Chris McCausland (Christmas Special)

Summary

Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster

Christmas Special — Guest: Chris McCausland
Date: December 10, 2025
Podcast: Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster
Host: Plosive

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Episode Overview

In this festive Christmas special, Ed Gamble and James Acaster welcome comedian and recent Strictly Come Dancing champion Chris McCausland to the Off Menu dream restaurant. Brimming with sharp wit and holiday cheer, the trio riff on Christmas traditions, discuss Chris’s new autobiography Keep Laughing, and build his ultimate imaginary meal—from drinks to dessert, with plenty of classic Off Menu chaos in between. Along the way, Chris reflects on Strictly, culinary revelations, and the peculiarity of British and Brazilian food.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Introductions and Christmas Banter

• Ed and James celebrate their first Strictly champion guest and joke about the elusive Bill Bailey (04:26).
• Discussion of Chris's new book Keep Laughing, available in print and as a Chris-narrated audiobook (05:18–05:45).
• The “secret ingredient” that would see Chris ejected from the dream restaurant: Christingle—a clove-studded orange (06:16–07:04).

2. Initial Food Chat and Offbeat Observations

• The episode opens with playful teasing about James's breakfast mishap—spilling a wrap on his trousers, leading to extended discussion about food disasters (07:20–08:56).
  • “It's not often I’m the only one without food down my trousers.” —Chris (08:00)
  • Chris pitches a reality show, “Jizz or Not,” poking fun at modern TV’s absurdity (09:06–09:23).

3. Writing the Autobiography

• Chris describes “the rocket up your arse” of writing after the publisher put his book up for sale before he’d started (10:12–10:37).
  • “Nothing puts a rocket on your ass like a book being on sale that doesn’t exist.” —Chris (10:27)
• Strictly changed Chris’s approach, making him more open in sharing personal stories over just jokes (11:39–13:22).

4. Drinks: Still vs. Sparkling Water

• Chris rejects sparkling water with passionate analogy—likening it to “someone sucked all the fun out of lemonade” and “the beverage equivalent of an escalator that’s not moving” (14:12–15:39).
  • “I don't really trust people who drink sparkling water. Doesn't sit right with me.” —Chris (14:12)
• They joke about water in cans, sustainability, and trust in beverage vessels, with trademark off-menu absurdity (15:39–17:06).

5. Bread or Poppadoms?

• James attempts to surprise Chris with the show’s classic “poppadoms or bread” shout, but Chris’s reaction is nonplussed—“Where am I? Who offers poppadoms or bread?” (19:45–20:07).
• Chris shares his struggles with poppadoms and shared sauces, especially when visual cues are lacking (21:13–22:36).
• Instead, Chris proposes a practical solution: “Spoon of mango chutney, poppadom in your mouth; it’s all the same in the end” (23:16–24:02).
• Unique approach to toothpaste—he now squirts it directly in his mouth, a result of vision loss making toothbrush-balancing tricky (24:09–24:26).

6. Dream Starter: Antipasti for Four

• Chris selects antipasti for four as his dream starter, praising the joy of “separate things in your mouth in different combinations,” and the fun of mixing meats, breadsticks, mozzarella, and sun-dried tomatoes (26:00–29:47).
  • “Pick a card, pick a meat, any meat—don’t show me, just put it in your mouth.” —Chris (27:04)
• Conversation veers into choosing dinner companions—opting for the cast of Frasier rather than real-life celebrities, just to be among “farce and pretense” (32:08–34:11).

7. Dream Main Course: Brazilian Steak (Picanha)

• Chris, whose wife is Brazilian, describes his ideal main of Brazilian picanha: flame-cooked salted steak, served in bite-size pieces, with black beans, garlicky farofa (“like someone emptied their flip-flop on your plate”) and chips (38:14–40:58).
  • “Everything on that plate can be eaten with a fork. You can just kind of stab and shovel and get involved.” —Chris (40:31)
• Amusing stories about Brazilian barbecue, frustration with the ignored “traffic light” system, and tales from his travels—including the merits of ‘feet towels’ for hot sand (41:02–46:12).

8. Dream Christmas Dinner: All About the Ham

• Chris recounts a memorable Christmas dinner almost derailed by a spliff, rescued by an Italian chef friend (46:30–48:49).
  • “In the space of two minutes, I forgot everything that was on the oven.” —Chris (47:27)
• For Christmas, Chris far prefers ham over turkey. “Ham’s great cold, ham’s great hot… It’s like a meaty poppadom, innit?” (50:08–50:39)
• Disdain for cranberry sauce as an odd aristocratic tradition. “Like, just some absolute loon… put jam on a dinner.” (49:23)

9. Further Side Dishes

• Recollection of his university years: the “pot noodle sandwich”—beef and tomato pot noodle in white bread, folded over, “pot noodle fold-over.” (56:09–56:34)
• First taste of pizza at university: “It was the greatest culinary revelation of my life” (57:31).
  • The hosts decide Chris deserves both his first pizza slice and his nostalgic pot noodle sandwich as his side dish (58:40–58:51).

10. Dream Drink: Fiery Ginger Beer

• Chris wants a non-existent, ultra-intense, “extreme” ginger beer far spicier than anything commercially available (62:35–63:56).
  • “I want a ginger ginger beer that kicks my ass.” —Chris (63:56)
• Fentimans is his preferred real-world brand for its dryness and larger bottle size, but his dream is “ginger beer cheer, ginger ale fail.”

