Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Ep 274: Andy Zaltzman (Christmas Special)

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

Joining us for a Christmas Special second helping is ‘Taskmaster’ champion and ‘The Bugle’ podcast, Andy Zaltzman.Andy Zaltzman is on tour now with ‘The Zaltgeist’, running until 9th May 2025 at London's Leicester Square Theatre. For full dates and tickets, visit www.andyzaltzman.co.ukFollow Andy on Twitter @ZaltzCricket Off Menu is a comedy podcast hosted by Ed Gamble and James Acaster.Recorded and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive.Artwork by Paul Gilbey (photography and design) and Amy Browne (illustrations).Follow Off Menu on Twitter and Instagram: @offmenuofficial.And go to our website www.offmenupodcast.co.uk for a list of restaurants recommended on the show.Watch Ed and James's YouTube series 'Just Puddings'. Watch here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Benito, James Acaster here. I forgot to record an advert for my new special, Hector's Welcome, which is going to be on Sky, Now TV and HBO Max. It's on all of those right now. I'm very proud of it. Can you put this at the beginning of the next episode so that people know the special is out please because I'd like them to know. Okay, I hope you're having a good day but you say bye Welcome to the off menu podcast I've definitely done this before heating the brandy of conversation, lighting the flame of chat, pouring over the Christmas pudding of the internet. You've got yourself a Christmasy off menu.

Have you seen black doves? No. Spoiler alert if you haven't seen black doves, but the very last shot of it. I haven't. I already told you I haven't seen it. So why are you giving me a spoiler alert spoiler? Well it's not really a spoiler. Okay. Because what's funny is that it's got nothing to do with anything. There's been this whole kind of like spy like drama. Yeah. And then the very last shot is Keira Knightley

pouring brandy over a Christmas pudding, lighting it and then looking in the camera. That's it gamble. My name is James A. Kasser together. We own a dream restaurant in every single week. We invite in a guest house in their favor ever start a main course dessert side dish and drink not in that order. And this week our Christmasy guest is Andy Zoltzman. Andy Zoltzman a fantastic comedian, podcaster, taskmaster, champion, a cricket commentator, a cricket stats man. I told my dad, we've got Andy Zoltzman on this week, and I didn't know, my dad knew Andy, but my dad does like cricket. Well, if you like cricket, you know Andy.

And my dad just went, it's like he was genuinely happy for Andy and he just went, that man has a great life. That man has a great life and a great career. And it must be been his dream growing up to be, I bet he can't believe he gets to do all that. I'm really happy for Andy Zoltzman. To be on off menu. Yeah, I think that's what it was.

Yeah, people who like cricket are jealous of Andy's career and are very happy for him. I know John Robbins wants Andy Zoltzman's career, I think. Yeah. Yeah, as said on multiple occasions. We can't wait to chat to Andy. I love Andy, He's so funny. Yes. Hilarious man, lovely man. I don't know if he's a lover of food. We'll find out, I guess. We'll find out. We'll find out. I think he is. I think I've heard some stuff in the past about him. Oh yeah? Cooking and, you

know, dinner parties and all of that sort of stuff. That's promising. I think we're on safe ground. You know what? I've heard about him. Go on. He's got a brand new show, The Zoltgeist, which he is touring nationwide as part of his biggest UK and Ireland tour, running until the 9th of May at London's Leicester Square Theatre for full dates and tickets. You know what? Andyzoltzman.co.uk

Yeah, go and see Andy on tour. He is always brilliant. The amount of material that he generates for his stand upup as part of the Bugle, his podcast. So definitely get along to that. But if Andy says a secret ingredient on which we have pre-agreed, he will be kicked out of the Dream restaurant and at Christmas no less. Oh, for this week. The secret ingredient is... Wax lettuce. Wax lettuce, of course, picked by last week's Christmas guest, Rose Matafayo.

Yes, and instantly we're like great, we can use that as a secret ingredient because it's a weird thing to order on your dream menu. I mean Andy can be a weird guy so he might pick wax lettuce. We've seen him subvert things on Taskmaster, go the surreal route. So this is not out of the question here. And it would be quite satisfying to kick out a guest the week after for something that was on the previous menu and inspired the choice.

Something that's like. And it's rare that we record so close to release and after the last one has been released. So the fact that we get to use a secret ingredient from a previous episode that was only a week before is very exciting. Yeah. I mean, for the listener, we're recording this on the day last week's was released. Yes. So if you're listening to this on the day it comes out, this is exactly a week ago. This is only a week ago.

These words could be hitting your ears exactly one week before, since I said them. Yeah. But a lot can happen in a week. A lot can happen in a week. They might've found that guy who shot that other guy. Who popped said them. Yeah, but a lot can happen in a week. A lot can happen in a week. They might have found that guy who shot that other guy. Who popped the CEO. Yeah. Benito thinks they found him. If they found him.

There you go, that's how quickly things can happen. If you'll listen to this podcast, mate. Well, anyway, enough of this Christmassy chat. Let's get on with some more of it with our special guest, the brilliant Andy Zoltzman. Off menu. Welcome Andy to the Dream Restaurant. Oh, it's great. It's great to be here.

Welcome Andy Zoltzman to the Dream Restaurant. We've been here for some time. That was unusual. This is, I mean, we've done nearly 300 episodes Yeah, and James as the genie normally bursts out of the lamp with a sound you would expect Yeah, yeah, so you're a Christmas turkey bursting out the lamp today, right? Yeah, the turkeys make that I'm not sure turkeys It'll be turkadoodle do if they did Yeah, yeah turkadoodle do for, a turkey would say gobble gobble. Right.

Well, it depends on the turkey, I think, isn't it? I don't think it does depend on the turkey. I think standard turkey would be gobble gobble, but... It's cockadoodledoo. Cockadoodledoo. Text in now. Text in now, listeners, what you think it is. If you found a magic lamp and you rubbed it and a turkey came out of it, how would

that make you feel? Well, I think I'd be disappointed. I'd be respectful of the turkey, I hope. You know, I'd invite the turkey to go back into the lamp. That would be my first wish actually. Can the turkey grant me wishes or is it just a turkey? Yeah, good quite right. Here we go. Absolutely. If it pops out the lamp it can grant you wish Right. Yeah, well I wish I was yeah get back in the lamp But then would I then lose my other two? It's just three wish turkeys Yeah, you'd have to whisper you ever two lamps into the spout of the lamp, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's what you'd be faced

Would you be hoping that there'd be other things in the lamp? So if you put the turkey back in, you rubbed it, maybe some genie would eventually come out? You'd expect there to be probably a fox and a bag of grain in there. Well, you're a Christmas turkey genie today. Yeah, yeah. Cock-a-doodle-doo. Yeah, yeah. Gobble, gobble, gobble. Yeah. In terms of the evolution of the turkey, training yourself to say gobble gobble when you are a foodstuff is probably not really helpful. Not particularly helpful, is it? Putting ideas in people's heads.

Exactly. Well, that's why it's so popular on Christmas. It worked out that it's the driest meat, so it needed to do something to establish itself on people's menus. Right. So gobble gobble is what it went with. It's a PR move. Yeah.

If I was a potentially edible animal, I'd probably have evolved so that my natural call sounded like, I taste disgusting, don't eat me. Yeah. Rather than gobble, rather than, you know, inviting people to gobble. People to industrial exploitation. So what sort of call would you go for? Well, um. I don't know.

I mean, is cock-a-doodle don't Or something that suggested you you were smelly maybe like pooey yes something like that. Yeah, that would put me off it Yeah, I think yeah, but you know, that's so much for Darwin One of the one of the little birds in a Beatrice Potter book calls out little bit of bread and no cheese. I remember that as a, as a kid. It was one of the Beatrice Potter books. I can't remember what animal it is, but she was like basically trying to say what it's bird song sounds like. And it was little bit of bread and no cheese. And I remember it very distinctly as a kid.

Yeah. But she had the hedgehogs wearing dresses and stuff. It's not scientifically accurate. If you're choosing between Potter and Attenborough in terms of reliability of facts about the natural world, you go with Attenborough anytime. You got to go with Attenborough. Yeah, yeah. Big Dave. Yeah.

Oh, David Amber. Yeah. Oh, David Amber. Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking dinosaurs were real. Yeah. Yeah. They weren't real originally. Yeah.

Yeah. But this is not the big revelation that James doesn't believe in dinosaurs. Yeah. I do. I do believe in them. They're the OGs. The OG. The OG turkeys in many ways.

Yeah. Traces straight away. Yeah. That would be different. This would have been huge back then. Imagine eating one of those. I'd like to see Jurassic Park but with the sound redone so the T-Rex is saying gobble gobble. Yeah. And voiced by Andy.

Yeah. I'm happy to do that. Do you like Christmas Andy? I do like Christmas. Yeah, I mean probably more than the average Jewish person. Yeah, we've, yeah, it's, uh, yeah, it's good fun Christmas. And also there's generally cricket on the television at midnight. There we go.

