Planet Earth can be divided into the places you would expect to find Ben Fogle and those you wouldn’t. Seeing the blond blue blood in the Sahara in a vintage Land Rover; or wearing an oversized Aran jumper outside a badger set on Countryfile – no surprise whatsoever.
And then there are those places where Fogle’s presence would be completely stupefying. The Ocado & Beano Food Waste Cookbook (free online download, and in October’s Ocado Life magazine) is one of them.
The premise of the book is sound. It details five recipes kids can help make at home, presented by characters from a long-running comic that still has some kudos with children.
But why Fogle? He’s written children’s books, but the audience isn’t to know the author. They’re not tuning into Channel 5 late at night to watch him meet eccentric off-gridders in New Lives In The Wild. Nor is he an Ocado ambassador (that’s Nigella Lawson) or someone with prior links to The Beano (the accompanying press release saying he loved being “Beano-fied”). Enquiries from The Grocer went unanswered.
The recipes certainly have kid appeal, like Nearly Gone-offee Pie or Jammy Dodger French Toast. Although expectations of what an average family might have otherwise thrown out are ‘très Ocado’. The pie, for example, requires two packets of Biscoff Cream Sandwich biscuits.
There are some handy food waste avoiding tips, delightfully corny jokes and great illustrations.
But sincerely: why Fogle? Why here?
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