11. Dream Dessert: School Puddings with Excess Custard

• Chris craves nostalgic school desserts—treacle sponge, spotted dick, jam roly-poly—drenched in so much custard that the sponge is hidden beneath. Ideally with “the palette of a child,” so the sweetness level is just right (66:59–68:33).
  • “I want a bowl of custard… where I have to excavate the sponge like an archaeologist.” —Chris (68:21)

12. Strictly Come Dancing Reflections

• Chris relives the terror and pride of his Strictly journey. A highlight: “Every week, the person that went out had less points than us… we always held our own up until the final.” (70:05–73:01)
• Reveals most musical suggestions, especially Pearl Jam and Brazilian thrash, were vetoed as unsuitable for ballroom (73:09–75:11).

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On sparkling water:
  "It's the beverage equivalent of when you stand on an escalator that's not moving… your brain's expecting one thing and you get an entirely different thing." —Chris (14:37)

• On poppadoms and sauces (and practicality):
  “Why do people spend so much effort balancing toothpaste on a toothbrush… just squirt it in your mouth!” —Chris (23:51–24:02)

• On first pizza:
  “It was the greatest culinary revelation of my life… glad I started with a 99 pence pizza, because had I gone straight in Domino’s, I probably wouldn’t be here to tell the tale.” —Chris (57:31–58:05)

• On Brazilian barbecue:
  "Everything on that plate can be eaten with a fork. You can just kind of stab and shovel and get involved, and there's loads of garlic in the black beans.” —Chris (40:31)

• On Christmas ham:
  “Ham’s great cold, ham’s great hot, ham’s great sliced thin, fat chunks in a sandwich, on its own, used as a vehicle for something else. Almost like a meaty poppadom, innit?” —Chris (50:08)

• On dessert standards:
  “I want a bowl… that facilitates the custard being higher than the sponge. I want to be surprised when I see sponge in there.” —Chris (68:21)

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Structured Menu (as Ordered by Chris)

Water: Still
Bread or Poppadoms: Poppadoms and dips (with strong emphasis on mango chutney and personal serving logistics)
Starter: Antipasti for four (assorted meats, mozzarella, sun-dried tomatoes, green olives, soft breadsticks), standing up in the kitchen
Main Course: Brazilian picanha steak with black beans, garlicky farofa, and chips
Christmas Dinner: Ham, stuffing, roast potatoes, parsnips (chopped short for safety); traditional British trimmings, no cranberry or apple sauce
Side Dish:

• Pot noodle fold-over (beef and tomato pot noodle on white bread, unbuttered, folded)
• Slice of first-ever (university-era) pizza
  Drink: “The most gingery ginger beer” imaginable—ultra-fiery, dry, preferably Fentimans but stronger
  Dessert: Nostalgic school dinner sponge-based puddings (e.g. treacle sponge, jam roly-poly) with copious (possibly pink) custard, served in a bowl “with the palate of a child”

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Memorable Moments

• Chris’s practical food and toothpaste hacks are delivered with deadpan wit and vivid metaphors, prompting laughter and genuine reflection from the hosts.
• Sincere, moving discussion about learning to open up emotionally after Strictly (13:22).
• Riotous invention pitches: “feet towels” for hot sand and the “pot noodle fold-over.”
• The dream restaurant’s location morphs: at times, it’s inside a giant Pot Noodle in the middle of a Frasier episode.
• Chris’s gentle but pointed mockery of food traditions (parsnips as weapons, the lunacy of cranberry sauce, the cult of bread with oil and vinegar).
• Heartfelt insight into the pressure and pride of Strictly’s live shows and the way personal growth and public vulnerability have shaped his comedy and writing.

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Useful Timestamps for Key Segments

• Secret Ingredient and Introductions: 06:09–07:18
• Popadoms/Bread Routine & Poppadom Logistics: 19:45–25:32
• Starter (Antipasti) & Frasier Fantasy: 25:37–34:18
• Main Course (Brazilian Steak): 38:12–42:08
• Christmas Dinner, Ham Discourse, Side Dishes: 46:30–58:33
• Dream Drink (Ginger Beer): 62:35–64:43
• Dessert (School Puddings with Custard): 66:58–68:35
• Strictly Come Dancing Stories: 69:00–75:01

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Tone and Style

Chris’s signature blend of self-deprecating humor, sharp observational comedy, and culinary curiosity perfectly matches the show’s irreverent, good-natured banter. Ed and James riff along with glee, still delighting in radio theatre absurdity and rabbit-hole musings on the intricacies of eating, drinking, and living joyfully.

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Conclusion

A festive, laughter-filled episode, combining British and Brazilian Christmas sensibilities, nostalgic food reveries, and the warmth of shared stories. Chris McCausland proves an ideal Off Menu guest: candid, quick-witted, and endlessly relatable. Fans of comedy, food, and Strictly will find plenty to savor.

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Notable Quote to End:
"Ham’s great cold, ham’s great hot, ham’s great sliced thin... It’s like a meaty poppadom, innit?" —Chris McCausland (50:08)

Transcript

[Zoe]

Guys, thanks for helping me carry my Christmas tree.

[Drew Ski]

Zoe, this thing weighs a ton.

[Chris McCausland]

Drew Ski, lift with your legs, man. Santa. Santa, did you get my letter?

[Drew Ski]

He's talking to you britches.

[Chris McCausland]

I'm not.

[Zoe]

Of course he did.

[Chris McCausland]

Right, Santa, you know my elf Drew Ski here. He handles the nice list.

[Drew Ski]

And elf, I'm six' three. What everyone wants is iPhone 17 and at T Mobile. You can get it on them. That center stage front camera is amazing for group selfies, right, Mrs. Claus?

