Rick Stein

Rick Stein is one of my favourite TV chefs, probably because he comes across as a bit of a bumbler. He's certainly no 'jack the lad' like Jamie Oliver anyway. He focuses pretty much on seafood and his French Odyssey and Mediterranean Odyssey remain among my favourite TV cooking shows and I of course have the accompanying books. For these reasons I looked forward to the broadcast of his Far Eastern Odyssey (FEO). The title's problematic but remembering it's aimed at a British audience, for whom anything east of the Channel is exotic, we can live with that.

Somewhere I can remember reading that a focus on food and dining is a soft academic option for reaching an understanding of the other. I'm not sure of that and the raft of books on food from a number of theoretical perspectives supports my scepticism. I learn a lot from programs like FEO. Stein's project, it seems to me, is broadly humanistic; that we can understand other peoples, other cultures through their foods, which can be delicious and nourishing. He even touches upon economic issues at times but there's no deep analysis, but then the program format militates against that - and I suspect politics as such doesn't much interest Stein.

FEO covers all the usual suspects - Thai, Vietnamese, Sri Lankan cuisines - but the real surprise is the Bangladeshi section.

I think much to his surprise Stein enjoyed the Bangla food. He marveled at the subtle use of spices, the availability of fish, particularly fresh water fish, and the manner in which 'ordinary people' prepared their food. He also stated several times that most Indian restaurants in the UK were run by Bangladeshis, mostly from Syllhet and he implies that popularity of the UK curry probably lies in the traditions of Bangladeshi cooking. An interesting thought!

Stein cover all the usual things - the impossible traffic, the density of population, especially in Dhaka, the contrast between the idyllic rural landscape and the urban streetscape, the resilience of the people - with a sense of amazement. This chaos actually seems to work!

For me the really interesting thing was that Stein ended on an essentially optimistic note, rather than the deeply pessimistic tone of most visitors and commentators on Bangladesh. We are keeping the episode to watch again.