Food Unwrapped (2012) s06e10 Episode Script

- Let's go! Whoo! - Whoo! 'Britain is a nation of foodies.
' - Sweet! - Really peppery.
'But what do we really know about where our food comes from?' I've never been cornered by an ostrich.
This is like Oxford Circus, but for cows.
'.
And how it's processed before it reaches our plates?' This is incredible, the place is run by robots.
'We're going to the ends of the Earth 'to find out what's really in our food.
' Whoa! I've got to change my transport.
- 'We're meeting the people who make it, - Dunno where to look! 'and we're asking the questions to learn the truth.
' Let's do it.
'On tonight's episode, 'we revel in some of the richest stories from the last year.
' Why's he wearing a gas mask? 'I hunt out why British venison isn't filling our shelves.
' - Out on the M25, this is deer country? - This is deer country.
Matt discovers a potentially deadly secret hidden in every packet of bean sprouts.
Has anyone ever died from eating a beansprout? And Kate's in Italy, discovering the secret to getting creamy balls of mozzarella.
Oh, my goodness.
First, mozzarella.
'Customer service, how can I help you?' Hello.
I've got a ball of mozzarella here from your shop.
I was just wondering, why is it in so much liquid? 'Um, I'm not sure, to be honest.
I'm not too familiar with it myself.
' I mean, look, you can probably even hear it.
Can you hear that? 'Yeah!' Am I supposed to eat it? - 'What, the liquid? I don't know.
' - Yeah.
'If I was to give you a definitive answer on that I probably couldn't I couldn't give you one!' Who better to ask than the masters of mozzarella, the Italians? Kate's on her way to the southern region of Campania.
Even at the airport, the food is amazing.
Oh, my goodness.
After sleeping off a kilo of mozzarella, Kate's off to a dairy with a local guide.
Gennaro's got me up at the crack of dawn.
Here he is! Woo! Am I pronouncing it correctly, Gennaro? - Gennaro.
- Gennaro.
Gennaro.
Marks out of ten for my Italian accent? Ah, no, no it's, ah, it's good - Is it good? But room for improvement? - your, ah, Italian accent.
Yes.
The Romans named this region Happy Campania for the rich agricultural land and beautiful scenery.
It's this region that's famous for buffalo mozzarella.
We are here! Kate's here to meet owner and mozzarella maker, Alfonso Cutillo.
- Good morning.
- Buongiorno, Alfonso! Alfonso makes what is considered to be the original mozzarella, with the help of a few hundred water buffalo.
Look at them! Oh, they're absolutely beautiful.
We're just going to let the buffalo get accustomed to us.
Stay there they're scared of the camera.
Unlike dairy cows, these bashful buffalo are milked just once a day, and Alfonso is very particular about the milking experience.
So what happens if they get a little bit stressed? They hold the milk in? Mozzarella can also be made with cow's milk, but the original buffalo version is far richer and considered to be superior.
Three kilos of mozzarella from one of these buffalo every single day? - That is a lot of cheese.
- So what does this mega milk taste like? Well done, Alfonso.
That is delicious.
And nothing like cow's milk.
So much sweeter, and lots creamier.
- - Salute! Salute! Later, Kate gets hands-on with the fine art of mozzarella making, and finds out once and for all, what are those balls bobbing in? Next up, venison.
Traditionally the meat of kings, lean, healthy venison has become hugely popular over the last decade.
But looking at these packets, we seem to be importing some of it from New Zealand.
There can't be a shortage of deer in this country.
So why does it come from New Zealand? 'It might be to do with a taste factor, maybe?' Oh what, that it tastes better from New Zealand? 'Possibly.
'They might feed the deer differently in New Zealand, or something like that.
' When I saw it on the back, I thought, that can't be right, getting it from New Zealand? 'Wouldn't be 100% certain why we would do that.
' 'So why are we buying our venison from abroad? 'Surely there's enough British venison around? 'I'm on my way to meet a man who knows a thing or two about deer.
'Our rendezvous is at 11 o'clock at night.
'At a bus stop in Romford.
' - I take it you're John? How are you doing? - Yes.
Jim, hello.
Now, ah, don't get me wrong, this is a bit weird.
What am I doing here? Well, we're here to see these deer.
Where's this, then? - This is in this area, exactly here.
- You're joking.
Look at that! It's quite exciting, this.
'John Thirtle is a deer management expert.
'According to him, this residential area on the outskirts of London 'is a deer hot spot.
' So you're telling me anywhere around here, behind the walls and hedges, there could be deer lurking? - There is, yes.
- You're not making it up? - It's not like the Loch Ness Monster? - Oh, no.