[Zoe]

Hi Mrs. Claus. Claus, much younger sister. And AT T Mobile, there's no trade in needed when you switch, so you can keep your old phone or give.

[Chris McCausland]

It as a gift.

[Zoe]

And the best part, you can make the switch to T Mobile from your phone in just 15 minutes.

[Chris McCausland]

Nice.

[Drew Ski]

My side of the tree is slipping.

[Chris McCausland]

Kimber, the holidays are better. AT T Mobile switch in just 15 minutes and get iPhone 17 on us with no trade in needed. And now T Mobile is available in U.S. cellular stores with sweetheart monthly bill.

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[Ed Gamble]

Welcome to the off menu podcast. Taking the mini sausages of conversation, wrapping them in the bacon of humor, roasting them perfectly in the oven of podcasts. Pigs in blankets. Pods in blankets.

[James Acaster]

Pods in blankets. It's a Christmas special.

[Ed Gamble]

It's a Christmas miracle.

[James Acaster]

So Ed's done a little Ed Gasta gamble, by the way.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh yeah, that's James, a caster over there.

[James Acaster]

And we own a dream restaurant. And every single week we invite in a guest asking their favorite starter, main course, side dish, drink, dessert and Christmas and Christmas dinner. Not in that order.

[Ed Gamble]

Not in that order, thankfully.

[James Acaster]

And this week our guest is Chris McAuland.

[Ed Gamble]

Christmas Causaland. Chris, if you say it quickly, it.

[James Acaster]

Sounds like Christmas Christmas Orland.

[Ed Gamble]

Christmas Orland.

[James Acaster]

Christmas Orland.

[Ed Gamble]

And that's of course not the main reason we've got Chris on. We've got Chris on because he's a fantastic comedian, amazing comedian, a lovely man. And he won Strictly Come Dancing.

[James Acaster]

James this is our first Strictly Champagne.

[Ed Gamble]

I don't know. I don't know anything about Strictly.

[James Acaster]

Of course you don't. Yeah, well, I think it's our first Strictly Champ.

[Ed Gamble]

I think it might be our first Strictly champ. I couldn't name any others apart from Bill Bailey was here. Strictly chap.

[James Acaster]

He was.

[Ed Gamble]

We've not had him on the pod.

[James Acaster]

No. Which is criminal.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Especially at Christmas. Bill Bailey's.

[James Acaster]

Oh, yeah, of course. Very Christmassy.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Dooley. We've had Dooley on. Actually, James, Ben's just informed us.

[James Acaster]

Dooley loves a party.

[Ed Gamble]

Dooley loves a party.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Dooley's. Do you remember Dooley's toffee vodka?

[James Acaster]

No.

[Ed Gamble]

Okay. Chris has got a book out, his autobiography, Keep Laughing. Chris has obviously done a lot in his life. He's got a lot of things to say. Can't wait to read the book.

[James Acaster]

It'll be a fantastic book.

[Ed Gamble]

The book James is also available in audio. Chris is reading it. The audiobook. A great way to consume comedians books, I think.

[James Acaster]

And this podcast is available in audio and also visual on YouTube tomorrow.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes, very good. And also Benito's typing it all up as a book.

[James Acaster]

Is he?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Every single episode.

[James Acaster]

Is it just gonna be Benito's book?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, it's called the Great Benito. The off menu podcast.

[James Acaster]

In my own words.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, exactly.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And there's gonna be every episode available in loads of volumes. And it's, you know, for people with library spaces.

[James Acaster]

Do we get any money from that?

[Ed Gamble]

No, just him. Wouldn't have thought so. Yeah, just him.

[James Acaster]

But if Chris chooses the secret ingredient, ingredient which we deem to be unacceptable, we will have to kick him out of the dream restaurant.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

And this week, the secret ingredient is Christingle. Christingle.

[Ed Gamble]

It's another name thing. And also it's Christmassy.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. It's an orange that has loads of stuff stuck in it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah. You know, cloves.

[James Acaster]

Scholars have covered it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah. Some of the great minds of the last millennium have covered the Christingle in a humorous fashion.

[James Acaster]

And some people thought they made it up.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, really?

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Some people have said to those great minds that's made up, and the great mind has had to say, no, it's real.

[Ed Gamble]

What an awful routine that would be.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

An observational routine about something that you've made up.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Actually, that's quite funny.

[James Acaster]

That's quite good.

[Ed Gamble]

That would be fun. That's quite good idea, actually.

[James Acaster]

But it's unlikely that Christmas Orsland will choose the Christingle. But if he does, he's out of here.

[Ed Gamble]

He is outta here. This is the off menu Christmas menu of Christmas Orsland.

Welcome, Chris, to the Dream Restaurant.

[Chris McCausland]

Oh, thank you very much for having me.

[James Acaster]

Welcome, Chris McCauson, to the Dream Restaurant. We've been expecting you for some time now.

[Ed Gamble]

James has lost his voice recently, Chris. So normally he'd do a big explosion and he'd shout.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

But what you went with there was actually. It was from the stomach. It was quite a good prediction, I thought, projecting there.

[Chris McCausland]

He's also spilled a breakfast baguette down his trousers today.

[James Acaster]

Damn it, Chris.

[Chris McCausland]

And.

You know, he has the perfect guest in front of him for this to be the day of a disastrous spillage, but yet still felt the need to talk about it.

[Ed Gamble]

He also texted me about that and I thought, well, I must remember to bring that up on the episode because that'll annoy him. Luckily, I've got Chris here because it's quicker than I ever thought I would.

[Chris McCausland]

Well, it's not often I'm the only one without food down my trousers.