As long as we could get to talk about birds and like different animals. Yeah. But I've been quite disciplined, I think. Yeah. I was going to say this feels like a long time that you've not mentioned cricket. Yeah There is cricket on TV doing Christmas. I know well, yes I did the boxing day tests, you know in Australia usually starts at midnight at the end of Christmas Day, okay time Yeah, so you know, that's you know, however bad your Christmas is going. You've got that little beacon of hope you have a

If this has been asked you before many times and it's already common knowledge the answer then you know, I apologize. But do you have a favorite test match of all time that you like that is the best one I've ever seen? That's the, that's the girl. Um, well we're really doing this. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I, I won't ever get the opportunity to ask. How long, how long have you, how long, how long is this podcast generally? The answer doesn't have to take as long as a game of cricket. I assume you want me to stop the tape.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're one that is like, that is the best game. That was such a great test match. Well, I mean, Edge Bastion 2005 test match, hard to look beyond that. I wasn't there. I was actually in Edinburgh doing the Edinburgh Festival sharing a flat with Stuart Lee, who probably his greatest flaw as a human being is that he doesn't like cricket. But his routines are basically the same thing over and over again for ages.

We all find that rhythm in life in different places though. He really reads as someone who likes cricket though. I believe that, I don't think he's completely lost as a long-term project. But anyway, at that point in 2000, he wasn't really into it and when England won that test match by two runs at the end, I was basically sort of collapsed onto the floor hyperventilating and I think he was quite concerned about my state of health at that point. It was quite hard to explain that it wasn't just the culmination of the one single match That was the culmination of a life to life time six 16 years of yeah of pain and suffering Australia yes, there we go

Do they still go in for tea in cricket? They do. Yeah. So they stop the game and then go in. In test matches. Yeah. Very good at bringing back the three dead. And you know, village games, whatever. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the great things, though, when you think on this podcast, the fact that

cricket, you know, a test match has, if it goes the full five days, 10 built-in meal breaks. Yeah. That should be right in your guys' hitting zone. Yeah. Well, I want to know more about it. Do you ever get in there and get to have tea with them? Well, not with the players, but in the media sense of where I work, where I'm doing cricket commentary, we get some pretty spectacular food. Not at all the grounds. I mean, without

naming any specific grounds, there was one where there was a rumour that we were getting the same food as the local prison and it sort of lived up to that. Did you get those segmented trays? Luckily the local prison was the one Patenton was locked in. That is the best food ever. Yeah, but I mean Lord's and Edgebast and Edgebaston, you'd expect those press boxes have Michelin stars lurking around somewhere. And what are we talking to you? Do you get the same stuff as the players?

Do you get even fancier stuff? No, the players are generally the other end of the ground. I mean, the Lorde's food is quite, I think, players food is off the scale. I've never done a statistical analysis of how bad players are in a half hour after lunch at the office when they gorge themselves. That really feels like you should look into it. Yeah, you've got to. What about the Oval?

The Oval, a little bit up and down. I've heard bad things. I used to work at a school as a classroom assistant and the class I was with went to the oval one day, but I'd stay behind and do something else. And I saw them the next day and there's a kid called Georgie who had been mouthing off to the guys showing them around and he made him run around the oval 10 times. And I saw Georgie the next, and Georgie was quite naughty anyway, but I liked him. And I was like, how was it yesterday? He went, promise me you never go to the oval.

You've got to promise me. And have you been? No, I've never been. George, if you're listening, I'll always keep my promise. I respect you so much. Even when the dental truck came in and you stood in the gap between the dental truck and the school building and you threw stones at the other kids. Right. What's a dental truck? It was a truck that came in to check all the kids' teeth to get them used to go into the

dentist. It was this organization who did it to check all the kids teeth to get them used to go into the dentist It was this organization who did it they got booked for the day But they didn't park tight enough to the wall There was a little gap a little hidey hole that Georgie could go in and get tiny stones to be fair to him and Antagonize the other kids with him what he didn't foresee is that he had boxed himself in So that when they then decided to get their revenge, he was absolutely fucked. Yeah. Yeah, they shouldn't have left I've got a good filled it in. Yeah, they shouldn't have left that gap because it would have filled it in. The Oval has an important place in the history of British food. Oh really?

So in 1882 there was a test match, England versus Australia, it was so tense and it was a game that then led to the ashes beginning. Spoof a bitch or he was printed in one of the papers after England lost, like the death of English cricket, the ashes will be taken to Australia. Right. And that was how the ashes began. But during that test, it was so close and so tense that someone in the crowd chewed through the handle of his umbrella, like a wooden umbrella handle.

Apparently chewed through it. Yeah. I mean, it's one of the, he was 1882. Do we have documentary evidence of this? No, but unprepared to through it. I mean it's one of the things, he was 1882, do we have documentary evidence of this? No, but I'm prepared to believe it. And of course the fact that he sat there chewing this umbrella handle, they then had to legalise the hot dog as a stadium food. So many further confusions. So that's why it's important to the history of British food because the man ate his umbrella. Yes, it is very important. And look, anyone who's seen Andy on Taskmaster

and his approach to the prize tasks will not be surprised if one of his food choices is an umbrella. The guy thinks outside the box. Tell us about your tour, Andy. Well, my tour, that's a very good question. Well, it wasn't a question actually, was it? No, no, no. It was a demand. It was a demand. It was a demand. Yeah. My tour is a show called The Zoltgeist, and it's sort of analysing where we are as a planet, species, hemisphere, big fan of the Northern Hemisphere. Yeah.

Would you like to shout out some disses to the Southern Hemisphere while you're here? Well, I don't think, I think you can, I think that's too divisive, James. I think you can love the northern hemisphere without necessarily hating the south. Have we not learned that? That's not one of the lessons of history. We can love something without having to hate the opposite. That way I have a future to learn stuff. You and the rest of the human race. Yeah, yeah.

So, basically, same, yeah, where we are coming to the end of 2024. So, that is the psychologically critical 2.5% of the way through a millennium. And it's history shows that when millennium start badly, it's quite hard to pull it around. So we've only got 975 years to pull this one out of bag. So can we do it? What do you think? Well, it's not looking good so far. But what I mean, you're the expert, you're the one doing a tour about it. Do you think we're going to do you think we're going to get there? Well, we should we need to start now though. You can't spoil what's in its shut. You can't tell the conclusion. Everyone goes, I don't

know what you think. So the tour's going to go on for the next 975 years. Congratulations. I mean, was that you intending to live that long? Are you going to franchise it and other people can do it? Or are we looking at the Zoltagram, the hologram, that's going to come out? Well, I mean, that seems to be the likely future of comedy, doesn't it? Yeah. You know, it's the future of 1970s Swedish pop, so it really should be the future of

2020s British standup as well. So, I mean, I intend to do a hologram tour for the rest of the millennium. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to dissuade people from buying tickets to see it now, because obviously it's going to evolve. I'm not going to still be doing jokes in the year 2983 about the world in 2024. Hopefully. Maybe I will be. I mean, who knows? Would you tour the hologram or would you have it in one location like Abu Voyage?

Well, I think, you know, thinking a little bit ahead, thinking, thinking, you know six seven hundred years into the tour You'd expect that the technology would be there for just like a single atom size microchip Mmm, but people just like shove it into their eyeball Yeah, and they'll be able to see any show that they want. Yeah, they'd use the result guys. Yeah 2700 yeah, I can't wait for the mic the iMicro trips yeah yeah yeah yeah I mean the human eyeball has proved fallible over the years yeah you know it's it doesn't always see what it thinks it sees yeah the sooner it's replaced by the Apple eyeball yeah with the Apple of your eyes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The marketing market writes itself.

Yeah, so, you know, that can then record everything you see. So, you know, you can check. Yeah. You thought you saw something or someone, meet them again. So, I saw you then, they said, no, you didn't. And then you can go check back through and then you can prove you're wrong. I fucking did. Yeah.

Sorry, viewers. Sorry, viewers. Sorry viewers. I can't wait. I mean facial technology is what you've got. The moment is it's on the face isn't it? The smart glasses. But you know you think you should be in the fight with, you know, the, like I say, the, the eyeball, the, the six G. Yeah. AI nose, whatever. That could be their tagline. It should be in the face.

Yeah. Not on the face. In the face. In the face. Yeah. I, um, do you get your feeling? I get my feelings whenever my phone doesn't recognise my face. Yeah.

As a celebrity. Right. And, uh, and also just, I just think to myself, oh god, god, god, god of the gym. Right. I don't think that's why it doesn't recognise you. Yeah, it's just going, I don't even recognise you anymore, eh, Castor? Well I was very suspicious of that technology when it first came in, so I took my profile picture wearing like a fake beard and glasses and a hat, so I haven't actually opened my

phone in about eight years. So much important stuff on there. We always start with still or sparkling water, Andy? Well, I've got to go for sparkling because, you know, I'm a big fan of the environment. Oh, yeah. And, you know, the more carbon dioxide we can get out of the atmosphere and into drinks, then surely the better for the future of the planet. So I mean every time you drink still water you're basically saying I don't

care if we live or die as a species. So you need to trap the carbon dioxide. There's only a 0.04% of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide. I don't know what the goal is to get it down to absolutely zero or 0.02 whatever but you know, so the more Sparkling and obviously you've got you have to then swallow the bubbles. Otherwise they they re-escape Yeah, but the bubbles now back into the back into the I think that's you know doing my little bit for the I'll say that like think of those little bubbles as the souls of dead fish trying to it. Yeah escape you like to think as the souls of dead fish trying to escape. You like to think of them.

