Britain´s foremost food sorcerer has been away `resharpening his saw´ on a five-year hiatus from TV. As he returns, he talks self care, sexism - and much more Heston Blumenthal doesn´t stop talking. At speed. His thoughts veer off in a thousand directions, seemingly simultaneously. `Question everything` is the motto the chef plumped for on the coat of arms he was granted a few years back, and he does just that: our conversation takes in Newton, Darwin, Homer, Harry Potter, the Bible, the Qu´ran, the invention of the telephone, the invention of social media, breathing, Jaws and saws.The violence of the last two make me blink. Having spoken out in 2015 about TV becoming `too formulaic` and subsequently disappearing from our screens, Blumenthal likens the need to take a step back to the scene in Jaws where Roy Scheider is on the beach and hears a scream in the water, as the camera simultaneously zooms out and moves in. He segues swiftly into another metaphor, of a carpenter sawing away with an ever-blunter implement. `He should stop and have a rest,` he says, `resharpen his saw and start again. But when you´re in the middle of it, you think `I can´t stop, I don´t have time.´` Is this a sign of the culinary wizard coming back an even more intense character? Or perhaps he´s just bringing the drama he´s famous for in the kitchen to our conversation. `I have some funny metaphors I still need to work on,` he concedes. Continue reading...
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