[James Acaster]

It was a breakfast wrap and they put too much sauce in it and they should let you know.

[Chris McCausland]

Did you kind of have a bit of a disaster yourself or did you bite one end and then squirted out the other?

[James Acaster]

Well, actually, so, yeah, first of all, I dripped on my right leg when I was eating it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

So, like, dripped out of the. And then I was like, oh, no.

[Chris McCausland]

You'Re so OCD that you had to do the other leg.

[James Acaster]

But when I saw my right leg, it came out the bottom on my left leg.

[Ed Gamble]

So see, to me what this is.

[James Acaster]

My left leg's worse.

[Ed Gamble]

You know when you're at school and someone came. Came to school with, like a big stain on their trousers and they'd be like, oh, I had a yogurt this morning and I spilt it, or it's tip shocks. Yeah, it feels like that. It feels like.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Well, it's exactly where. Yeah, if I had chased in my pants.

It would be.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

So, like. Yeah, it's pretty annoying. Yeah, because, like, we got three episodes today.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And then after that, I've got to go and, like, try and pitch a TV idea to someone. Well, that's not getting away.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, what's the TV idea? Is it about a man who doesn't wash his clothes and stuff?

[Chris McCausland]

What?

[Ed Gamble]

You could pivot. You could pivot and say you're in character.

[Chris McCausland]

I mean, the state of TV in this day and age. It could be a reality TV show called Jizz or Not. And then you've just gotta guess whether somebody jizzed in their pants. Or if they had a bit of a food disaster.

[Ed Gamble]

Chris, that's a brilliant.

[Chris McCausland]

Oh God. Channel 5.

[James Acaster]

The follow up to. Is it Cake or what?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

Have you ever had an episode, Star Solo?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

It'd be nice to say no to that question.

But let's, let's elevate the episode. Let's talk about your book, Chris. Keep laughing, keep laughing.

[Ed Gamble]

The autobiography. Yes.

[James Acaster]

Let's elevate this episode. Yeah. And not talk about jizz. Unless the whole book is about jizz.

[Chris McCausland]

Chapter, chapter to 12. Entirely about jizz. Respect.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. If you read the index.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

The J page goes on for about now.

[James Acaster]

It's the first book.

[Chris McCausland]

It is, yeah. At the minute. It's also the last one. Oh yeah. It's both. It straddles both first and last. Otherwise known as only.

[Ed Gamble]

So you enjoyed writing it then? You enjoyed the process.

[Chris McCausland]

Do you know what I did? Yeah, I wrote it. This, I wrote it this year.

Michael Joseph, part of Penguin. I never know whether I should call them Michael Joseph or Penguin. But you know, it's. No one's had a Michael Joseph. I don't know who Michael Joseph is. So. People have heard of Penguin.

They. A stroke of genius. They put the book on sale before I started writing it. There's nothing puts a rocket on your ass like a book being on sale that doesn't exist.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

And what that meant is I didn't plan any of it. I just got stuck in. And if I'd have been left to me on devices, I'd have gone around in circles and over planned it and just, you know, what about this? What order should I put the chapters in that don't exist? And so I just started writing and I got to like 50,000 words before I even started looking how it went together. And it's mad when you start writing cause you've got no idea whether you've got the word count. You know, like you don't know whether that your story is the minimum word count. And in the end it was like it was well over to the point of arrogance really.

I'm thinking people need to read 122,000 words about my life.

[James Acaster]

How often are you checking the word count? Every time I've written a book. I just keep checking the word count all the time to the point where I'm like, this is too much.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm just, I'm pushing the font size every time I'm writing it. I'm going bigger font every single time.

[Chris McCausland]

It doesn't affect the word count. That though, mate.

Yeah. More pictures that's one thing they asked me, they went, we need to sort out the photographs for the book. I said, what do you mean the photographs for the book? They went, oh, people put photographs in autobiographies. I said, I'm not putting photographs. I'm not being the only one that doesn't know what the photos are. In my own book. People can use their imagination. I've used words to describe things. They can picture them in their minds. But no. Do you know what it was? It was good. It was easy. Well, that wasn't easy, but it was easier than it would have been a year before. So, you know, like I, I did strictly and it kind of just changed how I felt about, about a couple of things really. About, you know, all the things that you'd be, you'd be typically closed off about and like all your emotions and you keep them kind of buried away and you don't let people in. You've had to written there a year before. I'd have written just the jokes, just the funny stories and they're all in there. But like once you've cried on the telly in front of the 10 million people, you kind of feel a little bit more open about things. But also like I was such a perfectionist, like in that I would, I wouldn't kind of put things out if I didn't think they were good enough. And then all of a sudden, you know, you do this thing that teaches you that, you know, it. Things can connect with people in a way that you don't expect when, if you just put yourself out there, it doesn't have to like it's, you know, the dancing wasn't the best dancing. And there are, you know, there are, there are greater works of, of, of, you know, literary kind of non fiction out there, but if it connects with people, then that's the main thing, innit? Yeah, yeah, I've said that. 4.9 stars on audible.

[Ed Gamble]

You get halfway through that sentence and realize, supposed to be in my book here. And I've just said it's not the greatest work of literature.

[Chris McCausland]

Well, it's not, is it? I mean it's hardly, it's hardly bloody Charles Dickens, is it? But you know, for a comedian's autobiography, I think it more than holds its own Charles Dickens.

[James Acaster]

Could it also do the comedy clubs of the UK and win a dance competition.

[Chris McCausland]

Chris also never had a chapter entirely about jizz. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

I've never read any of his books actually. He could have. Charles Dickens could.