But you love the environment. Fish are our evolutionary rivals. Fish live on as well, so through the bubbles. Why are they our rivals, evolutionary speaking? Well, I mean, because they must resent the fact, because we obviously emerged from the seas back in the day. Yeah. And, you know, and fish look at what we've achieved on land and the increased lifestyle choices that you have as a land-based species. Yeah.

I think there's got to be a little bit of jealousy and... It's even their plotting. ... and resentment. You know, my old double act partner, John Oliver, went to America and became one of the most famous comedians in the world. So he's very much the humans to my fish and I know what I can understand the... You're still in the pond?

Yeah. Watch it Oliver. So you are the fish in this scenario? Yeah, yeah. So you know how the fish feel? I empathise. You empathise with the fish? Yeah.

Do you think Oliver ever just thinks himself a wish he was back in the pond? No doubt. I think he looks wistfully out of his window in New York. You can see you probably see the pond So why haven't fizzy drinks companies harnessed this they should be promoting that and being yeah Yeah, we're pulling we're pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. I didn't know that that's how it works But yeah, they're pulling it out the atmosphere and they're putting out They're putting it into the drinks. Yeah. Yeah. They should be using that as a carbon capture basis now. Yeah. Do you

then neutralize the carbon dioxide within your body? Yeah, I think so. Because you're not. Yeah, you're not. Yeah. You're not pissing out the carbon dioxide. Are you gonna go straight back into the water system? Do you do fizzy piss? Sometimes I worry. Right. You you do fizzy piss? Sometimes I worry. Right. You ever had fizzy piss? Sometimes I do a really big foamy one and you do you do panic. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Bit of a head to it. Yeah. Cappuccino. Is that what you call it? What did you say about that? Cappuccino. Oh yeah. Yeah. I see you were trying to make a pun work. Yeah.

Yeah. I just thought you were difficult and he's a real punster. So I'm trying to, I'm trying to match up to him. I've been clean for a while. We all sort of task master. Every time you did a pun, Greg looked like he was going to rip your head off. What's that like episode one making a pun seeing how angry it is and knowing I've got so many more of these. I said I'm all in the house. I've got them for every price task. He's gonna be furious this guy. Well, you know, so it's a rush Isn't it? Yeah, I know you have that hold over someone who likes to think of themselves as an authority figure and yet You just might just needle your way in. Yeah. Yeah, I mean he was an absolute wreck of a human being

He's often by the end. He was enjoying the puns. Yeah, he had to yeah I think it's just attrition What bread what are the bread options whatever you want your favorite bread the bright I'm not do love a poppadom Yeah, I think I'll go with with pop it was you don't want to fill up one on me a meal like this Yeah, I want to fill up too much on bread. No just for listeners Andy is one of the first guests ever to have a full laptop out in front of him. So it's a big laptop. It's a PC. Yeah. So like it's, it's, we haven't had this before. I don't think we've even had someone bring like, you know, a Mac book in. No. This is like, we've had

people bringing notes on their phone. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes they printed them out. You have a ginormous laptop. Yeah, well it's my stats laptop. Yeah, the stats top is there. I've got one with especially high screens so I can see more stats on it. And you know, you look through the stats like a magic eye picture. You look at like just a screen full of stats in a spreadsheet. You just let your eyes relax and you see the blinding light of pure truth.

James. That's good. relax and you see the blinding light of pure truth. James did suggest before we started recording that you have your food stats here with everything you've ever eaten yeah yeah on a spreadsheet yeah wouldn't be surprised if Andy Saltsman is a little boy bought that laptop yeah and I was ahead of the game his stats yeah what is he I mean mean just checking the latest stats, I think my career average is 402.3 sausages per annum. That's good, that's good going. It's not bad at all. Impossible to imagine Andy as a little boy without that same hairstyle.

Yeah, impossible. I can't imagine you without it Andy. Well, in fact, my receding hairline was a lot further back when I was a child And it's gradually coming forward You have been back on the show in 50 60 years time Just be yeah, you're very specific better than button. Yeah. Yeah into the millennia when you're still exactly. Yeah, you'll be cousin it Shout out cousin it shout shout out cuz of it, but yeah, I think um, I think about nor do I do like a I mean it when the Indian the Indian breads Asian breads. Yeah, give you a lot of options. Yeah

Yeah, I mean that's a nice. Yeah, if you want you could set your dream meal in an Indian restaurant And you could cheat the system that way right? I was unbred. Right. But of course the rest of the menu might not be. It might be, I mean, the stomach. Not only rumbled, but it was the most cartoon stomach rumble that we've had on the podcast. We've had quite a few stomach rumbles on the podcast. We've done it both of us. Oh, all the time. I did one earlier.

Benito's never does because he's a god damn robot from space. So he doesn't have any emotions, even hunger. We've done it by all the time. I did one. He never does because he's a goddamn robot from space It doesn't have any emotions even hunger But and he's went Than you did yes A perfect turkey impression wish I'd done it earlier What was it the make it like the stomach remember there that the thought of bread or the Just might help the concept of the poppadum. Yeah. Yeah, how I mean how do you think the ingenuity? Iuity, and this is something that obviously you probably talk about a lot on this podcast, how food reveals the ingenuity of the human species compared with all the

other species that we've outdone over the years in terms of what we eat. So I don't think any other species would have looked at a chickpea and thought, well, I'll tell you what, if we roll that out and then deep fry it, turn it crispy, that's going to be awesome. Yeah, it's mad, isn't it? In a chutney. It's mad when you see all of these foods that we take for granted that took all of that work to think about all of the things that they tried and then discarded.

Yeah. You know, this is not the first time they did that. They've obviously tried so many different versions of it. I mean, in probably the early versions of Papadums that were shaped like a Like a javelin and the number of people who got like speared in the face by before they finally thought let's go with the discus The javelin yeah, um India have a brilliant cricket team. Yes If you and tell me you knew about cricket man If you were gonna go to an Indian restaurant with any Indian cricketer who's ever lived,

who would it be? Who would you like to… Who's ever lived? Yeah. Oh, that's a good… I have actually been to restaurants with some Indian cricketers. Have you? I had lunch with Rahul Dravid, a legend of the Indian game, many years ago in Bangalore.

We were both writing for the same cricket website. Delightful man. Oh, that's nice. Nice story. But you've had you've had lunch with them. So yeah. So what you want to go into an Indian restaurant, right? So that's be specifically an Indian restaurant. Yeah, because we'd already said you were sitting there. So and they've they've planned it as well. So it's not you going, I'm taking up a dinner. We'll go to an Indian restaurant. Okay. So any Indian cricketer from history? Yes. Yes.

Oh, well, I might go with Vinu Mankad, played for India after the second world war. I don't know why James has asked this question because he's not gonna know who the person is. No, no. Huh? You're not gonna know who they are. Yeah. He was a very good player, spinning all rounder. And I'll probably choose him because he's been deaf for quite a long time, so I'd get more

food. Yeah, and his stomach's gone again. I love the stomach. I love how adorable Andy's stomach is. When I do a podcast, I bring thematic corporeal noises. That's what the laptop's really for. He's secretly pressing the space bar every night again and setting off the stomach rumble sound effect.

They'll love it. So you are choosing Puppet Ups or you're choosing bread? Yeah, you are. I'm choosing Puppet Ups. Lovely. Are we talking the dips? Absolutely, absolutely. I want chutney options.

Yeah. I love a mango chutney but it's nice to have like a sweet plum chutney. Sweet plum chutney options. I love a mango chutney, but it's nice to have a sweet plum chutney. Sweet plum chutney? Like the raw onion dip, hot pickle, a bit of that sort of yoghurt sauce I don't quite know the name of that isn't a writer but is similar. Similar consistency. I love that. That's my favourite. We used to call it grasshopper sauce or not when I was young. That's what my dad called

it. Oh, nice. Why? It just looked like it was made of minced up grasshoppers. Grasshopper sauce. Well, that's lovely. Maybe the listeners could adopt that. Yeah, I think you should. How many poppadoms do you reckon you're getting through? Two and a half. Yeah, that's good. I think that's solid because when you go to an Indian restaurant, they're

like, how many poppadoms do you want? I'm always like thinking about it and then the person on with so I'll just one each. Yeah, what are you talking about? That's nothing. Yeah. Yeah that's very disappointing that you have to go to each I think 2x plus 2 where X is the number of people at the dinner. That's good. And you've got a bit of yeah That's good. Yeah, leave way. Do you say that at the start? Yeah, yeah, two x plus two. Yeah Skim on the grass up a source For waiters so confused how's this guy do somebody somebody running a regular over the side of their desk Just my stomach anyway poppadoms 2x plus 2 please and plenty of grass up the source over the side of their desk and twang in the roller and then draw it in quickly. No, that's just my stomach. Anyway, poppadoms, two eggs plus two, please, and plenty of grasshoppers

sauce. Your dream starter. Well, there's a couple of choices for this. One is a single scallop that I ate in Scotland when I was on holiday with my then girlfriend, now wife, a millennium ago in fact. And I'd never had a scallop before. And we went to a little pub on the west coast of Scotland and ordered scallops for starter. And it turned out as one scallop, but it was pretty much the size of a tennis ball. And it was one of those culinary moments where you feel like the sort of scales are falling from your eyes. Oh, what have I been missing for 23 years of my

life at the time? It was just a glorious perfection. I know exactly what you mean. The first scallop you have is insane. It's so good. And congratulations on saying tennis ball there. Yeah Must have not been easy for you. Yeah. Well done. So advice to try and You know bring other sports into it. You're diversified now How was it how was it prepared did it have like a sauce with it or the single Lee? Yeah It had a little I think a little just a little bit of sort of peppery sauce and a bit of a, you know, salad garnish.

