Tudor Kitchens, Hampton Court Palace, Surrey
Signage. Who needs signage? When the seductive aromas of frying bacon hit the jet stream, nostrils twitch, brain makes allowance for wind speed and off we go. The Tudor kitchens at Hampton Court Palace must be this way.
It was a cold dank morning with a heavy grey sky when I visited the Tudor kitchens at Hampton Court Palace, the sort of day when even a historic royal palace can seem like an assemblage of outbuildings on an industrial estate.
Only the maddening traces of a vague porky essence suggested something more substantial about the pedigree (Gloucester Old Spot, perhaps) of our location - the recently re-presented Tudor kitchens, which are designed to show the scale of production needed to feed a large Royal Court.
This was the big one, the invitation that all the other reviewers wanted, the chance to go to a live cookery demonstration, with all the obvious opportunity for a series of self-satisfying freebies. I even went without breakfast in the hope that I could provide a tasteful and discreet last resting place for at least half a suckling pig.
So imagine my horror when I discovered that access to this source of earthly delight had been denied to us by a thorny ring of health and safety legislation and a ruffian band of codpiece-laden cooks masquerading as live interpreters.
Yes, we can cook, but you can't touch. Yes, we can beguile you with our crispy edges and our soft eggy centres, but as for you, it's nil by mouth. But wait a while and you can witness all the painstaking research that helped us understand how the Tudors ate a fry-up. We'll show you how. It's a revelation.
There are lots of positive things to be said about the reinterpretation of the Historic Royal Palace's Hampton Court kitchens, but can you really cook in front of your visitors without expecting them to want to eat the fruits (and flesh and fowl) of your labours? For what is billed as a 'multi-sensory presentation', isn't the lack of any opportunity to sample the dishes being prepared more a case of sensory deprivation?
Then for the whole crew to scoff the lot in the midst of all the visitors. And that's just breakfast - if you can hang on until the afternoon, you can watch while they consume the dishes they prepared that morning.
I can see the problem. Health and safety may have something to say about the mass poisoning of busloads of French school kids. But wouldn't it have been possible to create some of the dishes in the health and safety-approved Privy Kitchen Coffee Shop next door?
As it is, I will go to my grave never having tasted Cream Bastard or Train Roast. I have no means of gauging the potential loss, but I do know that the ubiquitous 'pastries or a light lunch' of the coffee shop could not fill the yawning void.
So what works well? The interpreters are excellent, knowledgeable and thoughtful about Tudor ingredients and methods of cooking, and are able to give a broad sense of the hierarchy in the kitchens and the sheer scale of the operation of feeding the massed ranks of Henry's court.
I learned all kinds of new things about loaf sugar, marchpaine (a prototype marzipan, that looked equally destined for abandonment on the side of the Tudor plate) and the spice route to England (get off at Venice and wait for a connection), but only because I asked.
Otherwise, any other forms of interpretation are conspicuous by their absence: there are no graphic panels and no audio tour in the kitchens. There is no menu to explain what dishes are being cooked, which for the benefit of the interpreters would have eliminated the initial 'Blimey, what's that?' that must have initiated most conversations (at least the English ones, anyway).
At busy times, it must be easy to drift through the kitchens without having a clear sense of what was going on and without having any other means of knowing.
The search for authenticity is an interesting one. I could understand why all of the kitchen utensils were recreated from scratch, but I did struggle to see the point of the costumes, which are all equally authentic.
One final thought: although live food history may present its challenges, the replica stuff is still in an interpretation time warp. Even the buy-one-get-three-free rain-forest-decimating Brazilian rump steak to be found on our supermarket shelves bears more resemblance to real meat than the strangely shiny pink slabs of replica meat that adorn some static displays.
So well done Historic Royal Palaces for taking food to the people - but don't expect the people to thank you for eating your bacon butties in public.
Michael Wright is the head of marketing at the Museums Association
Project data
Cost: £120,000
Main funder: Historic Royal Palaces
Food research: Marc Meltonville, Richard Fitch (HRP) Buildings curator: Kent Rawlinson (HRP) Collections curator: Brett Dolman (HRP)
Project manager and interpretation manager: Polly Schomberg (HRP)
Hardware contractor: Integrated Circles
Software contractor: Motivation
Replica food: Replica Projects
Replica pewter: AE Williams
Replica ceramics: Hudson Claypotter
Metalwork: Robin Mitchener
Woodwork/furniture: Robert Hoare
Showcases and mounts: Blueprint Exhibitions
Graphic design: Andrea Chappell, Bridget Allison
Signage. Who needs signage? When the seductive aromas of frying bacon hit the jet stream, nostrils twitch, brain makes allowance for wind speed and off we go. The Tudor kitchens at Hampton Court Palace must be this way.
