Marcus is visiting a local farmers' market, where each week a local French chef impresses the crowds with a live cooking demo. However, he’s been told that this time, a British chef is cooking, and that chef is Marcus. The locals don’t have the best opinion of British cooking, so the pressure is on. Luckily, he loves a challenge and is determined to seek out the best ingredients to fly the flag for British cuisine.
He starts with a meat that is loved equally by the Brits and the French – pork. He visits a farm in the foothills of Mont Ventoux, where pigs
live amongst the acorn trees. Here, Marcus finds out that the French take a nose-to-tail approach to eating pork and tries some charcuterie that includes a pate made from a pig's head. But it’s pork steaks he really wants to cook with, so he takes some back to his rooftop kitchen to whip up a simple grilled pork with fennel and roasted orange salad.
Continuing his hunt for simple, economic and delicious ingredients, Marcus is going to a snail farm, where he learns that there's a lot more to rearing them than meets the eye. Although he admits they’re not his favourite thing to eat, after making a quick and easy dish of snails in garlic and herb butter, he finds that these Provençal escargot are absolutely delicious.
It's time for the big market cook-off, and he knows it has to be pork to convince the locals that we Brits know how to cook. Marcus makes pork steaks with salsa and a fig and basil salad, which goes down a storm. Show less