Could You Eat an Elephant? Jeremy Lee's difficult dinners

Date Published:

14/01/2009

Charlie Cottrell talks to Jeremy Lee, fresh from his experiences making Could You Eat an Elephant? with fellow chef, Fergus Henderson, about adventurous eating and why elephant is not on his menu

How did you and Fergus meet?

It's a funny thing. We'd walked parallel paths and then, at last we met. I was cooking at a restaurant called Euphorium and I used to buy my bread from Fergus at St John. The rest is history.

Have you always been an adventurous eater?

Oh yes. That's what chefs do. When you're confronted with it you eat it. Over here, the 'unpleasant' things are usually rolled up in pretty names like haggis and so forth.

Why made you take this journey?

I got a phone call saying: "Do want to come with Fergus and eat some food?" and I thought "Yes". As the plot thickened, I realised what I'd signed up for. But less is more. If you know too much you'd never do anything. There were some big gauntlets thrown down in front of us, but what an adventure!

Living, as we do, on an island is so wonderfully safe and pretty. It's not until you step out of your comfort zone that you think 'wow' and realise there's a completely different eating world out there.

You're not one to balk at unusual cuts - did anything turn your stomach?

Rat. Rat was definitely disgusting. When you're sat at the table you want to be excited and get your juices flowing. When you're faced with dog or rat, you do think 'urgh'.

Attempting to eat dog was horrible. It was a pretty dog too - that made it particularly awful. I did think, "Is it a gratuitously attractive dog because this is for television?" That was a bridge too far.

What were people's responses when you said you were going to eat these creatures?

Generally it was eyebrows through the roof and jaws crashing onto the floor. People said, "You what? Are you mad?" I think that was one of the main reasons for doing it, to test the boundaries, and neither of us are the 'farmed salmon on a plate' kind of cooks.

What were the highlights?

The people we met were great, to a one. They couldn't have been more charming or polite and this is what they do. There was no pretence; this was how they really eat.

Cobra in Hanoi was absolutely fantastic. I loathe snakes with a passion. I'm terrified of them, they give me the 'heebies' with a vengeance and the experience was quite hardcore. You get to choose a snake from the ones hissing in front of you. By the way, only cobra will do!

And the low points?

The prospect of eating elephant was bleak. The world is a better place with elephants in it. Even though the elephants were sanctioned to be killed you can't help feeling that it's a bit weird. They take the granddad, you know. The elephants had quite a few very human qualities and I couldn't disassociate from that.

There's a point where a cow becomes beef and a pig becomes pork, but elephant and dog and even rat are imbued with personality and they resolutely retain that.

Did you see any of the animals live before you ate them?

Almost all of them. The only one we didn't see was dog. With the rest we saw the whole process. We saw them in their natural habitat first and then there was the hunting or gathering. We didn't get involved in the hunt, we were just spectators.

With all things like this, you're exposed to stuff you don't know about very well and there's a healthy respect for what other people do.

Have the experiences stayed with you since you've been back?

It's always a marvellous thing to be challenged and wise up to the realities of life. The prospect of eating elephant here would be shocking. The last time elephant was eaten in Europe was in a Paris commune. They were under siege and had to eat the contents of the zoo.

The maggot cheese is supposed to be an aphrodisiac. Did you notice any effects?

I'm not sure it got me going, but as an experience it was fantastic. The portion control was incredible. It was the biggest slab of cheese I've ever seen! I had conjured all sorts of things in my mind before I took my first bite, and the bottom line was it was an incredibly strong cheese. You can't feel the maggots wriggling around but I'm not surprised it's not daily fare.

Terming food as a delicacy seems like clever marketing to get you to eat horrid stuff - like the still-beating snake's heart.

[Laughs] Well, their take is, "You think we're mad but we think it's delicious. We think you eating lamb is mad."

You see something like a shot of green bile and you go 'urgh', but then you try it and it slips down a treat.

Is anything taboo?