The imaginary onion

If, like me, you were a student in the early 90s (or someone else whose lifestyle allowed them to stay up until the small hours) then you'll no doubt be aware of the fantastic late-night cookery show Get Stuffed which may well be one of the cheapest TV shows ever made - excluding anything ever aired on Live! TV, course. Having realised that nothing on their late night schedule comes close to recreating the glory days of Get Stuffed (which would usually be followed by other high quality TV like American Gladiators and Renegade) ITV are now showing repeats of it in the middle of the night, allowing a whole new generation to discover just how to make rather simple food with ingredients usually picked up from a nearby Happy Shopper store.

There's some interesting information on the website, including a few sample recipes and the history of the show, including how the first Gulf War was to blame for the whole thing, and how not to do a TV cookery demonstration:

What happened in front of the cameras remains indescribable but it had nothing to with a television cookery demonstration. Food was dropped on the floor, essential utensils suddenly broke, ingredients got burnt or simply lost in the mess. At one point, an onion had to be chopped and added to a mixture, but the onion had somehow fallen off the presentation desk and got lost on the floor. The answer was for Last Ditch TV to demonstrate the chopping of an “imaginary” onion. The concept of imaginary onions might just have worked on the radio, but imaginary onions are a total no-no on the telly, which is primarily a visual medium. The cameramen had never known anything like it and could not believe that what they were witnessing their viewfinders was really happening in front of their lenses so they stepped around their large, pedestal mounted cameras to eyeball and get a reality check on an event that was beyond their deepest dread and imaginings.