If at the turn of the millennium you’d told TV producers that Mary Berry would be the face of BBC cookery programming in 2023, they would have thought you were joking.
Back then, young gun Jamie Oliver was still known as the Naked Chef and Nigella Lawson had carved her own niche conflating food and sex. Coiffed and sensible, Berry was most definitely not the future.
The Great British Bake Off changed all that, of course. And Berry’s loyalty in not following Bake Off to Channel 4 in 2017 has been amply rewarded by the BBC ever since. Her latest programme, following hot on the heels of her recent series, Mary Makes It Easy, is Mary Berry’s Highland Christmas.
Dame Mary’s mother was Scottish and she enjoyed childhood holidays north of the border, as did her children. That familiarity with the landscape doesn’t stop her being filmed arriving in the Highlands on a steam train like a wide-eyed tourist, complete with a bagpiped greeting at the railway station. This Brigadoon-infused view of Scotland is indicative of what follows in the rest of the Christmas special.
From the railway station, she heads to tennis star Andy Murray’s five-star hotel near Dunblane; Murray himself is in situ (as indeed you would be for such a massive free advert). Explaining that his culinary speciality is “eggy bagels” and that he eats sushi for Christmas lunch (“I think it’s a ‘no comment’,” says Berry), she shows him how to knock up smoked haddock kedgeree.
Berry is also introduced to Murray’s grandmother, Shirley, whose legendary shortbread accompanies her grandson on his tennis tours. There’s even an Andy Murray joke to bring out at the dinner table next week when the Christmas cracker gags fail to land. What time does Andy Murray go to bed? Answer: Ten-ish.
Dame Mary next finds herself in a forest with comedian Iain Stirling wearing a long white flasher’s mac. This slightly sinister set-up leads into a meeting with some reindeer and a jolly sleigh ride. No context is given as to who is rearing these reindeer, or where and why.
But never mind – this is a cooking programme and it’s soon back to the kitchen, Berry showing Stirling how to make a cheese fondue – useful apparently for dipping Christmas lunch leftovers like brussels sprouts and pigs-in-blankets. Not for everyone, I imagine.
Singer-songwriter Emeli Sandé is the last of the Scottish celebrity “friends” to receive a cookery lesson, this time in the art of making a bûche de Noël. It’s the sort of fiddly chocolate roulade creation that most of us would buy ready-made from a supermarket.
In fact, there’s rather too much cookery being demonstrated in this hour-long special. After a while, it all becomes a bit indigestible – like a stodgy Christmas pudding after roast turkey and all the trimmings. I prefer the more bite-sized half-hour tips and tricks Berry delivers in Mary Makes It Easy.
That said, I still like Dame Mary better than Jamie Oliver. She’s less boastful and (as befits someone trained in domestic science) her instructions are so precise that – if you took notes or watched on demand – you could easily recreate her recipes without buying the accompanying cookbook. No weights, temperatures or timings were held back.
And it would be a miracle if Jamie, Nigella and the rest were still going strong at the age of 88. Dame Mary was recently quoted as saying that she had no intention of retiring anytime soon. Prue Leith, at 83, is a relative spring chicken.
Anyway, I’m going to try Berry’s kedgeree recipe this Christmas. I wonder if Andy Murray will too. I suspect not.