Edwardian Supersize Me
Times restaurant critic Giles Coren, on his experience being chosen by the BBC to dress, drink and eat like an Edwardian gentleman for an entire week:
There can have been no better time for a chap like me to be alive. So what an enormous stroke of luck that the BBC were looking for someone to send back to that very era — to live, dress, exercise, eat and drink like an Edwardian man of means — to find out what it did to his girth, his arteries, his inner organs, his digestion, his mood, his very soul. Some guinea pigs might have been daunted by the prospect of four whopping meals a day, rivers of grog and hardly any fruit, vegetables or water for an entire week. But not I.
Coren and his co-presenter Sue Perkins were featured on an episode of the series The Edwardians — the Birth of Now titled "Edwardian Supersize Me". On just their first day of Edwardian life, breakfast took so long that the chef rang the lunch bell before they were through; including a roast chicken taken at midnight, in the manner of Edward VII himself, Coren ended up consuming about 5,000 calories during the course of the day!