No, no.
I've been studying deer around this area for 13 years.
And we've seen a population explosion.
But what are they doing, are they are they nibbling on all our lovely garden plants? - They are.
They love roses.
- It's a nightmare if you're a gardener.
- I mean, do they cause any other problems? - They do.
We have quite a lot of deer vehicle collisions.
Last year in England, we had 74,000 collisions and 20 fatalities.
20 fatalities and 74,000 collisions.
- Recorded deer vehicle collisions.
- That's incredible.
- Deer do require management and - Right, which means what? - Really, it's the c-word.
- What's the c-word? The c-word is cull.
Cull.
Thank God for that.
'John takes me to a road nicknamed Deer Alley, 'where we switch to night vision.
' The thing is, John, my major worry isn't necessarily seeing deer coming out, it's people driving past and seeing us in a lay-by late at night.
Um - Jim! What are you trying to say? - Because I know, well I know what they're thinking.
"Those two are looking for deer.
" - There you are.
Here we go.
- Look at that.
Look, look, look, look, look.
There's one.
- Here's a second - There's another one.
It's a buck.
That's the zebra crossing for the deer.
'So, far from being a deer shortage, 'there's currently an estimated 1.
5 million of them in the UK.
'That's more than at any time since the Ice Age.
' There they are.
That's that's a school the playground.
And in the morning, the kids will be none the wiser.
That's right.
Here in Britain, we have a major problem.
We need to control our deer.
They're they're destroying our woodland, they've eaten our roses, causing car accidents.
We need to manage them.
At the same time, we're importing foreign venison.
We've got a glut at one end and we're importing at the other.
That's insane.
It is.
It is.
But how on earth do you rectify that? A good question.
Later on, I find out if it's possible to turn these wild deer into venison fit for our supermarkets.
Can you put that in a bag, aside for me? - I'll take that I'll take that home.
- Of course I can.
Next, bean sprouts.
Now, I'm used to opening bean sprouts and just snacking on them raw, and I've just noticed on the back of your packet, it says "Do not eat raw".
- 'Ooh!' - Is there is there a reason for that? 'Let me have a look, can you eat bean sprouts raw?' It's the question on everyone's lips at the moment.
'How are they grown, underground are they? 'I don't even know, you know.
On trees? Under ground?' On trees?! Do you know what the difference is between bean sprouts and bean shoots? These just say "Washed and ready to eat".
'I don't know I don't know'.
- 'How long have you eaten them raw for?' - Oh, years.
- 'And you're still alive.
' - Ah, I'm all right.
- 'I'd carry on as you are.
' - Yeah? 'If you become seriously ill, don't come back to me!' Matt's decided to grow some bean sprouts himself.
In six days, I'm going to have my own beautiful sprouts, ready to eat.
And see if he can work out why they might need to be cooked before he eats them.
They're still damp and quite smelly.
I'm just going to leave them on the windowsill.
It'll be nice and warm.
After a few days, his mung bean sprouts have come along nicely.
Those are my beautiful bean sprouts, straight from the windowsill.
But before he tucks in, he's going to show them to food hygiene expert Holly Jefferys, who checks the safety in restaurant kitchens.
- Hello, are you Holly? - Yes.
Holly's going to check out Matt's bean sprouts, but first, she wants to test our chef's food safety knowledge.
- I want you to put these into the order, - Right.
if you were into eat them in their raw state, that would potentially give you food poisoning.
So more likely and high risk, less likely and low risk.
OK, so stick the chicken in the high risk.
That's massively high risk.
Beef, you can eat that raw, but I'm guessing you'll probably tell me I've got to cook it.
Bit of coleslaw, that has to be low risk.
Bean sprouts, that's low risk.
Oysters, can eat them raw, but they can get ill of them? Yeah, high risk.
There you go.
- I'm going that.
- OK, I'm sorry, Matt, to tell you but you are wrong.
- What, really? - Yes.
- The chicken and the beef would be high.
- Good.
Then we have the oysters - and the bean sprouts on the high.
- Really? - And yes.
Yeah.
- On high? Alongside the oysters? Potentially, they could be just as harmful.
I've gone to the fridge and eaten them from a packet, and I've been fine.
I mean, what's in them? - Potentially, salmonella and E.
coli.
- Eurgh! With these, you can't just wash it.
You can't guarantee that it's not all the way through the sprout.
Bean sprout seeds can contain harmful bacteria.
When the seeds are grown in warm, moist conditions, this dangerous bacteria can thrive.
Has anyone ever died from eating a bean sprout? There was a case in Germany in 2011 when people died from eating them.
