It goes without saying that commissioning a cooking show hosted by an automotive journalist without a single culinary credential sounds like a disaster waiting to happen - and May seems to agree.

This is not true if you're making a programme about science or engineering or car history, where you have some authority, but I'm working on a cooking show, where I avowedly can't cook anyway, so everybody is part of the advisory committee and it does get bloody annoying, quite quickly. While unhealthy snacking is somewhat inevitable during filming for Top Gear and the Grand Tour, it seems May and co have not been entirely fuelled by Liquorice Allsorts. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. His descriptions are more extensive, and his interactions with the crew and resident “food economist” Nikki range from charming to hilarious.It possibly informs your palate in some way - but I'm in danger of sounding pretentious and like a foodie. I love haute cuisine as much as the next food snob, but if I can find new ways to make Spam or alphabet soup work, then I am all for it. Other projects have taken him to the edge of space, forced him to share a caravan with Oz Clarke and seen him attempt to fly with a jetpack on his back. I do have a secret fondness that goes back to when we used to make Spam and beans when I was a teenager," he remembers.

May isn’t exactly fond of the way that cooking shows are normally filmed, so he fills the time with his usual brand of random facts about things like history and his life. Pour boiling water halfway up the roasting tin, just to the base of the pudding, and cook in the oven for 30–35 minutes. We had not much food and we came across a bothy in the frozen wilderness that hadn’t been used for decades.The weird thing about making food on the TV - I suppose it's also true of driving cars on TV - but the two things that are so vital to your appreciation of food are smelling it and tasting it, and none of those come across on television.

Whether you're looking for some textbooks for university, the latest biography or a travel guide - you'll find what you need in our categories. He also likes to show you the bits of television production that you normally don’t see, so you’ll see him talking to the crew and complaining about how long they’re taking to get the perfect shot when he just wants to eat the food he’s managed to cook.If, like James May, the sight of the kitchen strikes fear into your very heart and you can't identify a spatula from a fish slice - t . The advantage of this home recipe is that, after eating it, you don’t have to wander the streets of an unfamiliar German city trying to find your hotel. The remaining gimmick, of having home economist and proper cook Nikki Morgan being kept in a cupboard, brought out to help him with tricky bits, leans hard towards the latter.

In press interviews released alongside the first series, May stated that he would like to film a second series of the programme abroad, saying he would be interested in learning how to cook a "proper American breakfast".is a fool-proof manual packed with more than 60 delicious recipes for even the most basic of home cooks. It didn’t take long to realise that this was an extended piss-take of Jamie, Nigella, Nigel, Delia et al, and quite a good one at that. And then, in case we get the wrong idea, he makes tinned alphabet spaghetti on toast, explaining that the final ingredient is made “in the toaster”. Pavilion Books Commissioning Editor Cara Armstrong has acquired North-london based chef Hasan Semay’s (a. His publishing team is even part of the first episode (that’s why everything has to be on white plates, May tells us; book people demand it), sampling his Thai chicken noodle soup and sitting in the audience laughing at the self-referential gags.