Yeah. But really it was just a scallop on a plate. Yeah. There was no need to. It's, they're so sweet. They're so delicious. Yeah. Oh man.

Did your then girlfriend know wife? Which is that how you still introduce her to people? Well, I mean, showbiz, I introduce her as my first wife. Yeah, yeah, of course. Did she know it was your first scallop? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we were very open about these things. Oh yeah. Yeah, there's no point like claiming you've had loads and loads of scallops just to impress a new partner, isn't he? You've got to be honest, haven't you? Yeah, yeah. It's my first one.

Yeah. Especially if you're then going to be blown away by the scallop so much. Yeah, yeah. You can't control that. Yeah, yeah. We already know you can't control your bodily reactions. Yeah. This is, I've had loads of these. No, don't tell me giving me away again. But my choice is not that. My choice is dahi puri, which is I'm going following up the papadums with another crunch based India.

Have you, have you had dahi puris? I'm not a shot You get your little crispy shells. Yeah There's enough A's in the word You get your crispy shells Which I think also made of sort of chickpea flour fill them up with like chopped up boiled potatoes tiny little chunks of boiled potatoes Chopped up raw onion chickpe, pomegranate seeds, spices, a bit of charred masala, a bit of chilli, dollop of yoghurt, tamarind chutney, maybe mint chutney,

coriander, topped with sev, which is like crunchy chickpea micro noodles, some coriander leaves, and it is the perfect mouthful. I don't think it's possible in this universe or any other universe to come up with a better mouthful than a Dahi puri. It's got everything. Because it's like a perfect size as well. You can just pop it in. You can just pop it in. Yeah. And again, the first time I had that was at a restaurant in Tooting called Castori, which

sadly shut down. It was a South Indian vegetarian place. Shut down, I don't know, 10 or 12 years ago and I still haven't really recovered from that. It was possibly the greatest trauma of my life when I drove past that and it had closed. I still remember, yeah, it's like for people of an older generation, where were you when you heard that John F. Kennedy had been assassinated? For me, it's where were you when you drove past Castore and saw that it shut down? I always remember that I was driving my car past Kastori. Kastori was where you were when Kennedy was assassinated as well. It was this fantastic little restaurant and I've had dahi puri in many places around the world in India and wherever I can find them in Britain, in America. That was actually

quite a weird one in America. I was actually quite a weird one in America. I was in Los Angeles and I was staying in an Airbnb. I was doing a stand-up tour and I saw there was an Indian restaurant at the bottom of the road where I was staying in Airbnb and I got back there late after the show and it was still open. I thought I'd go in and get something there. I walked in there and the guy at the counter said, hello, Mr. Zaltzman. And it was the time I was writing a blog on a cricket website and had quite a big following in the Asian expat community in America. I just thought John Oliver is so famous in America that everyone knows Andy Zaltzman.

It was... What's the fish doing on land? Well, the fish are still everywhere. It was, yeah the fish doing on land? It was yeah, very odd And then and then they they had Pani Puri, which is similar but without the yogurt on the menu And I said, can you do dahi Puri? He said for you will do dahi Puri and he Amazing and it was about midnight and that was glorious. Oh man It's a Paniipuri's got like stuff poured into it as well. Yeah, yeah, there's lots of different variations. Yeah.

But you're cracking the top, so they come as the little pillows right and you crack the top and then pour them in? Well, yes, I mean it slightly depends which ones you're having. Yeah. Yeah, so the diaper comes prepared with the top pre-cracked and filled up with... But it's got everything. It's got crunch. It's got gloop Yeah, it's got sharp. I love that tamarind chutney is so good. Yeah, the tamarind is my favorite bit of that sort of stuff Yeah, so good. I love you getting one in LA now. Like this is the sneaky midnight one just for you. Yeah Yeah Feels really, you probably didn't care how the gig went at that point.

No, no. It was worth the trip. Yeah. I mean, I've long since learned in my career not to care how the gig goes. Just think about the poorie after. And how many of them do you want on your dream? I think six. Yeah.

Six of them. You're thinking those one after the other. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's probably quite a lot for a starter, but yeah, it it's about other two of you at this meal was it just me whoever you want Whoever you want to dream meal my dream meal. Yeah. Yes. You dream guests at the meal We're the chances of my wife listening to this show You know better than us Barry my she she knows you very well. So yeah, I don't I don't know. I don't know

I'd have it mine. I mean if you Figure it can just you on your own. Any historical figure. Let's be honest, it's a cricket player. It could be a historical figure, it could be friends, it could be people that you know, it could be as many or as few people as you like. It could be us guys.

Some people sometimes choose us, and it's nice, but in the back of our minds, obviously we're like, well, that's bullshit. You wouldn't have us, though. It's because we're in front of you now. You'd be nice because we're in front of you. Yeah. But, there's no way. Yeah, it's good.

I've not thought who my perfect dinner companion would be. If it's alone, that's also fine. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. Mine would be alone. I like to commune with fine foods on a deeply spiritual level. I mean, I've had a lot of wonderful meals with my wife. Yes.

So, it feels ridiculous to have another one unnecessary I would say especially the best meal you've ever had yeah I don't know I mean any anyone from history that'll be you know I mean Jesus would be quite interesting yeah yeah just to see if he could if he could turn, you know, a dahi puri into like 5,000 Dahi puri. Yeah Yeah, that's more than two X plus. Yeah. Yeah, yeah Because that's never really covered how we did because like yeah with that feed of the 5,000 It just seems that just keeps on going but there must have been a point where they're picking it up and they're dividing it

They're going yeah. Yeah, my assumption is just new book was in gone mad for me isn't it? I mean yeah in terms of what you're actually getting as a with tiny portions. I see him. Yeah, he's just really divided Oh, yeah, like you kidding me the other 5,000 for the other bread potential explanation is that it was a sort of a scheme whereby He made a few fish finger sandwiches and then encouraged everyone there to get the fish finger sandwich and then lend it to the person sitting next to them. So and that keeps going until everyone thinks they are owed a fish finger sandwich at the end of it.

So basically people go away thinking we are one fish finger sandwich better off. So it's basically a sort of, I don't know, some kind of Humzy scheme basically. With all due respect, like a self-Jew Jewish, so we have to be a little skeptical about something like that. Happy Christmas everyone. Happy Christmas. Your dream main course. My dream main course, well, this is a specific dish.

Great. It's a specific dish. I mean, if I had to, you know, choosing one main course, I do love a big chunk of hake. I think it's a much underrated fish. Yeah, we went through a hake phase. When I was a kid, my mum and dad got big into hake for a while. Right. Yeah, so it's breaded hake. Right. At least one day a week. Yeah, I think it's a really underrated fish.

And you know, I mean, I think the people of Spain do a lot of good things with food. Yeah. They really, really know how to treat a dead pig. And you know, I mean, it must be exciting, I think, being a pig in Spain, thinking, you know, I mean, obviously you might, I don't know if you enjoy your life as a pig in Spain thinking you know I mean obviously you might I don't know if you enjoy your life as a pig but yeah to think what awaits you know what joy you will bring yeah that's what I had Spanish pigs go eat me yeah yeah yeah they do yeah they definitely go gobble gobble but yeah

Hager's a glorious fish but my my main course is a venison wellington, specifically a venison wellington made by the aforementioned wife. We used to have- So she's not invited to the meal but she is cooking the food. She's catering it. Insult to injury. You can bring in the venison wellington but you've got to leave straight away. Ridiculous to have another meal with you.

Don't look Jesus in the eye. Yeah, we used to do these New Year's Eve parties where we have about six or eight friends around and they'd give us 25 or 30 quid and we'd go and buy a mother load of food and cook an eight or ten course meal. Of which I was generally responsible for, I think it's fair to say, fewer than half of the courses. The Venice and Wellington, and to put this in further context, I'm pretty sure this was 2008 and we'd just had our second baby on the 15th of December. So this colouring

masterpiece was created two weeks after, wow, 16 days after giving birth. So it was pretty impressive. So it's a great big bit of venison fillet or loin, I can't remember which. And you have a sort of wild mushroom chicken liver pate around it wrapped in parma ham and then pastry and baked and it's, and then with us sort of sharp fruity sauce on the side and it was absolutely spectacular. That sounds good. Yeah. I mean, it's no secret on this podcast how much I love Wellingtons.

Yeah. We've done our dream menus twice now, 100 episode and both times I picked the same Beef Wellington as my main course. Oh, right. Okay. I can't get over it. Right. I think I'm coming to your house for New Year's Eve to show on episode 300 I've got a different main course. The Venison Wellington from Andy's house. It was glorious. Venison's a great meat.

It's a great meat. The Wellington format is one of my favourite formats. Was it named after the Duke of Wellington? Is that what he was nibbling out at the Battle of Waterloo? Look it up Benito. He's already on it. Yeah, I'm guessing he's already on it. Yeah, I'm guessing he's got a large part to play in the naming of it. Right. Because he's the boots as well, right?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So the Wellington boots are named after him. Yeah. Yeah. Because before that everyone just wore green flash trainers in that. Battlefields got off and get quite muddy. Yeah.

So we invented the key military edge. Yeah. Well, it's unclear and it's not defined on While historians generally believe that the dish is named after Arthur well as well as Lee first to good Wellington Yep The precise origin of the name is unclear and no definite connection between the dish and the Duke have been found There you go. I mean, it's just it's just the best pie. Isn't it? Really? Yeah. Yeah, it's a pie way You know, you're gonna get good feeling. Yeah, I mean in other wonderful main courses best pie, isn't it really? Yeah. It's a pie where you know you're gonna get good filling.

I mean, in other wonderful main courses I've had over the years in a few of the restaurants, the American celebrity, celebrity chef, Scluton Malvane, and in one of his restaurants had his signature thrice-slapshotted puck of ruthlessly executed, guiltless cow served on a sesame besieged matrice of yeast inflated in heat metamorph, wheat influenced dido, besourced with a deconstructed and reconstructed ketchupine rouge of tomate squiget, comfortingly blanketed with the rectangular time-right

and coagulated udder origin lactotum of maternal bovioid, or to give it its nickname, a cheeseburger. See, this is what I thought would happen every course. I thought Andy's going to have written a bunch of stuff that doesn't exist and we're going to have to engage with it. No, that exists. But Andy says it's a cheeseburger. It's a cheeseburger, yeah. I don't know if you've been to any of Malvane's restaurants. His Emoto Bistro, where each dish is intended to provoke an emotion as well as a flavor.

Right. Fantastic. Wow. Signature dishes include hollow-eyed haddock, pessimistically served on the resigned bed of feta compli seaweed, gunpoint served ransom of lamb's liver, frightened into a territory and presented with a harrowed memory of spirit broken split peas, and giggly hen sausages aroused in a pseudo-erotic catch up of seriously buff stripped tomatoes. They all sound quite nice. It was like you hit your threshold of saying stuff that was real. And then you're like, I've got it. Let me hang on. Let me just do this before we carry on. I've done nearly, nearly half an hour. Yeah, it's amazing.

Your two main passions are stats, which couldn't be more real. Yeah. Absolute bullshit. Absolute nonsense. I love it. On this New Year's meal, you said you, less than half the dishes you were responsible for. But what were those dishes? Well, the cold, the cold stuff. We haven't done it for quite a long time now, but I did want to make a very good cheesecake with, so it was like an Indian influenced cheesecake. Yeah. And so the, the sort of the topping had rose water and cardamom in it and sort of crushed pistachios on top. Nice. It was absolutely delicious.

Yeah. I don't remember. I mean, it did. That'd get you a Hollywood handshake surely. You'd think so. Yeah. Well, was it a, was it a baked cheesecake? Yes.

Oh, it was. Okay, good. I think so. Yeah there. To me it sounds like a one of those cold cheesecakes that you just do in the fridge Yeah, no, I think I baked it. I really can't remember it was a long time ago It was a Bollywood handshake. It was a Bollywood handshake. Oh lovely Absolutely brilliant Bollywood band shake. So fast. Not fast enough.

That was great. Bollywood handshake. He contested it to begin with. Is it baked? I'm not going to do the joke if it's not baked. It is. It's a Bollywood handshake then. Absolutely brilliant. Merry Christmas everyone.

And he's ultimate Christmas everyone. And he's ultimate Christmas dinner. Okay, can I, so I had possibly my greatest individual culinary triumph at Christmas in 2021. So I'll talk you through the menu that I did then. I was in Australia for the cricket with the BBC radio and it was still, you know, in the COVID times. And we'd been in Adelaide for the second test match and a couple of our team had had positive COVID tests and a couple of others, so they and two others had to isolate. So the two had the positive tests that were stuck in Adelaide over Christmas. Didn't get to Melbourne until after Christmas.

And two others had to isolate until I think done a week. And then they flew into Melbourne on Christmas day. And so I said, right, well, I'll do dinner. So there's three of us. And I went up to the Victoria Market in Melbourne, which you guys probably both, but amazing market. And I did a five course Christmas lunch, which I think was my greatest, in a little sort of apartment hotel with a fairly limited.

So the first course was, I mean, I say I cooked it, this was just assembling some hams and a bit of mozzarella. Yeah. Charcuterie board. Yeah, basically. Yeah. Then prawn and lobster risotto. Wow. Which was, I can't remember the recipe he was from, but basically roast up a load of prawn shells. Yeah. Make a stock out of the roasted prawn shells, cook the

risotto in the prawn shell stock and then cook off the actual prawns and a bit of lobster tailed to give it a bit of Christmas. And it was absolutely delicious. That sounds so good. But I know those apartment hotels and I ain't cooking fish in them. The bed is about four steps from the oven. Just the adina? It wasn't the adina, no. I can't remember which it was, but it was not an adina, I don't think. So that was the starter. Main course, we had one non-meat eater, so other than the ham starter, and there were

non-meat options on the charcoals, obviously. Did Japanese salmon with fried garlic shoots as a side Garlic shoots and oyster sauce the Japanese salmon marinated in Mirin some ketchup mannice some Shaoxing cooking cherry Decided to reference it again. Just marinate the salmon for half an hour and then cook it. Cook it hard but short. Yeah. More on the inside. Yeah. That sounds so good. Dessert was a chocolate and passion fruit mousse with a little mango fruit salad underneath and then

a load of cheese. So when I say I've cooked a five course meal, the top and tail were just organizing really arranging. But it was not your traditional Christmas meal. Excellent. But also like in that part of the world as well. Yeah. I think they're more likely to have like, you know, fish and stuff on Christmas.

It's boiling. I mean, it's not, yeah, they're not doing like Christmas dinners. The same as in your favorite, the Northern hemisphere. Yeah. It sounds incredible. I'd be so happy with that on Christmas day. I think I would love it. Especially being away from home and you don't think you're going to get like a

nice sort of sit down meal and then Andy Zoltman's whipping up a five-courser in his hotel room. Yeah, it was, yeah, I don't usually go that big on cooking. I love cooking, but I'll generally just riff stuff. Yeah. But yeah, that was a definite triumph. Did you call it a, we saw it ho, ho, ho.

Well, no, because we're in the southern hemisphere. So it goes backwards and it's not ho ho ho. Oh, oh, oh. I would bounce no more. Is that how Santa speaks in Australia? Yes, everything is ho ho ho. Oh, yeah. Speaks backwards.

Yeah. Well, that sounds good. I think that's a lovely Christmas meal. That sounds great. I want that for my Christmas meal this year. I would like that. Can you come round to either of our houses on Christmas day? Yeah, if the money's right. I think that's a lovely Christmas. That sounds great. I want that for my Christmas meal this year. I would like that. Can you come round to either of our houses on Christmas day? Yeah, if the money's right. If the money'll be right, you wait.

Yeah, I'll wait. Your dream side dish, Hans. Right, my dream side dish, does it have to be edible? So it could just be like a video of David Gowers cover drive. Yeah. To be honest, you can have that. I mean, I've had a Christmas special that we've done. They chose a non-edible course at one point.

So we have to let you. Um, does it have to go, does it have to be a side dish that compliments the main dish? No, not at all. This is your dream. If you don't mind, it's not complimenting. So, and I'm perfectly happy to serve whatever you're going to have on a VHS copy of David Gower's cover drive. Maybe we'll just serve it on a picture of David Gower's cover drive so we'll get that fact of the day.

What's a cover drive? Well, it's a... Okay, James. How old are you? I'm 39. The only thing I know about cricket is the Atherton rubbed dirt on the ball. Right, and that is true. He mentions that a lot. All right. That's all I know. We want a text group with some other comedians, a lot of them like cricket. Every time it comes up, I say, did anyone rub dirt on the ball?

I hope Atherton's nowhere near it because he's a cheat and he will rub dirt on the ball. Right. I mean, I think that's, you know, when you're just remembering that one incident from a really illustrious career of well over 100 test matches And you know one of the finest opening batsmen the 1990s which causes very difficult era to be an opening batsman was you know High-quality bowling around the world James. I think that's pretty unfair on athletes. Well, he let himself down. He should Is it cheating? Yeah Well, I'm ever on the boys it was it was yeah

I think he's acknowledged that it was not the right thing to do. There's more gamesmanship than... It's to make it spin funny, weren't it? The point is, Mike Atherton is absolutely beyond criticism as a human being. Yeah, obviously. What do you think about when the guy in Core Runnings put weights in the front of the bobsled to make it go fast? John Candy's character. That's the other thing I remember. About cricket.

