3:57PM, Nov 25, 2008
A combo of Scrapheap Challenge and MasterChef.
That's the description one witty Major gives for the new series of Combat Chefs.
And how right the Major is.
Five's new four-part series is an entertaining culinary show with a difference.
If you're tired of seeing Jamie Oliver being 'pukka', or your ears can't bear any more of Gordon Ramsay's rude kitchen lingo, then you'll love this twist on your average cooking show.
Up first we get to see the workings of the defence food training services in Aldershot, where muscled, combat-clad gents are whipped into soldiers and then whisked into chefs.
But don't go thinking they'll be learning the finer arts of caviar or hankering after Michelin stars. Oh no, as the show states (in the obligatory clipped military tone): "It's their ability to cook up a hearty meal on anything, anywhere that sets these chefs apart." Aye, aye captain.
The above is the art of improvised cooking - a skill unique to the British military - which involves learning to cook using nothing more than mud, dustbins and a fire.
A cooking competition in Gutersloh, Germany sees twenty teams of cooks taking their improvisation skills to new levels entirely. Or should that be depths as the realisation dawns on one poor soldier that he'll have to dig a trench as deep as he is tall to make a decent "oven"?
It's not Nigella, so don't be fooled. But Combat Chefs is a great serving of light-hearted humour and impressive skills - even if the result is a guinea fowl that's as tough as the soles of the boots the soldiers wear.
All in all this is thoroughly entertaining TV. You may even pick up a trick or two.
Find out when Combat Chefs is on TV.
