Customer Reviews

Heston Blumenthal: The Biography of the World's Most Brilliant Master Chef.

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Just to outline my severe dissapointment in this book. How someone from out of left field like Blumenthal could be dished up like this is beyond me. More than half the book is simply a very lengthy synopsis of his TV series. One gets the firm impression that Chaz has never met the man and offered pretty much no fresh insight or thought on what is possibly the most contructive approach to cooking for ages. Do yourself a favour . Want to know about Blumenthal. Just get his fat duck cook book it tells you all you need to know.
its telling that Chaz mentions in his thankyous a nod to a cafe in Amsterdam. Might explain a few things.

Although a biography of Heston Blumenthal should be fascinating too much of this book was a blow by blow description of what happened in various tv shows - not behind the scenes but what could be seen on screen. Badly written and badly spelt too. I had problems finishing the book.

It is likely that much of this book has been derived from Heston's own writings and from watching his TV programs, but Heston is such an interesting personality that it would be difficult for anyone to write a boring book about him.

The book has some amusing typographical errors; "sanitary" rather than "salutary" (unless this was a very poor attempt at a joke), "pallets" instead of "palates", and "foul" which are plucked. The Oxford English dictionary lists 7 alternative spellings of "cockatrice", so this book is inventive in adding "cockentrice" to that list.

It seems odd that references to "early reviews" should mention one published in 2006 (this can't have been "early", so was the date misprinted?). There were occasional references to names and facts with no explanation, and at times I reread the earlier pages, assuming that I hadn't been paying proper attention, but I found nothing. Presumably the author knew what he meant.