Rick Stein's Food Heroes of Britain/Food Heroes-Another Helping (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Documentary	Main Menu Audio
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	290:29 (Case: 461)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (13:54) Multi Disc Set (3)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	David Pritchard
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Rick Stein
Case	Amaray-Transparent-S/C-Dual
RPI	$39.95	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Rick Stein is an English celebrity chef who is most famous for cooking seafood. Unlike many celebrity chefs he does not come across as a complete w***er although does have occasional tendencies in that direction. He has made a number of television shows, the first few focused completely on seafood. In 2002, he made this series for the BBC, entitled Rick Stein's Food Heroes of Britain, which has been followed by an extra series in 2003 (included here in the extras) and then by a Christmas Special in 2005. This was his first series not totally focused on seafood, although it certainly still gets a mention here.

    The concept of this series is that Rick travels the British Isles looking for, interviewing and then cooking with the produce of quality small producers believing that their various products should be celebrated and promoted rather than ignored, as they are by the major supermarket chains. He is extremely passionate about this pursuit which fills the show with great energy and more than a little of the Grumpy Old Men feel. It also makes for a very entertaining show, full of opinions, interesting products and wonderful recipes. Along for the ride, as always, is his little dog, Chalky, who has become a star in Britain in his own right. These three discs contain the whole original series of 10 episodes (30 minutes each) as the main feature and the follow up series Another Helping as an extra on the third disc. See below for details of that. Over the course of the series he covers Wales, Scotland and England roughly from South to North. Each episode features three or four recipes made from the produce back in his own kitchen. One thing which is noticeable when you watch these episodes back to back is the amount of salt and parsley which seems to go into every dish he makes. The series could nearly be subtitled 1001 ways to cook with Salt & Parsley!

    Another highlight of this series was the wonderful landscapes and aerial photography of Britain which greatly enhanced the visual aspects of the show, being a great counterpoint to confined kitchens and farms.

    The ten episodes covers a wide variety of foodstuffs and are as follows:

1. (29:03) - Game, pigeons, pasties, mackerel, clotted cream, langoustines, saffron cakes & skate.
2. (29:03) - Garlic, bacon/pork, cider, blueberries, cheese, watercress, trout, game, chilli.
3. (29:02) - London markets, hake, pie & eel, duck, pork, kippers, geese.
4. (29:03) - Wild boar, lamb, Lancashire Hotpot, cheese, black pudding.
5. (29:03) - Whelks, beef, steak & kidney, parsley, cod, mulberries, sea bass.
6. (29:03) - Mushrooms, turkey, pork pies, Stilton, leeks, sausages.
7. (29:03) - Rhubarb, curry, ewe's milk cheese, tripe, rabbit.
8. (29:03) - Cavallo Nero, ranch eggs, Bedfordshire Clanger, Welsh lamb, mussels, beef, béarnaise.
9. (29:03) - Salmon, air-dried ham, oysters, mutton, shellfish, highland cattle & Haggis.
10. (29:03) - Smoked salmon & eel, lobster, crabs, octopus, oatmeal, venison & a final section about the problems with British hotels and life on the road.

    Recommended, even for non foodies.

Video

    The video quality is very good.

    The feature is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio 16x9 enhanced which is the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was quite sharp and clear, however there was some light grain throughout. There was no evidence of low level noise.

    The colour was very good, doing justice to the beautiful landscape shots included. The only issue was some very occasional cross colourisation.

    The only noticeable artefact was some minor spots of aliasing here and there.

    There are subtitles in English for the hearing impaired. The English subtitles were clear and easy to read but a little small.

    The layer change occurs at 13:54 in episode 3 on disc 1 and caused a slight pause. I did not notice it on Disc 2.
    

Video Ratings Summary

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Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
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Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is good.

    This DVD contains an English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack encoded at 192 Kb/s.

    Dialogue was clear and easy to understand and there was no problem with audio sync.

    The music by Crocodile got a bit annoying after a while, featuring baroque stylings.

    The surround speakers and subwoofer were not used.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu included music and the ability to select episodes, scenes and subtitles.

Disc 3

Food Heroes : Another Helping

    As I mentioned above, this extra is in fact the entire follow up series to the original one, consisting of 6 half hour episodes. This series was made in 2003 and has a couple of minor changes to the original with Ireland being included and some scenes of Stein sitting in a chair outside his house speaking directly to camera. Generally, though it is very similar and of the same high quality. The episodes included are:

1. (28:33) - Lamb pies, moussaka, kippers, eggs, biscuits, damsons, pickles and salmon curry.
2. (28:30) - Curd cheesecake, organic veg, leeks, soup, razor clams, sushi.
3. (28:29) - Crayfish, sweetbreads, hop shoots, herbs, pork, cider.
4. (28:33) - Sticky Toffee pudding, buffalo mozzarella, Welsh Trout, sausages, brawn.
5. (28:38) - Cork market, corned beef, soda bread, smoked eel, beef, corned beef hash.
6. (28:38) - Potatoes, pubs, herbs, terrine, oatcakes, beer, beans, crabs.

     This series is available in the same format in Region 2 and is not currently available in Region 1 .

    The video quality is very good.

    The audio quality is good.

    The set has a complete series of 6 episodes as its extra.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall