Ms Marmite Lover Bacchanalia at Blacks

“Follow the pineapples” Ms Marmite Lover announces, holding one under each arm like dumbbells. Resplendent in a mustard yellow dress (echoing the colour of a Marmite jar), flame red hair prettified with a black fascinator, and a frilly white pinny, Ms Marmite Lover, otherwise known as Kerstin Rodgers, leads her guests up the wooden staircase of Blacks members club in Soho, and into its power blue dining room.

My first encounter with Ms Marmite had been in the same room three months prior, when Tom Parker Bowles had whipped up Tequila-fueled Mexican feast with a little help from chef Alberto Figueroa. After the lunch, while a few guests remained drinking the dregs of their wine and eking out the afternoon, Ms Marmite had educated my friends and I about the joys of “figging”. We listened incredulous. Historical examples of horses were given, along with a suggestion that red chili works just as well as root ginger in achieving the desired affect.

I digress. With Ms Marmite Lover pulling the apron strings, I was curious as to what I’d be served – would ginger make it onto the menu? Opting to take the 18^th century as a theme in homage to the Georgian townhouse playing host to our reveries, Rodgers explains that in the 18^th century, pineapples were the height of luxury. Much like a Louis Vuitton handbag today, the tropical fruits, grown in hot houses in Bermondsey, were excruciatingly expensive, and thus seen as the epitome of chic. Ladies could even pay to hire a pineapple for a few hours to serve as a centerpiece on their dinner tables in order to uphold the appearance of a luxury lifestyle, returning them after the meal.

Our feast begins in a sober fashion with unctuous lemon barley water. Thick with sugar, it tastes like lemon curd. Huge platters filled with fiery orange fritters then emerge, and are quickly devoured by the hungry crowd. “Gentlemen used to cook these on their bedroom fireplaces,” says Rodgers. “A dangerous pursuit,” I venture. The fritters are magnificently moreish – the batter light and crispy, the centre soft and gooey, and filled with those faithful bedfellows: pea and mint. Accompanying the fritters is celery soup with truffle oil, which, according to Rodgers, served as 18^th century Viagra. Slightly too cold, it’s refreshing and redeemed by the richness of the truffle oil.

Mid-feast, Rodgers explains that while seasonality is trendy today, in the 18^th century it was the poor who ate seasonally because they couldn’t afford to eat any other way. The lunch continues with an 18^th century classic that has Blumenthal written all over it: Stargazy Pie, served with garden peas and vermicelli. The pie is a visual spectacle, recalling the theatre of 18^th century cooking. While there aren’t four and twenty blackbirds backed in it, I count no less than five fish heads peeping out of the pastry.

I fail to notice them at first, and get quite a fright when I scoop a head onto my plate. Being so visually close to what you’re eating is an odd experience. As diners, we like to distance ourselves from the animals our food comes from. The Stargazy Pie brings you face-to-face with your plate mate and its unfortunate fate. Eating the rustic concoction was like going back in time to an era I’m not sure I’d want to live in.

Luckily, many a sweet treat was to follow, beginning with black pepper strawberries and a sugar mountain piece montée of profiteroles stuffed with orange flower water and drizzled, Jackson Pollock style, with toffee. Notching our sugar intake up to dangerous levels, we’re then offered tuck shop style salted caramels and sugar-coated candied orange peel. Both look and taste of childhood.

Rounding the lunch off with a fiery Bloody Mary, I step out into the summer sunshine and pontificate about the pineapples. Which foods today are considered the height of luxury – Lobster? Caviar? Foie Gras? Truffles? And more interestingly, what will the luxury foods of tomorrow be? In colonial times, lobster was considered poverty food in America, and was often fed to prisoners and servants. The law even limited the number of days lobster could be fed to prisoners before it became abuse. Today ordering lobster off a menu is the ultimate display of decadence. The beauty of food is its cyclical nature – you can never predict what’s around the next culinary corner.

Jerez Feria in pictures

For three days in mid May, I was lucky enough to experience the unbridled madness of the Feria de Jerez first hand. During a year abroad in Spain, I'd made it to both the Seville and Granada ferias, but they pale in comparison to Jerez. The Jerezanos live and breathe the feria each night as if the world were about to explode. Following the bright lights, on arrival you're greeted with a cacophony of Spanish sounds, as Sevillanas flamenco music blasts from the hundreds of casetas lining the sand-filled main stretch.

