Elizabeth David - A Life In Recipes (BBC2)

The Hairy Bikers' Cookbook (BBC2)

SOMEONE with a sense of humour scheduled a dramatised biography of cookery writer Elizabeth David after half-an-hour in the company of large, hairy, cooking bikers Dave Myers and Simon King.

Not since Two Fat Ladies has there been a more unlikely pair of TV chefs as Dave and Simon, who discovered a love of food after meeting 15 years ago while working on a Catherine Cookson drama.

In Namibia, they visited the seaside town of Swakopmund which, apart from the palm trees, looks like a German town. Rejecting the local speciality puff adder, they rode off into the desert, for a barbecue with crocodile satay, zebra burgers and oryx steak rolls.

"It's like Zoo Time when you go and buy your meat," said Dave, mincing a zebra - a sight that's only slightly more disturbing than a mincing zebra.

He's a great advocate of knowing what's in the burgers he's eating. "With so many in England it's eyebrows, ears and arseholes. Give me a zebra any time," he said, sounding like Jamie Oliver delivering a Turkey Twizzler lecture in his school dinners show.

Oryx is "like a big antelope" and very nice to eat - "tenderer than Elvis Presley when he's getting all romantic", suggested Dave.

In the townships, a woman offered them mopane worms to eat. "They're interesting," said Si, meaning they looked very peculiar. He was told, "Don't look at it, just put it in your mouth," which is the sort of advice that can land you in court in other circumstances.

Si doubted that people over here would want to try these worms. "Somehow I don't think we'll be serving mopane worms at dinner parties in Jesmond just yet," he said.

They might well be following the recipes of Elizabeth David, who revolutionised our cooking by introducing garlic, olive oil and other "foreign" ideas into the kitchen.

It's a wonder she had time to whip up any mayonnaise or any other cooking considering her liking for sex. Clearly love wasn't on ration in her post-war world. "I know why the French are so good at adultery - they have the climate for it," she said after a spot of cross-Channel ooo-la-la.

She was of the opinion that Britain feeds its pets better than it feeds its children (unlike the places hairy bikers Dave and Simon are visiting where they're more likely to eat their pets than their children).

Her books on Mediterranean food and French country cookery put her in the bestsellers' lists between the latest James Bond and the Kama Sutra. By her own admission she knew that last publication inside out as she'd enjoyed "an awful lot of sex".

What she couldn't find was a recipe for a happy marriage or lasting relationship. Invariably, her men friends left her. If such a good cook as David couldn't hang on to them, then the way to a man's heart clearly isn't through his stomach.

Takacs Quartet - Muzsikas, The Sage, Gateshead

AN audience at The Sage, Gateshead was thrilled by a unique musical experience when the celebrated Takacs Quartet joined forces with the Hungarian folk ensemble Muzsikas.

The programme, placing the music of Bela Bartok under the spotlight, was to have been presented in the larger Hall One, but the organisers opted for the compact Hall Two.

It made for a more intense and intimate experience. Among the assortment of traditional instruments Muzsikas introduced were the koboz, a lute-like instrument, and the gardon, an ancient stringed percussion instrument comprising three strings hammered with a stick while a thinner string is simultaneously plucked. Providing a stunning vocal lead was Marta Sebestyen, who hurled her delightful tunes at the crowd.

The evening, showing the connection between compositions of Bartok and the traditional music of the region, opened with a jaunty dance from Transylvania. The Takacs then gave a stunning rendition of Bartok's Fourth String Quartet interspersed, after each movement, with traditional material from Muzsikas.

Seeing how Bartok shaped a new musical language from the raw material he gathered on his trips was fascinating. The Takacs Quartet delivered the allegretto pizzicato at the rate of a machine gun without dropping a note.

The audience then treated to three of Bartok's 44 violin duos, some of which were preceded by scratchy recordings made by Bartok himself. Sebestyen gave a witty vocal rendition of bagpipes before singing an evocative Ballad of the Murdered Shepherd.

The evening was rounded off with stirring Romanian folk dances as the classical and folk musicians cranked up the energy to fever pitch, before joining together for a grand finale.

There were hurrahs, whistles, stamping of feet and thunderous applause. An enlightening and exhilarating evening.

Gavin Engelbrecht