trompe-l’oeil and sweets in the land of Dame Tartine

NETFLIX – ON DEMAND – SHOW

The culinary competitions of French screens seem very wise when compared to those produced by Anglo-Saxon channels, North American in particular, where the most extravagant events – at the time of the Halloween party, in particular – lead to no less baroque results.

The cable channels Food Network and Cooking Channel are full of programs where giant and ultra-realistic achievements sometimes reach the borders of bad taste (visual): when, for example, it is a question of sawing a skull to taste its contents (in marzipan) , to bite into a neck from which flows a red fruit coulis or to make realistic severed hands…

“Crazy Delicious”, broadcast by the British channel Channel 4, in 2020, and taken over by Netflix, also offers trompe-l’oeil events. A classic that we regularly find on the “Top Chef” program. But this culinary competition, where the share of sweetness is important, plays a much happier card, even “cui-cui the little birds”.

Because the songs of birds compete with the tinkling sounds of celesta in a sunny setting by Dame Tartine, colored like a children’s book and inspired by The Wizard of Oz. There are candidates for the Hansel and Gretel, of the Brothers Grimm, on the forest path leading to the house of a witch who attracts them to devour them once they are fattened.

Mad fantasy

The witch ? It’s Jayde Adams, a British comedian with generous shapes and crazy fantasy who looks like the singer Adele before her weight loss (Adams has also often imitated the artist on stage) and who never ceases to collect things. to eat on the plate (which does not lack real planted products and false fruits, vegetables and edible objects).

Three “gods”, dressed in white, on a sort of Olympus, take care of the organization of the culinary games and sometimes come down to watch closely what the candidates are preparing – who present themselves in threes, and only one of whom is designated the winner. the end of each of the six episodes. The American Carla Hall, former model and former finalist of the American edition of “Top Chef”, well known in the United States, is surrounded by the three-star British chef of molecular gastronomy Heston Blumenthal and his Swedish colleague Niklas Ekstedt, who also frequented the culinary avant-garde at the famous El Bulli restaurant by Ferran Adria, but whose most recognized specialty is wood-fired cuisine. Rest assured, the advice of the “Nordic fire king” is more clearly expressed than those of the Swedish leader of the “Muppet Show”…

The candidates, high level amateurs, have the sure gesture, and even very assured for some of them. Surprise: the job of one of the candidates is to be a singer of early music! We also hear him perform a cappella a madrigal by Monteverdi to which his dish honors.

“Crazy Delicious” joins a related corpus of importance already available on Netflix with, among others, regarding the pastry thing, “ Bake squad “,” Baking Impossible “,” Nailed It ! “ or its French version, ” It’s a piece of cake ! “. What, just by looking at them, gain 3 kilos before the summer, as said the title of the program, on the late Cuisine TV, by Chloé Saada, famous for its … Carla brownie.