So, well, on the subject of bobsleds, my side dish could be, well, two things. One is a whole mozzarella. I don't know why that's on the subject of bobsleds, but I think you could fit a mozzarella in a bobsled. You could probably turn it up. You could probably stick a couple in there. Is that how it was invented? Just rapid speed churning in a bobsled. You stick a couple in there I said was that how it was invented just rapid, you know speed churning in a

Milk in a bobsled and send it down the course. Someone was caught in a snowball fight and they weren't looking They were building their snowballs, but not looking at the snowballs and then they picked up some cheese by mistake Yeah, mmm board it up about to throw it. That smells different to me the Like a good mozzarella and obviously there's a there's a wide range of mozzarella. Yeah, but a good mozzarella, and obviously there's a wide range of mozzarella, but a good mozzarella, and I stayed with my wife in an agriturismo in Italy when our first child was about one. This is before the venison wellington.

Before the venison wellington. And it was an agriturismo attached to a buffalo farm. So we just had mozzarella pretty much every meal. And a good mozzarella, I think is one of the purest delights. The kind, you know, the big, gloopy, globular perfect, the kind of thing you want to bury your face in. Kind of cheese you want to climb inside and live in. You know, when you take a bite of a really good mozzarella, it makes you feel connected to the birth of the universe Yeah, I think yeah. Yeah, you'd like it like James the giant peach. Yeah, and the in the giant mozzarella Yeah, could you live in in mozzarella though? How quickly you gonna start eating your own house from the inside pretty quickly? Yeah, yeah, but I think you'd enjoy those minutes before you started eating your way

Yeah, what do you think of burrata then we've mentioned burrata a lot on the podcast I think you'd enjoy those minutes before you started eating your way out of the house. What do you think of burrata then? We've mentioned burrata a lot on the podcast and how it's basically the end of the mozzarella because people are like this is creamier, it's like mozzarella but better. Do you feel that way or is mozzarella still the king for you? Mozzarella is still the king for me but I like a mozzarella, I like a scamorza because I love the word. One of those words it's almost impossible to say without putting on a New York accent. Yeah. Well it sounds like it's the rank above Capo in the Mafia doesn't it?

Yeah. When you put on a New York accent. Yeah. John Oliver film more for at home. Does a whole mozzarella count as a side dish? Yeah, totally. Especially if it's on a picture of David Gower doing his cover drive. And you maybe chuck in some deeply tomatoish tomatoes, bit of olive oil, maybe a little tiny little... So it's not quite a caprese. You're not having basil leaves on it. Yeah, no, you could caprese it up, definitely. But the key is, it's just a mozzarella. Uncut.

Just a big blob of mozzarella. I had mozzarella last night, Andy. Yeah. Yeah, I was making... I had a steak steak and asparagus was making for myself all right, and I thought you know, I get some mozzarella get some tomatoes do that and Quite disappointing when I poured the mozzarella water out. Yeah, which I don't you might drink it. I just pour it away It's really small before you get a bed in your dream Quite disappointingly small mozzarella. Yeah, so I did have a whole mozzarella last night.

Yeah, because it was quite small. The really, really fresh ones. Yeah. I used to do it at the end of the Edinburgh Festival. After I did my last show, I generally mark the occasion by buying a mozzarella and eating it. Does Stuart Lee even more confused? Yeah. What's he doing now? by buying a mozzarella and eating it. Stuart Lee, even more confused. Yeah.

What's he doing now? The other option for my side dish is back to Spain for some octopus, polpo, ala galega, a bit of paprika. And again, it's, you know, slightly, I guess, you know, a lot of food is about memory, isn't it? And the first time my wife and I went to Northern Spain, we went to Galicia and we stayed in a beautiful world town called Pontevedra and had some octopus, which, you know, just basically cooked up fresh in front of us.

And yeah, again, I'd never even contemplated eating octopus before and it was, yeah, so delicious. And it's like grilled octopus. No I think it's just boiled actually. Okay yeah yeah. And a bit of oil on it but it's not. Yeah a little bit of paprika and also I mean there's a you know in terms of you know the evolutionary race the octopus is one of the most intelligent species that there is and

some people say oh you shouldn them. So, you know It's disrespecting an intelligent species. I say, you know, we are in an evolutionary race Yeah, if you don't eat an octopus, they're gonna evolve on there and overtake us You're very suspicious of the seeds. Yeah, I love the force over it did it with you. I know you should eat that Andy Yeah, quite clever. Yeah, we are in a new You should eat that Andy. They're quite clever. Yeah, we are in a new And picture yeah, I mean, I know you know not not strictly kosher But like I said, very very lapsed. There's loophole you've mentioned if you eat it, I thought you've mentioned poor products Yeah over 50 times. Yeah, that can't be if you're saying we are in an evolutionary race and then you

bow to the rules of religion, are you going to be in trouble there? So we've got an octopus versus cheese battle here, but I think I'm going to go with the cheese as my first. Yeah, well, yeah, both of those things obviously are delicious simple side dishes. I think out of those two as well, the mozzarella is the one that goes better with the Wellington. Yep. Would you like a mozzarella when Wellington? Like have a big thing of mozzarella and then cover it with olive oil and salt just all around it. Yep. And then basil leaves. Right. All around it and then the

pastry. Right. Or maybe hollow out a tomato that's slightly bigger than the mozzarella. You'd still need to cook parmaham, maybe a duck's head. I think me and Andy both think it's not going to work because it's just going to melt straight away, isn't it? It's not going to work. Heston might be listening to this and will think by Jove. Yeah. I mean, in terms of octopus, gluten-malvein, some wonderful octopus dishes.

I thought, I've sensed Andy had zoned out in that bit. If we did his doc, if we did his doc, he was teeing something up. His protestoront, which is the first protest themed restaurant in the world, where waiters take your orders by chanting through a megaphone, what do you want? And then you announce what you want and then theyhone, what do you want? And then you announce what you want and then they say, when do you want it? And you say, now. And then they go, oh, god. But amazing starters. It was a crusade of crudite, rioting rietes of real grouse, placards of Icelandic elk ham vitrioled with squid ink slogans and brandished on a Soviet-influenced sausage stick. And the main courses, I mean the octopus dish, which is a pastry-fenced occupations of octopus

right, pleased with carrot batons and swayed by a propaganda of lefty lettuce. Hard to look beyond that. So I mean the beef from around the world served overdone or underreported, they were pretty good. And force-fed opinions of sheep driveled in an evangelical sauce de raison d'hormes, redriveled the world, served overdone or under reported, they were pretty good, and force fed opinions of sheep driveled in an even gelified sauce de raison d'hormor, re-driveled in a half-baked tomato motto, that was also excellent. Cannot believe kettle chips isn't in there.

Absolutely waiting for kettle chips. Plum Grumble was excellent. Yeah, that's their nickname. And the Furious Banana Banners with an absolute fool, that was also good. Good, got that off your chest. was excellent. Yeah. And the Furious Banana Banners with an absolute fool. That was also good. Good. Got that off your chest? Yeah. You seen Finding Dory? The sequel to Finding Nemo? No, I've not seen it. I did see Finding Nemo when my kids were quite small. Octopus drives a truck in that. Really? In Finding Dory. Yeah. It just proves my point, doesn't

it? It proves my point. Yeah. We can't let that happen. It's eat or be eaten, isn't it? Yeah. That's what... We can't let that happen. Your dream drink, Andy? My dream drink, cup of tea. Yeah. So happy. Do you know what's nice? You're a very sweet man and everyone knows this and you have the same little self satisfied smile as the great Benito does. And I don't think the listener knows that Benito smiles every now and again he does. Yeah. But it's always when he said something he likes. It's always about his own thing that he's just said and your smile to himself really pleased with himself. It's a nice little U shaped smile and you'll smile to himself really peas and it's a nice little u-shaped

Smile and you've got the same one. It's just very sweet But this is specific cup of tea you're the specific cup of tea. Yeah, which is this way. I love tea Yeah, I think tea good good leaf tea is one of the greatest luxuries Because you buy one of the best teas in the world and it works out about 40, 50p a cup. It's cheaper than a tea bag at a station. Yeah. And you know the variety in teas, it's like wine is where it grows. I don't know if I'm allowed to mention brands or companies, but my chosen supplier of glass

A teas, Imperial Teas in. They have a fantastic shop, fantastic website with a little essay on all the teas and some of them come from, it's like a specific tree but a specific height halfway up a mountain somewhere in China. And my two favorite teas, one is one that they sell called honey honcha, which is like drinking optimism. And as the name suggests, it's got a sort of honeyish taste. That's the Chinese black tea. You can have it, you can like brew it long and have it with milk or brew it for a couple of minutes and have it on its own. Lovely. Glorious. And the other is a tea called opium hill, which I got from a French tea shop in Paris when I did a really weird BBC World show

with the American economist Max Kaiser, also featuring one of Boris Johnson's brothers. Yeah. And they paid not a great deal, but they did take you, you know, you had to get the EuroStar out to Paris, because it was filmed in Paris. Were the three of you on the same train?

