.
I mean, look, I mean that could just
slip through there like that and it's only a shilling.
I don't think I've got a shilling.
I'll leave it for you to give to someone
who might appreciate it more.
I appreciate your candour. Thank you and good luck with the game.
Looks lovely, though. Thank you, that's sweet of you.
I tell you what, old chap, I've had rather enough of this.
If you wouldn't mind dropping me home,
it's just up the hill there on the right.
On May 12th, after nine days, the TUC announced that the strike was over.
The ruling classes had kept the country running. Sort of.
Marvellous, round here will do. Thank you.
Been fantastic working with you, thank you.
October 24th, 1929. Black Thursday.
Panic selling hits Wall Street and the financial markets go into freefall.
The boom years have come to an end, as they always do.
But it's all OK.
Sue and I are bright young people living off Father's money.
As the depression worsened,
the wild parties of the London socialites just got wilder.
We end our week recreating one of the era's most notorious parties.
As unemployed workers marched on London, wealthy art dealer,
Arthur Jeffries hosted a flamboyant red and white dinner.
Chin, chin. Chin, chin.
With executive chef Andrew Bennett and Allegra McEvedy downstairs
preparing our colour themed dinner,
we're joined upstairs in the elegant Park Lane hotel
by actress Diana Quick, famous as Julia in Brideshead Revisited,
writer and historian, DJ Taylor,
Lord Fred Ponsonby, descendant of Elizabeth Ponsonby,
one of the brightest of the bright young people,
and Celia Walden, Daily Telegraph writer
and former top gossip columnist.
Yes, both of those would be great.
Cheers. Cheers.
Against a backdrop of global financial chaos, the outrageous socialites
indulged in a lavish blow-out which, though interrupted by a drug bust,
continued for more than ten hours.
How could some of the bright young people
get away with continuing to live like this?
A lot of them were completely oblivious
to what was going on in the world outside
and it was seen by the newspapers and the gossip columns
as the great symbolic climacteric of what had gone wrong.
It seems the great high point, after which
the bright young people could never exist again.
Was there really anything to the bright young people
apart from vile bodies?
If you look at the major literary, artistic, poetic, even, movers and shakers
of the second half of the century, loads of them have their roots there.
Anthony Pole was hanging around on the fringes of it,
John Betjeman was a bright young person.
As was Moseley, of course, without whom... Yes.
Any young person with pretensions to any kind of lifestyle at all
would have thought themselves a bright young person.
Did they walk and move in that really fast way that when you watch...
I think there was more the elegant glide, the single, sinuous gesture.
Women were liberated from corsets at this time.
Soon as they got out the corset, like that.
We may not have been raided by the police yet,
but the chef's red and white menu
has certainly captured the flavour of the 1920s.
Mmm, yes. Very enjoyable, indeed.
The highlight of our dinner is an indulgent red and white pavlova,
a dessert which started appearing in Australia and New Zealand
soon after Russian prima ballerina Anna Pavlova
toured the antipodes in the '20s.
Both countries lay claim to its origin.
I apologise for my silence, but I've just eaten 14 kilos of meringue,
so that's been the reason.
If anyone's got any they don't want, I'm happy to hoover it up.
Thanks, darling, thanks, bless you.
Have you got some? Good for you. Diet's over.
Stock exchange crashed, great depression's coming
and I like to eat my way through all of my depressions.
Dinner closes with a favourite '20s gag.
Joke petit four consisting of hot chillies and olives coated in chocolate.
Urgh. It is scotch bonnet.
THEY LAUGH
Have you tried them?
Urgh. Ah, they're olives. Urgh!
Can we be judged on being bright young things now?
How do you think Giles and I have fared this evening?
Do you think we could pass muster?
I think you're both too lethargic. Lethargic?
I think you're both a bit too sophisticated.
I'm not sophisticated, I've been pretending to fit in with you.
That's captured the spirit of the 1920s!
THEY LAUGH
If I'd been young in the 1920s, you wouldn't have seen me for dust.
I'd have been bombed out of my head 24/7.
You know, God knows, I'd be in my own salon.
I think when Evelyn Waugh called that novel Vile Bodies,
he had Sue and me in mind, specifically.
You're absolutely right.
One week ago, I was fighting fit, if a little tubby.
After a week of too much alcohol and some not very rigorous weight-watching,
I've come back to see Dirk Budka.
Let's have a look now, and it's 59.5.
Yes! Now, from memory, it was 60.3, yes?
Ok, your cholesterol was perfect. 3.9, but you increased this.
In your second part, you went up to 4.2. In just one week?
In one week, you went up by 0.3 points, it's quite a lot.
It's quite a lot. The gamma GT, that's one enzyme,
which we use to measure alcohol and blah, blah, blah went from 14,
in reference range to 30, it went from 14 to 26. Right.
So within a week, you are very close to borderline
so your liver might say, "Please, please give me a rest".
Right. Vitamin B6 is low as well.
B6 is also one of the main indicator for being very run down...
Mmm. Adrenal stress... Mmm.
And kind of chronic fatigued.
Yes. So the thinner I got on this diet, the more depressed I'd get?
You could be, yes.
Well, so I've got a liver like peanut butter,
smooth peanut butter, I've got no B6, magnesium or zinc
and I've got increasingly high cholesterol,
but because I'm a girl, all I'm thinking of is, "I lost weight!
"I lost weight!"
Next time, we go back to the 1950s,
where we'll be stumbling through the smog,
pigging out on pizza...
Now that is groovy!
...and quaffing cocktails on the motorway.
Cheers!