[Ed Gamble]

Towards the end of Great Expectations.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

Well, he always named his characters, didn't he? About, like, how they. Their personality traits and things. That was the thing. You probably had a Mr. Jizz in one of his books.

[Ed Gamble]

It be. But it'd be like Mr. Jizzle Jizzle kittens or something.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

So we always start with still or sparkling water. Chris, do you have a preference?

[Chris McCausland]

I. I just think it's a. I mean, I don't. I don't really trust. I don't really trust people who drink sparkling water. Don't really. Doesn't sit right with me.

[Better Wild Announcer]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

It's like someone sucked all the fun out of lemonade in it.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

And do you know what? You drink sparkling water, your brain expects fun. It's like you got Covid.

[James Acaster]

It's just.

[Chris McCausland]

There's just. It's missing something. It's the beverage equivalent of when you stand on an escalator that's not moving. Your brain's expecting one thing and you get an entirely different thing. And there's just something not quite right about the universe. Yeah. And I think people who enjoy sparkling water are people who are just so void of any fun and joy in their life. But like, to pretend that they've got something going on.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. And that's their idea of fun then.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah. Because I love bubbles.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

But not bubbles without the fun. The bubbles add to the fun. The bubbles make the fun better. But the bubbles aren't the fun.

[Ed Gamble]

It's such a good comparison, that escalator thing, because even. Even when you know the escalator is not working.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah. Your brain can't handle it.

[Ed Gamble]

Brain can't handle it. And it's the same with sparkling water. You think even though you know it's sparkling.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah. Your brain can't handle it. There's a moment where you just go, something's not right here. I feel like I'm kind of in a bit of a. That the Matrix is revealing itself.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

And. But the. The escalator thing's not even a visual thing because I. I still get it and I'm not seeing the escalator. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

It's.

[Chris McCausland]

It's a. It's a psychology thing. You know, I have the same thing with, you know, still water in a can. I still haven't got around that my brain hasn't evolved yet to handle the fact that still water comes out of a can. And so that for me, still, there's a moment of where something isn't right.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. We've got a long way to go there. Because, like, it's pretty Important that we have water in cans for the planet and whatnot.

[Chris McCausland]

But is it because is it.

[Ed Gamble]

Great question from Chris.

[Chris McCausland]

Is it, James? You've said that because you've heard it somewhere. You've said that because somebody said it to you.

You've regurgitated it like a piece of wood.

[James Acaster]

Wisdom.

[Chris McCausland]

You can't put the lid back on the can.

[Ed Gamble]

That's not your idea.

[Chris McCausland]

You've got two choices with the. With the water in the can. You either finish the can or you leave. You have your three swigs and you leave a can of water.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

You can't take it with you. You don't trust a can in a bag. You've got a laptop in a bag or you've got your stuff. You don't trust the can.

[Ed Gamble]

No.

[Chris McCausland]

You trust the bottle.

[Ed Gamble]

You don't trust the can for the environment. But bear in mind, every time I have a can of water, I take two sips and then. And throw the rest of it at a bird.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

I didn't know you did that.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, well, but you're the one who thinks it's good for the environment because someone else said it to you.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, Jimmy, are you talking. I mean, I don't. I don't know your vernacular here. Are you talking like kind of tweety, tweety or just some. Some woman walking down the street?

[Ed Gamble]

No, I'm not. I'm. I'm not going. Yeah. I'll chuck it at a bird.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Because that wouldn't be bad for the environment. Just sort of like.

[Chris McCausland]

Just your career.

[James Acaster]

That'd be it. That'd be. I posted this podcast on my own, but Benito would have to develop a personality pretty quick and get in that. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

How's Benito taken the flak here?

[James Acaster]

He just sat there.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm the one who's just been accused of throwing cans at women and suddenly Benito's taking it in the neck for not having a personality.

[James Acaster]

The guns are aimed at everyone, Mexican style.

[Chris McCausland]

I think Benito's just been told that there's a career opportunity there for him and he knows what he needs to do if he wants to make the most of it.

[Ed Gamble]

Chris, I've got to say. Yeah. Have you just met Benito for the first time today?

[Chris McCausland]

Yes.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. It would be his absolute nightmare to have to be on the podcast. He refused. Sometimes his voice is in the edit because he can't get rid of it, and he hates those days.

[James Acaster]

I imagine that when those days happen, he thinks, in the edit. Can I get someone to like re. Record that line so it's someone else saying it.

[Chris McCausland]

It's a funny name as well, isn't it?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

It sounds like. What, like Benito. Sounds like something you'd order, like a version of a taco or something. Yeah, yeah, you're in. I like. Do you want a taco or do you wanna. What's the other one? You get a fajita or do you want a bonito?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, it's like a cross between the two.

[Chris McCausland]

It sounds like something that James would have down his.

[Ed Gamble]

I don't need to do any work today. Chris has got this absolutely roasted me.

[James Acaster]

For chucking all the food down my pants.

[Ed Gamble]

What was in the breakfast wrap?

[James Acaster]

Well, I made the mistake of ordering extra sausage, so two sausages. Yeah. Bacon scrambled egg. That was the killer, actually, because the scrambled egg then waters down all the sauce and the sauce is like a. A hot sauce, like a. Like a sriracha tomato sauce.

[Ed Gamble]

Sounds nice.

[Chris McCausland]

Nice.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, it was nice, but you have a lot of liquid in there.

[Ed Gamble]

Do you want to shout out the place?

[Chris McCausland]

I don't think they've done anything. I don't think they'd appreciate it.