I did share the train with Boris Johnson's brother, Leo. But anyway, then so basically did the, got the Eurostar over in the morning, back in the evening, did the recording. It's like a, I can't remember, 20 minute chat about the state of the global economy or something, I can't remember. But then I had like an afternoon in Paris and I went to this tea shop called Mariage Frère and got this tea called Opium Hill which is... Sorry about that. That's how it is when you bring a full PC into the studio I guess. That was his stomach again.

It's not run out of noises. It's so hungry. Full digital. It's what they call a blue tea, which is like an oolong from Thailand. That is like drinking liquefied truth. It's a tea that affects me on a deeply spiritual level. In the same way they're listening to muddy waters singing, I see that as the tea equivalent of the depth of... Ironically, that's how I see tea as the tea equivalent of the depth. Ironically, that's how I see tea. The depth is good. The depth of truth that you get.

It's no Bollywood handshake, but it's good. It's good stuff. So that would be my... I love it. Yeah. That's good. It's rare we've gone to such depth on tea. Yeah. We haven't had such an... normally people go, I just have a tea. I just like it. But that's lovely. And like, do you want to listen to muddy waters while you drink your tea?

Yeah, I mean, once, yeah, if you, and particularly if it's tea during the tea interval of a cricket match and you're listening to muddy waters, I mean, that's quite hard to see where humanity can go that would ever be better than that. Yeah, that's the end of the octopus. There's a certain disappointment in having done the greatest thing that could ever be done. Yeah. So maybe you want to leave that as a hypothetical rather than already have done it in the rest

of your life. Or you know it's the end. Yeah. You know it's the end. What a way to go, that would be. I mean, there's a lot of talk about, you know, assisted dying. But I mean, if that's, if you could do it like that, drinking a cup of opium hill tea listening to muddy waters in the watching cricket during a tea Any particular muddy waters song that you would you would want

Not a specific song but a specific album yeah, is Folk Singer, which is an acoustic album he did in the early 60s. Which had a buddy guy playing guitar in it as well. And that I picked up in Norton Cane Services on the M6 toll road for £3. Back in the days when cars had CD players. Remember that! Remember that! Yeah, put it on. I was already a big Muddy Waters fan

and, uh, that's beautiful. I'm going to listen to that after the record. Glad you're treating yourself to the toll road as well. Yeah, yeah, why not? Your dream dessert, we arrive at your dream dessert. Right. So again, a couple of options for this.

One is just some ice cream from a shop called Giolliti in Rome, which is near the Pantheon, an old Roman temple. And they just do fantastic, I mean, obviously, there's a lot of fantastic ice cream in Italy, but this, again, sort of, you know, specific family memories of buying ice cream and sitting next to this 2000 year old temple eating pistachio ice cream from... There's no way to talk about your wife from the gods particularly pistachio ice cream from there which I think a good

test of an ice cream is a good test of an ice cream shop yeah you can't nail a pistachio you've got no business test on ice cream shop. Yeah, you can't nail a pistachio. You've got no business A lot of people would say that about the vanilla they go if you want to test under it as you go for the vanilla But you're a pistachio guy. You want to see how good they do that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Why the pistachio? Well, it's I guess it's not too sweet. It's from mellow and smooth and rich deep flavor. You want to taste the roasted sort of nature of the pistachio, right? You want to get that flavor without it being overbearing. I agree with you, I love a pistachio. Same with a hazelnut as well as a good gelato to go for.

Peanut butter ice cream? Peanut ice cream? I'm not such a fan of that. No, no, no. Don't mind it. A good black fruit sorbet. I'm not a fan of that Good black black fruit sorbet Yeah, are you going cone or cup cup cup? Yeah. Yeah good. You've passed

Mean, you know, you don't get cones in cricket. They all wear a cup. Loves it. Your stomach is- I'm really struggling here. Well, you say you're struggling. I'm loving it every time. It's absolutely phenomenal. It was from the moment we started, it's non-stop. It's going crazy, Andy. It's going absolutely crazy on you. Is it a picked up on mic, Benito?

Surely it's been picked up on mic. That first one has to be picked up on mic. The first one was louder than Andy speaks. That frequency, yeah, it was a very high pitch frequency, cuts through all of us. Yeah, yeah. It's a very high pitch frequency. It's a very high pitch frequency. It's a very high pitch frequency.

It's a very high pitch frequency. It's a very high pitch frequency. It's a very high pitch frequency. It's a very high pitch frequency. It's a very high pitch frequency. It's a very high pitch frequency. It's a very high pitch frequency. Is it a picked up on mic, Benito? Surely it's about picked up on the mic. That first one has to be picked up on the mic. The first one definitely. The first one was louder than Andy speaks. That frequency, yeah, it was a very high pitch frequency, cuts through all of us. But that last one just then must do as well. It was quite a... Well, it's basically my, literally my internal monologue.

Yeah. About all of this. Yeah. How many flavors per cup is what, because sometimes I get excited and I'm like three scoops in a cup and then they all mix up Yeah losing the purity of it to his optimum. You can always you know, go back and yeah, yeah

Yeah, like a bonus. Yeah, if you've done well on the first two Yeah, I find it hard not to go free because I love ice cream so much Yeah, and I always I always go I should have just gone to like I was like now remember next time Just go for two because you know, that's enough and it's nice and they complement each other and Free is this always yeah too much ice cream and they're not gonna compliment each other as much as they got for you go in Different ways one of the best ice creams I've ever had was a vanilla ice cream a restaurant in London possibly Andrew Edmonds, and it just had Pedro Jimenez Sherry all on the top and Simple but divine. divine. I love it

I absolutely love stuff like that. Yeah with the with with the sherry poured on top. Yes proper. Yeah Yeah, yeah, vanilla ice cream with booze on it. Yeah, you know whiskey as well with like with that kind of ice cream Oh, it's great. But and I don't know if this counts as dessert But like a cheese trolley. Mm-hmm. Either or? Now listen. Here we go. This is the controversial point here, Andy. We have... Sorry, something's just wheeled the trolley.

I'm not even hungry. That was the sound of the... Big breath. That was the sound of the trolley wheels on the floor rolling along. Andy's more impromptu. This has never happened to me before. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Don't worry. It happens to a lot of guests.

It's great having two guests on. Um, the tummy. Um, so listen, for this transparency. Yeah. There's guests on the podcast before who decided that they want a cheeseball instead of a dessert. Yeah. I've gone absolutely apeshit at them. Uh, it makes me furious.

Ed and I have both on our dream menus chose a traditional sweet dessert and a cheese board and had them, you know, one after the other in whatever order. And we've had other guests do that. And we know you've got history with that after your Christmas meal in Melbourne. I like that because I do like doing that myself I like the cheese

courses either a bridge from the main course to the desert or afterwards by the fire with your friends just like taking your time with a cheese but that's fine if you have it in place of the ice cream especially because it sounds delicious your stomach is gonna be making way worse noises currently making I'm gonna I think this is Christmas episodes. It'd be shame to not give you the ice cream on the cheese. Right. Good. Be a huge shame. Yeah. So I mean, a good cheese board is one of dust. How does it work?

Stomachs run out of battery. And it's still bloody bleeped. Anyway, Stomachs really tired. Your stomach's on vibrate and your phone's on loud. So press the wrong button. One of my favourite ever cheese boards was in the Wandsworth restaurant, Shay Bruce, which is constantly rated one of the best, certainly in London and possibly the country. And we went there to celebrate when my wife and I found out she was pregnant for the first time.

So this is pre? Pre Wellington. Pre Wellington. Pre the Buffalo Mozzarella Farm. Yeah, but post Scullop. Post Scallop. Post scallop. We're doing the timeline of our new relationship. We went to celebrate and they have a fantastic cheese trolley there, but my wife just found

out she was pregnant so was unable to eat the, you know, a lot of the cheese ran past her eyes. So I just vaunted my cheese freedom in her face. And still one of the greatest moments of our relationship as far as I can see. Well maybe that's your dream meal. The person you're having it with is your wife while pregnant and you get to just like go absolutely wild and eat whatever you like. But in terms of, you know, we mentioned food showing the ingenuity of humanity.

I think cheese does that more than anything else. How humans have taken the idea of milk and turned it into thousands and thousands of cheeses. Yeah. I think, you know, that tells you, you know, a lion wouldn't do that. A shark wouldn't do that. Yeah. It took a very special species. One of the list of animals that wouldn't do it. A lion wouldn't do it, a shark wouldn't do it. It took a very special species to do that. Do you remember any of which particular cheeses that really?

I can't remember from that. I do like a strong blue cheese. So we've been to northern Spain on holidays quite a bit and the Cabrales cheese, I don't know if you've ever had that, it's from the north of Spain and it is a kind of combat level blue cheese. It's a kind of cheese that needs to be cordoned off It's borderline assault more than cheese. Yeah, but it's I mean that's quite spectacular. Yeah outstanding mimmolette in Paris once Stuck in a hard orangey cheese. Yeah, so you like the big big cheeses I do like yeah, I like a big cheese and smack you in the face. Yeah sort of cheese

Yeah, yeah, but I hear the worst joke you've ever said on this podcast? Go on. Cabral. This is Charlie Dimmick's favorite cheese But Charlie Dimmick, yeah, everyone's obsessed that she did blah blah blah. Yeah, it was like the main news in this country for ages Yeah, that's a topical comedian. Yeah, the Dimmick's Saltzman would have covered that every week. Yeah, would you would you've done? Well, look if it's in the news, you know, I have covered that every week. Yeah. Would you? Would you have done? Well, look, if it's in the news, you know, I have a sacred duty given to me by almighty's use to try and make jokes about it. Yeah. Full respect.