It was a cold dank morning with a heavy grey sky when I visited the Tudor kitchens at Hampton Court Palace, the sort of day when even a historic royal palace can seem like an assemblage of outbuildings on an industrial estate.
Only the maddening traces of a vague porky essence suggested something more substantial about the pedigree (Gloucester Old Spot, perhaps) of our location - the recently re-presented Tudor kitchens, which are designed to show the scale of production needed to feed a large Royal Court.
This was the big one, the invitation that all the other reviewers wanted, the chance to go to a live cookery demonstration, with all the obvious opportunity for a series of self-satisfying freebies. I even went without breakfast in the hope that I could provide a tasteful and discreet last resting place for at least half a suckling pig.
So imagine my horror when I discovered that access to this source of earthly delight had been denied to us by a thorny ring of health and safety legislation and a ruffian band of codpiece-laden cooks masquerading as live interpreters.
Yes, we can cook, but you can't touch. Yes, we can beguile you with our crispy edges and our soft eggy centres, but as for you, it's nil by mouth. But wait a while and you can witness all the painstaking research that helped us understand how the Tudors ate a fry-up. We'll show you how. It's a revelation.
There are lots of positive things to be said about the reinterpretation of the Historic Royal Palace's Hampton Court kitchens, but can you really cook in front of your visitors without expecting them to want to eat the fruits (and flesh and fowl) of your labours? For what is billed as a 'multi-sensory presentation', isn't the lack of any opportunity to sample the dishes being prepared more a case of sensory deprivation?
Then for the whole crew to scoff the lot in the midst of all the visitors. And that's just breakfast - if you can hang on until the afternoon, you can watch while they consume the dishes they prepared that morning.
I can see the problem. Health and safety may have something to say about the mass poisoning of busloads of French school kids. But wouldn't it have been possible to create some of the dishes in the health and safety-approved Privy Kitchen Coffee Shop next door?
As it is, I will go to my grave never having tasted Cream Bastard or Train Roast. I have no means of gauging the potential loss, but I do know that the ubiquitous 'pastries or a light lunch' of the coffee shop could not fill the yawning void.
So what works well? The interpreters are excellent, knowledgeable and thoughtful about Tudor ingredients and methods of cooking, and are able to give a broad sense of the hierarchy in the kitchens and the sheer scale of the operation of feeding the massed ranks of Henry's court.
I learned all kinds of new things about loaf sugar, marchpaine (a prototype marzipan, that looked equally destined for abandonment on the side of the Tudor plate) and the spice route to England (get off at Venice and wait for a connection), but only because I asked.
Otherwise, any other forms of interpretation are conspicuous by their absence: there are no graphic panels and no audio tour in the kitchens. There is no menu to explain what dishes are being cooked, which for the benefit of the interpreters would have eliminated the initial 'Blimey, what's that?' that must have initiated most conversations (at least the English ones, anyway).
At busy times, it must be easy to drift through the kitchens without having a clear sense of what was going on and without having any other means of knowing.
The search for authenticity is an interesting one. I could understand why all of the kitchen utensils were recreated from scratch, but I did struggle to see the point of the costumes, which are all equally authentic.
One final thought: although live food history may present its challenges, the replica stuff is still in an interpretation time warp. Even the buy-one-get-three-free rain-forest-decimating Brazilian rump steak to be found on our supermarket shelves bears more resemblance to real meat than the strangely shiny pink slabs of replica meat that adorn some static displays.
So well done Historic Royal Palaces for taking food to the people - but don't expect the people to thank you for eating your bacon butties in public.
Michael Wright is the head of marketing at the Museums Association
Project data
Cost: £120,000
Main funder: Historic Royal Palaces
Food research: Marc Meltonville, Richard Fitch (HRP) Buildings curator: Kent Rawlinson (HRP) Collections curator: Brett Dolman (HRP)
Project manager and interpretation manager: Polly Schomberg (HRP)
Hardware contractor: Integrated Circles
Software contractor: Motivation
Replica food: Replica Projects
Replica pewter: AE Williams
Replica ceramics: Hudson Claypotter
Metalwork: Robin Mitchener
Woodwork/furniture: Robert Hoare
Showcases and mounts: Blueprint Exhibitions
Graphic design: Andrea Chappell, Bridget Allison