Ah, there's also been a case of some schoolchildren who were growing bean sprouts like you have here, and there were cases where people were very ill and died.
- Really? - Yes.
In fact, E.
coli in bean sprouts killed over 30 people in Germany in 2011.
- How you've grown yours, in a jar, - Yeah.
they probably wouldn't be so good to eat like that.
- So they're a bit of a danger food? - Yes, they could be.
So if these raw bean sprouts can be so deadly, are any raw salad sprouts safe to eat? Matt finds out after the break.
Earlier, Matt discovered his favourite Oriental vegetable could be harbouring deadly bacteria.
- Potentially, salmonella and E.
coli.
- Eurgh! So, how can some bean sprouts be labelled as ready to eat? Matt's come to a factory in Northern Ireland to find out.
- Hello! Nice to meet you.
- Hello, Matt.
You're very welcome.
Bernie Butler's salads contain buckets of beans, including the type that Matt grew.
But before sprouting, these seeds undergo rigorous testing.
We send a sample of the seed to the lab.
- They test it there for E.
coli, - Oh.
- salmonella and listeria.
- All the good stuff.
All the good stuff, of course.
And just to be doubly sure, the seeds are given a bacteria-banishing bath.
Why's he wearing a gas mask? Well, I think it's important when you're handling hypochlorite.
Is that the swimming pool kind of smell I've got? - Yes, it is.
- So, how strong is this chlorine? - It's a very high concentration.
- Right.
So, you wouldn't want to swim in a - concentration like this? Unless - No, but you're a mung bean! In fact, the bucket contains a chlorine solution that's 10,000 times more concentrated than the average swimming pool.
Is this just washing the outer shell, - would you say? - That's absolutely all it's doing.
But it is completely washed off the product before it ever gets into the sprouting stage.
Once the water runs clear and there's no trace of chlorine, it's on to the next stage of the production process.
This is really itchy.
So, the seed goes through - a heat treatment - Mm-hmm.
and, thereafter, it goes through its entire sprouting process, - in the bin.
- And is that done in a in a warm environment? No, it's a cold water environment.
This is the key difference that makes these sprouted beans safe to eat.
The bean sprouts we typically use in a stir-fry are grown for six days in a warm, dark room, giving the bacteria plenty of time to thrive.
After just two days in cold water, these baby bean shoots are ready to be eaten.
- Now, these are sprouted? - Yes.
- Can I try one? - Of course you can.
All right.
I don't want that many.
- They're very good for you.
- Yeah? What, by the shovel-load?! Thank you very much.
So, Bernie, in this form, you can eat them raw, but in the bean sprout form, you need to check on the back of the packet or, indeed, cook them? - Is that right? - Absolutely.
It's a very different product, grown in a very different way.
If there is a cook instruction, I would definitely advise you cook.
This product, there's a ready to eat instruction and, therefore, they're safe to eat from the pack.
The demand for venison is so great that British farms are unable to keep up with supply.
So, supermarkets are having to rely on imports from New Zealand.
Despite the fact there are plenty of wild deer on our doorstep.
- Hey, look! - There we go, look, deer! So, why aren't we making the most of the deer in our own country? I've got another rendezvous with John Thirtle and, this time, he's asked me to meet him in a service station on the edge of the M25.
- Hey, John.
- Morning, Jim.
I thought we were going out looking for deer.
We're in a service station.
It's a weird place to be, isn't it? Well, this is where the Essex countryside meets the urban sprawl of London.
Out here, on the M25, this is deer country? This is deer country.
It looks all right.
Deer stalking should always take place as part of a deer management plan, and there are rules and regulations to follow.
John is a licensed stalker and I've got a firearms license.
Surely it can't be that hard to bag yourself a wild deer? - Where's it gone? Done.
- There it is.
Right.
He's just popped his head up.
But before I get to pull the trigger He's gone.
Oh, dear.
It's going to be harder than I thought.
It takes a lot of effort and skill to get close enough, - doesn't it? One minute, they're there, - It does.
- next minute, voom, gone.
- Yeah.
The next day, we're back with a cunning plan.
To disguise our scent, we're going to hide in a hide.
In a hide.
But it turns out the only thing we're going to catch from up here is a cold.
You see, if I was supplying a supermarket with wild British venison, - empty shelves tomorrow.
Oh, no! - That's it.
- You can see the problems, can't you? - Yes.
So, how do you get wild deer off the roads and onto our supermarket shelves? I've come to Suffolk to meet a man who's come up with a solution.
- Hi! David? Good to see you.
- Hello, Jimmy, yes.
I'm here to see some of your wild - venison.