It's a curse as much as a gift. I'm going to read your menu back to you now and see how you feel about it. You would like sparkling water, of course, saving the planet. You would like two and a half poppadoms with chutney, all the chutney options, raw onions, grasshopper sauce of course, hot pickle. Starter, six dahi puris. Main course, venison wellington made by your wife on New Year's Eve. Your Christmas meal, this is the charcuterie board, the prawn and lobster risotto ho ho,

Japanese salmon, chocolate and passion fruit mousse and the cheese board afterwards. Side dish, whole mozzarella. On a picture of David Gower. Oh yeah, sorry, on a picture of David Gower's cover drive, which I still don't know what a cover drive is. Your drink is Opium Hill cup of tea from Paris while listening to folk singer by Muddy Water. Dessert, you would like a cup of pistachio ice cream from Jeliti in Rome and what was the other one is it just the pistachio you want in that cup?

I want to chuck in a, chuck in a sorbo. Chuck in that fruit sorbo that you said. Yeah. Do you know what I'm also going to chuck in the vanilla ice cream with the sherry on it. I'm just going to throw that in. Separate bowl. Because it sounds so great. Yeah.

I think you should have it. And then you want to follow that up with a cheese board from Chez Bruce while your wife is pregnant. Yep. Yeah. Sounds pretty good. It does. That does sound good.

Weirdly, me reading you that menu back was the quietest your stomach has been though. No. It completely stopped for the, for hearing the full menu. I think your dream menu is more Christmassy than your Christmas menu. Yes, that is quite. Does that sound good to you? That sounds excellent. Yeah, that sounds good

to me. Do we cook it now? Is that how the show works? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've got a little kitchen out there. And listeners might be like, no, you never do that. We actually do for the listeners. We always do an episode afterwards where we cook the meal and eat it We put those in the vault like prints does with albums. Yeah used to and we're gonna release them all posthumously. Yes Um, excellent. I brought my own day for the venison wellington. So oh, I was wondering what that was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, wrestle it to the death. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the best way to then it can you should ready tender eyes Yeah, we're in an evolutionary race. So I'm gonna take on that medicine. Also we release Some best of episodes at the end of the year, right?

Where we have all our favorite clips and there's gonna be a separate section is gonna be like we had Andy Zoltzman on to talk About Christmas there's gonna be all my favorite clips from this But then we will have a separate section saying But our most surprised guest was Andy's tummy. And then we'll just have a compilation of all of your tummy sounds. Yeah. Yeah. So we've got all the tummy sounds and then someone out there will undoubtedly auto tune

all those into some Christmas song. Yeah. Using your tummy gurgle. Yeah. Yeah. And you'll be able to play that every Christmas as a family be a new tradition. I think tummy gurgles plays baseball for the New York Forks. Anything you want to say before we go Andy?

Yeah, any more bullshit on the laptop for us? Yeah, I wouldn't want you to have written a whole dish out and we don't get to hear it. I think we've covered it I think. Oh, well, Malvane's got a new insect restaurant. Oh, well, there's, Malvane's got a new insect restaurant. Oh, fantastic. Oh, and he's got a new restaurant in Paris, which is an all-you-can-eat shellfish seducto brasserie

called Moulay Vu Buffet à Vague Moise as well. Yeah. He's got a couple of Christmas recipes he's just put out on social media. One is a regretful wood pigeon hand haunted in the memory of asparagate wrongdoings, bondage to a bed of covertly assassinated scallops and hard-punched potato faces. Or you can go with the high-speed car crash tenderised paragon of overbearingly mothered beef groin with a splenetic reductio, gruffly manhandle chanterelle mushroom willies and a pert bouncer of cabbage tits. But he's got a new insect, because obviously insects are going to be the future of food,

and his latest insect menu is a trio of breast of ladybird, filet de wasp and tarantula web snaffled moth sweetbreads heartened by a sauce squiggle-ish of fear-motivated larvae, then you've got an amuse-bouche of a ready-to-pop cocoon of caterpillar flouncing into a mouth-flutter of freshly buttered butterfly, and then a maggotine of swat-orphaned fly infants confronted by an encroachment of filth-fed cockroaches counterintuitive on a tally-a-tally of hand-splattered worms. Beautiful. Well, that's the future of food, people. Andy, thank you so much for

coming on the podcast. Andy Thank you Andy. Paul Pleasure. Thanks Andy. Merry Christmas. Well there we are. What a wonderful way to see Christmas, the Christmas period in. Andy Yes, with Andy and his very vocal tummy. Paul Oh my goodness, the tummy man. The tum. It happens a lot on the podcast, but maybe it would only happen once or twice. And it's often me, there'll be a little gurgle, but it won't, it'll go on reference because it's

quiet enough to get away with, but we just couldn't leave it because Andy's stomach was louder than his voice. The first one was so loud and then it didn't stop. Yeah. We had to, you know, not reference it every single time. Otherwise we'd still be recording. But like it happened so much. I'm very curious to see how often it is audible to the listener. I tell you what we're going to start having to do. Sorry, this is more work for you Benito. It's having three extra mics in the studio at tummy level. Yeah, you will have to do that and make sure they're at tummy level. Otherwise we'll be in trouble. I have a few guests complaining. Yeah.

Neither Andy or his tummy mentioned a wax lettuce. Yes. So that was good. That means we don't have to kick either of them out. Yeah, exactly. But don't forget to go and see Andy on tour with his brand new show the Zoltgeist touring nationwide Until the 9th of May at London's Leicester Square Theatre plenty of dates go and check them out on andyzoltzman.co.uk Thank you so much Andy for coming on again Ed do you want to do some food shout outs? We've had some food sent to us

Yeah we've had some lovely stuff sent to us Which we appreciate very much Always very grateful for it. We've had some kombucha from low bros and left field two different types of kombucha We're in you're a boot shed. I'm a boot shed. So I'm looking forward to contrasting and comparing these two brands Yes, like fine wines. Yeah, exactly like a fine wine of vertical tasting Both of them that is exciting. I like discovering new convicts. Yes, you know, I've shouted out my favorite one on the podcast before, but maybe this will be a challenge. We've got some great coffee as well from elsewhere coffee that Benito has described himself as lovely. Yes. He is a big fan of it. It's here in the, in the offices in Benito's office,

which he runs a pretty tight ship here. It does, but we get so much nice stuff that any guests coming in, they got the pick of the crop here. They got the pick of the crop and now they've got some lovely coffees to drink while they're waiting to talk to these two hunks. We got some beer from Pressure Drop, which Benito thinks got drunk at the Christmas party. He said thinks very uncertainly because clearly he had a bit of a rowdy one at the Christmas party.

Benito's gone on the Sherries. I didn't get to taste any of this pressure drop, but I like pressure drop. I've had their beers before. So I am happy to give a big shout out to pressure drop. Oh, lovely. Thank you. Pressure drop. Thank you.

Pressure drop. We got sent some grounded plant-based protein shakes. You drink that at home, don't you? I have drunk that at home and I didn't realize we got sent free ones until I came into the Christmas party and there was a box of it sat there. Well actually first time I saw it, Anya Magliano was walking around the party drinking it like it was a party drink and then said she was going to take the whole box and then messaged me the next morning saying I forgot the protein drinks.

Why was she drinking the Christmas party, the protein drinks? You met Anya right? I guess so but I mean is it because it's like a milkshake? Yeah, I guess so. It's the closest thing to a milkshake she could get. Yeah, yeah, that's fair enough. she was loving it needs must yeah, but they are there. I really like those and they help my gains We got sent some whiskey from compass box whiskey and a lot of fun James They put it in like a leather pouch with a padlock on it and you've got to solve the puzzle to open it to get to The whiskey that's more up your street than mine. Well, it wasn't up my street.

I worked out that the bag was quite loose, so I could just take the bottle out without opening the padlock. That's lateral thinking. Lateral thinking, that's in my bag. Thank you very much. Congratulations Ed, lovely whiskey. Ding ding.

Well, that's it from our Christmas specials, but fear thee not, we'll be back with best of the year episodes, as we always do. We do compilations of our favorite bits from across the whole year. And it's the best episode of the year. It's the best episode of the year episodes. As we always do, we do compilations of our favorite bits from across the whole year. And it's the best episode of the year. It's the best episode of the year. It's the only one James listens to while he cleans his house.

That should be the best of. Yeah. It's clips of the best of. Yes, that's true. Cause that's the best. It is. No, no, what we should include is that clipped up. But that's what it would be.

We should do another episode at the end of the year, which is clipped up the best of the best of. And then it just gets shorter and shorter and shorter. Until you get the best. Yeah. So looking forward to that. I hope everyone has a lovely Christmas period. Whatever you're doing, however you're celebrating, just have a lovely rest.

Yes. Look after yourselves. Bye bye. Bye. Gobble, gobble. Gobble, gobble. Cock-a-doodle-doo. Woo!