[James Acaster]

I don't think they would, actually. Although the man was very nice. He gave me more food.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

So that was nice. That was a nice start to the day.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And then I stupidly decided to eat it while walking, which I don't know why I didn't.

[Ed Gamble]

Madness.

[Chris McCausland]

Let's just have a moment there.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. This is.

[Ed Gamble]

No, I know.

[James Acaster]

I didn't know it. I knew this was going to happen.

[Chris McCausland]

Chris.

[James Acaster]

I've given him the responsibility. As you saw before we started the podcast, I gave the responsibility that he's got to do the shouting and I said, that means you've got to know when to do it. And he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And during this whole bit I was like, he's forgotten.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah. No, I. I didn't forget. I was just enjoying the chat. That's the problem because I enjoy just a. A nice chat.

[Chris McCausland]

Chris, what shouting he got to do?

[Ed Gamble]

I got shout popping on some bread in a bit, but that. The idea is I surprised the guest, but it's not going to surprise you.

[James Acaster]

Now to the least surprise is any.

[Chris McCausland]

I wasn't listening.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. All right. Talk about something else for a sec.

[James Acaster]

Chris. Yes, mate. You said poppadops or bread.

[Ed Gamble]

Chris McCorson and Papa Dumps or bread.

Were you surprised?

[Chris McCausland]

Oh, do you know what?

That's all I can say to that.

Where am I? Who offers poppy Tom saw bread.

[James Acaster]

Ed, why did you do that, Ed? That's weird.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, yeah, good point.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

What kind of restaurant, in what kind of restaurant is that an option?

[Ed Gamble]

It's the dream restaurant, Chris. You know, over 300 episodes.

It's the sort of thing you'd get at the start of a meal. So, you know, obviously, if you're in an Indian restaurant, they bring poppadoms at the beginning.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

If you, you know, many other restaurants bring bread. You know, there's other things as well if you want to hack it a little bit. But if you, if you had the choice between poppadoms or bread, which would you go for?

[Chris McCausland]

Do you know what I mean? It depends. Like, bread's a funny one, isn't it? Like, we've kind of conditioned ourselves to think the bread dipped in vinegar is cultured. It's like, it feels like something you'd eat if you. Prison. Yeah. Oh, God. Do you know what? All we've got left is bread and vinegar. Have you ever tried dipping the bread in the vinegar? Well, it's better than just the bread or the vinegar separately on their own.

[Ed Gamble]

It's like the vinegar decontaminates the bread or something.

[Chris McCausland]

It's like, it's, it's probably one of the greatest successes in marketing, in the history of marketing, that they've managed to make bread and vinegar with a bit of oil. Like something that we become excited about and feel cultured about.

[James Acaster]

What kind of did you do that made you go in prison for the bread and the vinegar?

[Chris McCausland]

Throwing cans of birds.

[James Acaster]

Straighten the slammer?

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, no, I, I, I mean, I love bread, but, like, is bread dipped in a bit of oil and vinegar as, as good as people make out? I think we pretend it's better than it is, to be honest. Poppadoms, they stress me out. I can't handle the, the logistics of the sharing of the sources, especially because, you know, I don. The optical ability to kind of interact with the, the sharing from the other people. I kind of hog one. The mango chutney I like. And then you get an oniony one, which is, you know, a bit too oniony. There's a hot one and then a yogurty one. Yeah, don't like the yogurty one. Sometimes I get the yogurt one. I think I've got the mango one because somebody's taking the mango on and put the yogurty one where the mango one was, and then I spooned it on. I don't know what it is until I get it in my mouth.

[Ed Gamble]

Who Are you, Who are you hanging out with? With. That's having dinner with you and swapping the mango one with the yogurt.

[Chris McCausland]

Well, they're not swapping it, it's just that they'll have the yogurt you want and then they'll go, oh, fancy bit of mango on. So they pick the mango one up. Then there's a. Because they take up too much space as well, don't they? Then there's a space so they put the yogurty one where the mango one was. I picked that up, think it's the mango one. I spoon it on mouthfully yogurt.

When I'm expecting mango.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

And again, you know, the world's a bit funny then, isn't it? Because you're expecting one thing and you get another.

I find it, it quite, quite stressful. I mean, the papadoms, they're so minimalistic in their, you know, solidity, aren't they, really? It's such a thin line between papadoms and, and, and what you call them, do you call them dips or accompaniments or whatever?

[Ed Gamble]

Condiments.

[Chris McCausland]

Condiments. It's such a thin line between poppadoms and them and just spooning the substance into your mouth, isn't it? It's like there's, there's so little between. You might as well just go. Just passes out in the spoo. Then I'll just eat mango chutney.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

And every so often I'll have a bite of poppadom. I mean, why don't people do that? Actually, that'd be a lot less hassle, wouldn't it?

[Ed Gamble]

You'd need a spoon each, I think.

[Chris McCausland]

Spoon of mango chutney. Stick the poppadom in your mouth, have a bite of that. It's all in there. It would have been in there anyway.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

And then have that. So you say that about all food.

[Ed Gamble]

Though, couldn't you, Chris? Like, why are we having it all prepared as meals? Why don't we just eat each individual ingredient and it all mixes up in our stomach?

[Chris McCausland]

Well, I'll tell you what, why don't, why don't, why do people spend so much effort balancing toothpaste on a toothbrush just to put it in your mouth, squirt it in your mouth. What's the point of that?

[James Acaster]

Balancing it.