- You are.
David Hooton is from the Deer Initiative, which aims to provide supermarkets with a ready supply of wild venison.
Now, here's a fallow buck.
So, this one, this has been brought in by a stalker? Yes.
He shot it last evening.
The initiative encourages licensed stalkers to bring their wild deer carcasses to small meat suppliers like this one.
Here, the meat is butchered before being sold on to local supermarkets.
- Wow.
- A larder full of skinned carcasses.
This is now looking like something I recognise from a butchery point of view.
Over there, a wild animal, come out of the fields.
That's about hunting.
Now, we're looking at something that's a bit more standardised.
And this is something that will feed a supermarket.
Individual stalkers will only be culling one or two animals a fortnight.
A supermarket isn't going to accept a chap coming in with a bundle of deer somewhere, bit of venison, and say, "This week I've got this.
" They want continuity in supply.
Right.
Well, let's have a look at some of these.
- Yes.
- Are these from all over? These have come from all over East Suffolk.
This one is from Tunstall.
And all the different stalkers' names here as well.
Each of these carcasses can be traced back to the place it was shot, and the person who shot it.
Well, I would love to see how these are then broken down - and turned into joints.
- Well, if we go through here, - we can see some of it happening.
- Right, lovely.
We've got Paul here.
He's one of the directors of the company.
- Hello, Paul.
Pleased to meet you.
- This is Jimmy.
Paul Denny's company has been part of the initiative for five years.
He's a gamekeeper's son and a qualified butcher.
Look at that, that's all lovely, lean meat, that is.
Can you put that in a bag aside for me? - I'll take that I'll take that home.
- Of course I can.
This is the dispatch chiller.
Right.
I mean, there's so many different products here.
You've got diced venison, you've got venison burgers.
Lovely venison sausages here.
Where are they all going? We we supply the local Co-ops, Waitrose, and also Budgens.
Um, so, it is actually working.
This whole facility is turning those wild animals out there into something that I can now buy in my local supermarket.
- Yes.
- I love it.
I'm having venison tonight, that's for sure.
- Brilliant job.
- I think we are as well, actually.
Back to mozzarella.
Kate's in southern Italy, delivering 2,000 litres of fresh buffalo milk.
So, now, Alfonso, we go to your factory, si? - Si, si.
- Si? - And we go and make mozzarella.
- Perfect.
Mozzarella.
Alfonso's extended family are all involved in producing 8,000 balls of mozzarella a day.
Look at all that cheese! The whey is removed and the curds shredded.
I want to see this.
What's he doing? - This is the same curd, in little pieces.
- Can I try? Oh! Oh, my goodness! Wow, this is a great job.
Next, it's the process that is unique to mozzarella cooking the curds.
- Is it boiling? Oh, OK.
- 93, 94 degrees.
So, just below boiling point.
And you can see it already beginning to swell.
As the curds melt, the excess water is drained off.
This technique is 2,000 years old.
- Really? - Yes.
Look at what it's done.
I mean, this cheese - Y-you - is like the mozzarella I know - on top of a pizza, you know? - The mozzarella It's, like, stringy.
The secret to making Italian mozzarella is knowing exactly how much pulling and stretching the cooked cheese needs until it reaches the perfect consistency.
Right now, Alfonso is getting in there.
Then it's subdivided into the balls we find in our packets.
So, what's going on here? Now, they are cutting by hand.
The name, "mozzarella", comes from the Italian, "mozzare", which means to cut off.
You don't use any knives at all, you just cut it with your hands? Right, so, I take a little portion of this man's big ball of mozzarella.
- Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut! - Si! Ooh! Zero, zero! Your work is zero! No, Alfonso! Zero? The balls, all except for Kate's, are then held in a special solution for two hours.
Without this external skin, this delicate, soft cheese would disintegrate.
- Now - You're very, very gentle, Alfonso.
They're like your little babies.
Yeah! Alfonso! Mozzarella, like ricotta, is a fresh cheese and can be eaten as soon as it's made.
But it has a relatively short shelf life and must be shipped all over the world.
- So, this is the final product? - Yes.
Why do you package it in bags with water, like this? But this is not the normal water.
So, this is packaged in, well, what is a brine, really.
Salt, water, and that keeps the mozzarella fresh.
It doesn't get any fresher than this.
From buffalo to bag, in just eight hours.
Right, let's go.
Oh, my God.
- Alfonso, that is phenomenal.
- Well? OK, I don't think the group can wait for us to cut.
They have got to eat some of this cheese.
Seriously, it's amazing.
I'm having the box, Alfonso! Si? - Arrivederci! - Ciao!