Bompas and Parr are known best as the jelly mongers, molding jellies into interesting shapes such as well known buildings (like the Gherkin) and even glow in the dark jelly (this one for a Mark Ronson birthday party.) You can tell that these guys are all about innovating with food – but not just what you consume but how it smells, the textures, the tastes etc. For a few days only their latest venture is The Complete History of Food.

Pat and I had no idea whatsoever what to expect – all we knew was that we had to turn up at a particular time, that we’d get some food and, being sponsored by Courvoisier, a fair amount of alcohol!

The event was being held in a house on Belgrave Square. It turned out that every floor represented some decade in the history of food. The first room was our introduction. There was a guy there who was going to assess our “humours” – which apparently dictate whether your body was in harmony.

He would assess which humour was more dominant than the rest and based on this he would prescribe you a restorative. If you were:

Choleric you would get Cabbage (white wine, caper, artichoke) paired with a Courvoisier Exclusif Rose Water.
Melancholic you would get Popsicle (lemon, sorrel) paired with a Courvoisier Exclusif pear and Cardamom Sidecar.
Phlegmatic you would get Popcorn (truffle, porcini) paired with a Courvoisier Exclusif Apricot Martini
Sanguine you would get Fig (Beetroot, port, vanilla) paired with a Courvoisier Exclusif Spiced Meade with celery bitters

The mixologists and chefs from Saf were responsible for the restoratives and was served to us in a flooded Banqueting chamber. I tell you I hadn’t even started drinking yet and it was a challenge to walk into the chamber without losing balance – the threat of the water was real! But no one fell in which was good.

This was the Medieval period by the way. The next was the Contemporary where we took a lift all the way to the top floor! Actually the lift was a good thing because it basically broke up the group so Pat, myself and two other people (who where from New Zealand and were very friendly) had the top floor to ourselves for the next experience. Up here the treat was representing the current bounty of good food that we have in the world today. The Rocher a l’Or (Michelin starred chef Aiexis Gauthier of Gauthier Soho’s take on a “Ferroro Rocher”) was a port reduction centre, surrounded by duck foie gras, coated with caramelised almond and rolled in gold leaf. This was paired with a flat champagne cocktail with a fizzy grape (from mixologist Paul Tvaroh of Lounge Bohemia.) I really liked the idea behind the fizzy grape which was a surprise to the tongue and mouth.

From Contemporary we headed down to the Early 20th Centry where we were faced with a bouncy castle designed like the inside of a stomach! It was very funny! The message here was about the increasing consciousness about the effects of food on the body. The stomach showed someone who had eaten a TV dinner … which was our next stop.

The 1950s and the world of mass production and technology. This was really cool – no food here but a scratch and sniff TV dinner! Chicken, Chips, Peas and Generic Strawberry Pudding. It was very effective!

After this TV Dinner and our work out in the bouncing stomach we were starting to work up quite an appetite so we were very happy to see that our next meal was the Iguanadon dinner. The stories goes that on New year’s Eve 1853 Anatomist Richard Owen and sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins teamed up to recreate life-size models of dinosaurs, the first in the world, at Crystal Palace to which 22 leading scientists were invited to dine in and around.

The food from Bistrotheque was lovely: duck confit with lentils, beetroot, black champagne sauce. The duck was cooked perfectly. Accompanying our meal was Josephine’s Tea Garden by Ben Leggett: Courvoisier Exclusif with green tea, apple juice and elderflower cordial, garnished with fresh mint leaves and citrus wedges. Refreshing but I’d had too much alcohol at this stage and passed it on to Pat!

Finally we entered the Renaissance. We walked in this room which was overwhelmingly pink and fully of dessert! This was inspired by the time the Earl of Leicester tried to woo Queen Elizabeth I with an entire garden full of dessert (over 300!) This was also of the introduction of sugar hence our dessert of candied Orange, iris Jellies and Ambergris Posset with Courvoisier XO. The Ambergris is actually the vomit of sperm whales and is a highly sought after ingredient in the perfumery world – as it ages it gets more fragrant. Apparently it makes a good flavouring in food too with some claiming its an aphrodisiac! Oh – I forgot to say there was a “biometric jelly” in this room where you put your finger into this electric monitor and once it picks up your heartbeat the jelly above it starts to jump around. Quite funny.

The experience tonight was extremely cool. It takes ordinary dining to another level and gave it an interesting twist. For the alcohol lovers you get quite a bit of alcohol and for the foodies there’s quite a representation from various fine dining providers in the London so you get a bit of both worlds. Great fun.