[Chris McCausland]

Everybody does it. Yeah, I'm gonna balance this on because it needs to ride the toothbrush into me mouth. Squirt it in your mouth and then just brush your teeth. It's all in there.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. So do you put a line of toothpaste across your teeth?

[Chris McCausland]

No, I just squirt it in.

[James Acaster]

Just squirt it in.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, but, like, I. I do that because it's a pain in the ass for me to try and balance the toothpaste. Like, I'll balance. I. I went to a period in my life when I was losing my side trying to balance the toothpaste on the tooth, and I get the toothbrush to my mouth and realize there was no toothpaste on it. Right. So I just realized, well, I just squirt the toothpaste in my mouth. But now I do that.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

I don't know why don't. Why, why does not everybody do that? Why'd you all go through the palaver of putting it on the toothbrush?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

And it's the same with poppadoms.

[Ed Gamble]

You know when.

You know when someone says something that you know you're going to think about every day?

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

So now every time I brush my teeth.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm going to think of you. Chris McCall's.

[James Acaster]

I just realized that my electric toothbrush died this morning, and then I forgot to put it on charge.

[Chris McCausland]

Oh, no.

[James Acaster]

So now I'm gonna get home and I'm gonna have to wait before maybe to brush my teeth, because you're gonna.

[Ed Gamble]

Have to go manual.

[Chris McCausland]

I mean, do you brush your teeth as soon as you get in?

[James Acaster]

No, but, like.

[Chris McCausland]

Well, then put it on charge.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, but what's the problem? But I know I'm not going to remember until I actually come to brush my teeth.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, but he's also going to use it to clean his trousers.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

I mean, that's why it will look the way it does.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

So in answer to your question, I'll take the poppadoms and dips, but if I can get rid of the two I don't want, and if I can have my own, and if I can just spoon the mango chutney into my mouth and then just have a bite of poppadom to go with it, that makes it easier. I'll do that.

[James Acaster]

Absolutely brilliant.

[Ed Gamble]

Perfect.

[James Acaster]

Dream starter.

[Chris McCausland]

Chris, do you know what I love?

I never. Antipasty, antipasti or anti. Pasty. Did I say that right?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I think so, yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

Antipasti.

[Ed Gamble]

Because, well, it depends what you're gonna say you want, Chris. Because if you say antipasti and then you start. You're describing spaghetti.

I've got to know what you think.

[Chris McCausland]

I said it out loud, and then I was like, is it antipasti?

[Ed Gamble]

No, Antipasti is right.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The starter. I love, love an arrangement of foods that I can just put in my mouth. And again, again. Do you know what I mean? Completely coincidentally we followed on here with a theme, haven't we? Yeah, but I like the idea of just putting separate things in your mouth in different combinations.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

And, and you know, I, I kind of make my own little version of it at home in a way in that, you know, I'll, and I like standing up while I eat it as well. You know, I'll just stand in the kitchen and I'll have some meat and some cheese and some toma, some maybe sun dried tomatoes, some olives and I'll just, I'll just sit there and I'll stand there and I'll, I'll just munch.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

And, and, and so the meats, the little bit of cheese, the mozzarella, sun dried tomatoes and some different meats. I don't even know. I don't even need to know the meats. I just need to know that there's different meats.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

And like. Oh, that one's different to that one. I don't need to know where they came from, how long they've been aged.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

What part of the animal they're from or what animal it is. It just different meats.

[James Acaster]

Now the only one I gonna pick you up on there is. You don't need to know what animal is.

[Chris McCausland]

Well, no, I mean, what, what I mean is I could probably tell when I eat it, but like I don't need to know when it's on the way up to my mouth.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

You know, I'm happy with like, you know, just give me some different meats and I'll figure it out. As I'm going. I'll play a little game.

[Ed Gamble]

That's good. We always like to, I mean a game element.

[Chris McCausland]

Don't, don't, don't be giving me animals that don't belong on it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

You know, but like a little bit of beef somehow ham, you know, different types of ham. There's different names for that in there. Yeah, I don't need to know them. Just.

[Ed Gamble]

I was gonna list something.

[Chris McCausland]

Just, just give me them and, and, and those, those, you know, I've just slagged off the bread as a starter. Yeah. But those lovely soft long breadsticks that you get that, that's where they belong. Get them on there because you can, you can, you can wrap some meat around the ends end.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

Put a bit of sun dried tomato with it. Have a Bite of that. Then you've kind of got a ham, breadsticks and dried tomato thing going on.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

And then next time, get a bit of mozzarella, put that on with a bit of olive. And then you've got, like a completely different thing at this point. Oh, cooking in my mouth.

[James Acaster]

I would say balancing isn't.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, yeah, you're balancing.

[James Acaster]

You're balancing here again. I am, but I'm putting up on your breadstick.

[Chris McCausland]

I am, but I'm holding it on with my fingers. Yeah, my fingers can't do that with two things. They just. Yeah, they just get out the way at the last minute. My fin.

But antipasti. Yeah, but I want antipasti for four. Right. I mean, because if I'm. If I'm in a restaurant, I've Sometimes I've ordered the antipasti for two because the antipasti for one's just not good enough.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

So I've ordered the antipasti for two just for myself and I've. I've eaten it all. So this is a dream restaurant. So sod it. I'm having the antipasti, I'm having the antipasti for four. Don't know if they do it. Give me two antipasties for two. Put them on a bigger plate.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, we can do it. Absolutely.

[James Acaster]

We'll do it for four, but we'll.

[Ed Gamble]

Do it for four. Like, it would traditionally be in a restaurant that amount. But here at the dream restaurant, we' call it antipasty for one.