The party lasts a week. By the end, everyone seems to have lost something – Gonzalez Byass GB head Martin Skelton lost his voice, John Chapman of The Oxford Wine Company his passport – and me, my Jerez feria virginity. But perhaps it's in pictures that the feria can best be captured. Below are the edited highlights from three intoxicating days under the Spanish sun. Hemingway would be proud...

The sea of lights make the night appear day, illuminating the casetas
Lanterns adorning the ceiling in the Gonzalez Byass caseta
GB's Andrew Sinclair initiating me in the ways of the Rebujito (Tio Pepe & Sprite), and incredibly popular and refreshing feria drink
In the early hours of the morning, a señorita belts out a flamenco tune
A lady in traditional flamenco dress takes time out from dancing
A galleon full of prawns at the Gonzalez Byass winery, where we ate our way around the world
Caviar canapés in engagement ring boxes - a quirky touch during a curious culinary adventure
I got two proposals that night!
Gonzalez Byass GB head honcho Martin Skelton enjoying the puds
Toothpaste tubes filled with chocolate begging to be squeezed...
A señor enjoys a Cuban cigar while awaiting entry into the bullfight
With the sun high in the sky, the seats quickly fill up and the flags come out in anticipation of the matadors
Dressed in their trajes de luz (suits of light) the matadors file out and do a pre-fight glory lap of the ring
A pair of señoritas dressed in opposing orange and green make their way to the feria through the sun drenched streets of Jerez
A besuited caballero takes a break from parading through the feria
At night the feria comes to life, when the lights look almost lace-like
Soaking up the experience: my Shawshank Redemption moment

Molecular cocktails: it's all in the mix

Ferran Adrià started the hydrocollised  ball rolling, then Heston got in on the act and now mixologists are the latest to dust off their test tubes and try their hands at molecular gastronomy. 

For the month of October Hush bar in Bond Street are offering a six-strong molecular cocktail menu devised by a duo of not-so-mad scientists Pedro Solorzano and Boris Ivan - the Blumenthals of the cocktail world.

During our mixology masterclass they seem keen to point out that the secret behind creating the perfect molecular cocktail is getting the quantities spot on. Too much alocohol and the cocktails won't freeze, too little and you've got a mocktail. 'You have to take all the elements out of the cocktail, separate them and reintroduce them in a different way', says Solorzano. 'The key is to keep the elements separate by mixing them at the correct speed', adds Ivan. 

First up I learn how to make a Piña-Cavia-da (a Piña Colada festooned with tiny rum-filled caviar-like balls). A syringe is thrust into my hand and I'm handed a white tub full of calcium chloride flakes. Flashbacks to grammar school chemistry lessons and the nightmare that is the periodic table ensue. I mix 1 1/2 spoons of the flakes into a glass of water and give it a good stir while filling my syringe with a sweet gloopy mixture of rum, apple juice and sodium. 

I then syringe drops of the rum mixture into the 'calcium bath', which makes the rum emulsify into tiny hydrocollised balls. A full syringe only gives you a teaspoon of balls - molecular cocktails are an intricate art and demand extreme patience on the part of the maker.

Pedro whips out a tub of pineapple and coconut sorbet from the fridge and spoons it into a martini glass, sprinkling it with the hydrocollised rum. It's not something you can really drink, more an alternative pudding. I plunge my spoon in, making sure I get a good dose of the rum caviar. It's hideously sweet, but the balls do taste of the Element 8 rum they were made with.

I also try my hand at the Caipiroli (a Caiprini shaped like ravioli), made from a mixture of rum, lime juice, syrup, green food colouring and sodium alginate. Dipped in the calcium bath, the mint green mixture is frozen for 10 minutes in a square mould. It's much stonger than the Piña-Cavia-da, and considerably more appealing to the tastebuds, especially when paired with the suggested green apple slices. 

Another molecular delight on the list is the B58 - a take on the B52 with the usual Baileys and Kahula and a shot of rum foam that explodes in the mouth. The glammest cocktail has to be the Element Fizz, a mix of Prosecco, rum and Grand Marnier caviar that floats ebulliently round the glass chasing the bubbles.

'We're off to Spain tomorrow to showcase the cocktails in Barcelona', Boris informs me, as he dips into the fridge and brings out his latest experiment – strawberry beer sorbet. 'We're planning on pouring it into the beer bottles and serving it like that. I want to bring all the elements of the kitchen back into the bar. The bar is the new kitchen'.