Heaven alone knows what possessed the BBC to allow Mabel, Doris
and Alice – the exceptionally ugly weird sisters who were the residents of
Blasted Heath Cottage – to take part in their MasterChef cookery show. Perhaps
it was a misguided belief that any reference to the works of William
Shakespeare would be good for the ratings, or maybe some magical and
other-worldly influences had been brought to bear on the officials who decide
these things.
Whatever the reason, the fact remained that the MasterChef
kitchen, presided over by the revered John Torode and Gregg Wallace, found
itself hosting some unexpected equipment in the shape of three enormous
cauldrons as well as the usual cooking facilities. Questions were raised about
the health and safety implications of allowing cooking to take place on open
fires within the confined space of the MasterChef studio, but – once again –
the people with the power to decide such matters seemed to become strangely
willing to put aside any objections, and they were also persuaded to change the
theme music for the series to “I put a spell on you”, which was appropriate if
nothing else.
As the rounds progressed, the other entrants fell by the
wayside one after the other. It might possibly have been that their dishes were
considered too unoriginal by the judges when set against what Mabel, Doris and
Alice had to offer. After all, none of them could compete with the delights of bat
wing surprise or dog tongue upside down cake. Alice’s newt and lizard turnovers
were declared the star dish of the third show, and nothing could compare with
Mabel’s adder’s fork ice cream in the semi-final.
At least, everyone said that these entries were the best
things they had ever tasted, and that included all the guest gourmets who came
on to the show at various stages. Was any undue influence brought to bear on
their judgments in the form of strange incantations uttered over the cauldrons
just before the tastings took place? Who could possibly tell?
The final was therefore fought out between the three
witches, who now found themselves in competition with each other as opposed to
cooperating to get rid of the other entrants. Sisterly love soon gave way to
sibling rivalry and no tactics were considered too underhand to be attempted.
Of the three final dishes, Mabel’s was clearly not going to
win. The added ingredients supplied by Doris and Alice, when Mabel’s back was
turned, had a devastating effect on the BBC presenters when they passed by and
sniffed at the cauldron – all John Torode’s hair fell out and Gregg Wallace
suddenly found himself sporting a luxuriant set of dreadlocks that reached down
to his waist. The make-up department had a terrible time getting the pair back
to their usual appearance, and Mabel was promptly dismissed from the show.
Doris had prepared a new approach to brunch, which was to
combine breakfast and lunch on the same plate, in the shape of fairly
traditional muesli laced with strips of raw yak meat. Doris being Doris, the
muesli had a few added ingredients in the shape of dragonfly wings and chopped
hedgehog spines, but it was definitely the pieces of yak that made Doris’s dish
stand out as the main contender for the top prize. As usual, John Torode
questioned whether it was sufficiently seasoned, but that appeared to be the
only objection.
Alice was incensed. After all the effort she had made to get
the right rats for her take on ratatouille, she had no intention of seeing her sister
steal what she saw as her rightful crown. Doris knew all about doctoring a
rival’s entry, so there was no way she was going to allow Alice to get close to
hers. Alice had no choice but to win by bribing the judges.
And that was what she did. As mentioned above, Alice had
come to the show with a consignment of rats, and not all of them had been used
in her dish. Indeed, she discovered just before the broadcast that some of them
had given birth to litters of baby rats and she therefore had considerably more
than she started out with. Her rats were direct descendants of those that that
caused such devastation by spreading the Black Death in the 14th
century, as were the fleas they carried that were the real culprits.
Alice had the very weapon she needed. If she was not given
first prize by the judges, she only had to release her highly fertile vermin
for Black Death Number Two to be let loose on to the streets of London. She
therefore had a quiet word with John and Gregg, urging them to favour her
ratatouille over Doris’s unusual brunch. The words she actually used had seemingly been
provided for that very purpose by William Shakespeare when he wrote Twelfth
Night:
“If muesli beef’s the food you love, plague on!”
© John Welford
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