Food porn, Dahl style

I still can't make my mind up about this one - the BBC's food show starring ex-model Sophie Dahl. Made by Jamie Oliver's Fresh One Productions, the series will no doubt be hugely popular but in many ways it’s a bit of an oddity; I spent most of the first few shows frowning at the TV wondering when Sophie was going to quit flouncing around antique shops and actually start cooking.

You get the sense BBC are looking for a sexy Nigella replacement; plenty of finger sucking and close ups of eyelashes. The similarities are obviously not lost on Dahl either - speaking to Andrew Marr on BBC One, she was forced to dismiss suggestions by the broadcaster that she was “irritated” by the comparison with Nigella and the desire for it to be seen as a “catfight”.Like Nigella, Dahl is not a trained cook or chef – these kind of programmes make me feel really sorry for the professionals who’ve spent long apprenticeships in steaming kitchens, do they watch these series with their fingers half covering their eyes? Is it horrendous or liberating to see someone fry fish who can’t obviously handle a pan with any kind of skill? Does it want to make them leave cooking altogether and become a runway model?

The fact that untrained food fans have their own programmes is in one way liberating and opens up what can be an intimidating set of skills to a wider group of people. However, how much of the Sophie Dahl series is actually about food remains to be seen. In essence it’s about a very pretty girl faffing around a very pretty kitchen spouting a lot of literary references - they seem to interrupt the cooking a lot of the time. The dishes she prepared were simple and attractively themed along the lines of self indulgence - halibut, dirty martinis, chocolate mousse, that sort of thing.

It was entertaining to a degree and while I give out about celebrity-led broadcasting, I still watch the stuff. Hey I’m a divil for food porn, whatever about the quality of the programme. In fact anything on telly remotely connected to food and farming.... I’m on it. I even watch One Man and His Dog for Gods sake.Good luck with it Sophie, just make sure you spend more time in make-up than in the kitchen x