James May wants to encourage budding chefs to drink more booze while cooking, as the amateur TV chef launches a Keith Floyd-style new cooking show.
The former Top Gear star said he liked Keith’s style of drinking while cooking – or cooking while drinking – “immensely”, and necks beer and wine while attempting to produce various dishes on his new Amazon show, despite knowing it will irk “righteous” teetotallers.
The presenter is launching his new format Oh Cook!, in which the self-confessed novice learns to cook staple meals well and glugs his way through various wines and beers while in the kitchen, describing one as having an air of “forgotten games kit”.
“I do drink whilst I’m cooking and I think a lot of people do,” he says.
(Image: Getty)
“There’s a slight culture of pretending it doesn’t happen, or that it’s a bit of a problem.
“But it isn’t a problem – it’s exactly what you should do.
“Quite often, the wine or beer ends up in the food as well. You toss a bit in when you think ‘this is a bit boring – a bit of chateauneuf du pape will definitely sort that out’.
“There is the righteous sector that thinks we all drink too much and that anybody who likes a drink must of course be a raging alcoholic – it’s not true.”
Though he is aware of their reputations, he insists he and co-stars Richard Hammond and Jeremy Clarkson are “not alcoholics” and also “not alcohol dependents”.
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Instead, he says culture should “celebrate” enjoying beer and wine “and stop apologising for it”.
“It wine – it’s the stuff of philosophers,” he tells the Mirror. “It’s in the Bible, for God’s sake. Jesus mucked about with it.”
Chef Keith Floyd was rarely seen on camera without a glass of red wine.
In the show, which sees James admit he cannot cook but wants to learn and help other novice chefs learn basic skills, he serves up a “perfect” steak, which he insists is no reference to his pal Jeremy’s sacking from the BBC.
(Image: courtesy of the BBC/Getty)
Jeremy allegedly punched Top Gear producer Oisin Tymon in the face after being declined a steak at the end of a day’s filming in March 2015.
“I don’t think anyone could come up with an original joke about cooking steak for Jeremy Clarkson,” he laughs.
Some of the amateur cook’s meals go badly, and he produces a black pudding hash brown that he pours straight into a bin as it turns out so badly.
James May: Oh Cook! launches on Amazon Prime Video on Friday 13th November 2020. Oh Cook! 60 Easy Recipes that Any Idiot Can Make is out now.
Originally from https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/james-wants-budding-chefs-drink-22933753