On Wednesday evening I visited the crypt of St Andrew Holborn in order to attend the most unusual dinner I’ve ever experienced – five courses of potentially lethal food at an event ominously dubbed Cafe De Mort!
Appropriately, the meal was hosted by Remember A Charity which is the umbrella organisation that encourages people to leave money to charities in their wills (bequests are actually a major source of funding for charitable work). Cafe De Mort was launched last week by Gregg Wallace (the MasterChef host) and devised by head chef Erol (no last name that I can find – I wonder why…).
The first thing to strike me on arriving was the St John Ambulance paramedic standing dutifully to one side – to then be asked to sign a disclaimer disavowing any responsibility if I should come to any harm almost had me running for the door as you can imagine!
The first course was a fugu sashimi with ponzu – the flesh of the fugu (or pufferfish) is perfectly safe to eat, but its vital organs are packed with tetrodotoxin – less than a pinhead of this poison can kill an adult in seconds. In fact, one fish is loaded with enough of this lethal substance to kill over thirty people…
The next dish was probably my favourite of the evening – a simple curried ackee Jamaican pattie. The surprise ingredient here was a few tiny slivers of ghost chilli pepper – the hottest chilli in the world, as well as being an ingredient in super-spicy dishes it is also used as a disabling agent in smokebombs and personal defense sprays…
Our third course was a lovely pasta soup, containing the kluwak nut (which is brimming by cyanide if not properly prepared) and false morels, which contain gyromitrin. Even fairly small quantities of this substance can lead to delirium, then coma and finally death after about seven days after ingestion.
Finally it was time for the sweet dishes, always a favourite of mine but I usually don’t take risks with my deserts – Wednesday night was different as we first tucked into macaroons with elderberry coulis and an unpasteurised bitter almond cream (cyanide again!) and finally a peanut, cacao and nutmeg concoction. These ingredients contain, respectively, aflatoxin, theobromine and myristicin which are potentially lethal, although I think the chefs were cheating a little with this one. It would take huge quantities of each of them to cause any real problems – I’ve eaten mountains of chocolate from time to time and suffered no more than a dicky tummy!
I should express my gratitude for the charity that sponsored my place at Remember A Charity’s Cafe De Mort – Dogs Trust. Founded in 1891 this organisation has canine rehoming centres across the country that takes in rescued dogs in order to find new homes for them. Unlike some of the associated charities, Dogs Trust never, ever puts down healthy animals. If you’re looking for a new furry member of your family, you could do worse than contact them to discuss giving a new home to one of the four-legged friends that they look after – they’ve got a rehoming centre in West London.
About Pete Stean