[Chris McCausland]

But no, no, no, because then I feel like it undermines what I'm getting. I want to know. I'm getting it for four.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah. Would you like to know, like, would you like to, like, have three people in mind who aren't getting it?

[Chris McCausland]

Do I want to eat my antipasty for four in front of three people who are. Who are salivating?

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Who do you want those three people to be?

[Chris McCausland]

No, look, let them have their own anti passy for four, each of them. So, yeah, yeah, they can have their own thing. It's not. This isn't. This isn't a gluttonous thing of, oh, look what I've got. And you've got nothing. Yeah, it's not that kind of thing. It's just. It's just I like a bit of antipasti and if it's for four, that's all the better.

[Ed Gamble]

I completely agree with that. This is a perfect starter for me. Yeah, The. The arrangement of hams just like. Yeah, you want all of those Hams.

[Chris McCausland]

Oh, just like kind of slightly overlapping, fanned out almost like. Pick a card, pick a meat, pick a meat, any meat. Don't, don't show me what it is. Put it in your mout, in your mouth. Was it the, was it the pastrami? It was the pastrami.

[Ed Gamble]

Mozzarella, sun dried tomatoes, olives, that sort of stuff.

[Chris McCausland]

Sun dried tomatoes. It's, it's another one of those kind of weird foods, isn't it, that they've managed to sell to us. But it works, works. Adds a bit of sweetness.

[Ed Gamble]

I don't know how many. When you have sun dried tomatoes now, I don't think they could really have been dried by the sun.

[Chris McCausland]

No, no, there's a process, isn't there? There's a, there's a. I mean there's sundried tomatoes and then there's some blush tomatoes where they just, they've lost, they've just been impatient, they've gone. Just, just get them out, get them out. Let's get the next lot in.

[Ed Gamble]

Legally. We have to expose them to the sun briefly.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're not dried enough. They call them something different.

[James Acaster]

How long have they been around for sun dried tomatoes? Cuz someone's show me some stuff.

[Ed Gamble]

As long as the sun, I think.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

What?

[Chris McCausland]

Well I would, I would actually say I think the sun was around first. So as long as the tomato.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, as long as, yeah, they would have both have to have been around unless the tomato came before the sun, which I don't think it did.

[Chris McCausland]

God said let there be light and.

[Ed Gamble]

Tomatoes and then very quickly he said let there be tomatoes and then sun dried tomato and that, that begat sun dried tomato. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

I've got to read the Bible again.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, I love that. I love the authenticity of begat there. Yeah, that was a nice little use of language.

[Ed Gamble]

People have got to bring begat back, I think.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah. Well sometimes people order a baguette when we.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, you had a, you had a breakfast baguette.

[James Acaster]

Oh God damn it. Oh God damn.

[Chris McCausland]

Breakfast begat. Oh my.

[Ed Gamble]

Breakfast begat your dirty ass trousers.

[James Acaster]

Dream main course, Chris.

[Chris McCausland]

Dream main course. We didn't talk. Did you want to know what I want there?

[James Acaster]

What?

[Chris McCausland]

Did you want to know who I want there at the dinner?

[James Acaster]

People? Oh yeah, yeah, sorry, I thought you didn't want them. Yeah, yeah. Who are the three other people? You.

[Ed Gamble]

They're also, they also get answers.

[James Acaster]

I don't want to give them an antipathy. I want them to have to watch Chris eat an antipasti.

[Chris McCausland]

For four. Yeah. It's weird. Who do people pick on this usually?

[James Acaster]

Like, do they pick, like, sometimes their friends and family? Sometimes. Some celebrities I'd like to meet.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Sometimes they say that we can be.

[Chris McCausland]

There, but I don't want that.

Although, you know, James would take some of the heat off any spillages I have. Yeah. Yeah. It's weird, isn't it? Like, because I'd imagine people on this a lot kind of pick people who, like, they. Their dream kind of dinner guests. They go, oh, do you know what? Like, imagine having dinner with Jimi Hendrix or. But, like, do you really want to have your dinner with Jimi Hendrix? I mean, does Jimi Hendrix want to have his dinner with you? That's the thing. Is there any point in picking somebody that's going to be miffed that they're there?

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Hendrix would be livid, wouldn't it?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, he wouldn't be.

[Chris McCausland]

Oh, he wouldn't want to have dinner with me. He's ruined the whole thing.

[Ed Gamble]

Would you not want Eddie Vedder there again?

[Chris McCausland]

Again?

[Ed Gamble]

Chris loves Pearl Jam.

[James Acaster]

I didn't know you love Pearl Jam.

[Ed Gamble]

Pearl Jam on Celebrity Mastermind.

[James Acaster]

Oh, great.

[Chris McCausland]

I just. Yeah. I think sometimes these people, without a little bit of pressure to dinner that you don't need, you always feel like you've got a kind of. You can't. I can't. I can't enjoy the antipasti in the way that I want to enjoy it. Do I want to be shoving random foods into my mouth in front of Eddie Vedder from Peljan?

I'm not sure. Do you know what I'd love to have? I'd love to have. I'd love to have me dinner. If I can enter a fictional world, I'd love to have me dinner in an episode of Frasier. I'd love to be there with Frasier Crane and Niles and Daphne and Martin, like the original Frasier. I'd love to be in there. I'd love to be. I could be, like, a less annoying version of Daphne's Northern family. Sure. From the later series. Yeah. And just to be in there and to be part of the farce, the pretense and the. Yeah. And I think my favorite thing on that. I loved Frasier. It was my favorite sitcom. I loved it when Niles was going out with Daphne and she was taking him to a concert and he said, am I dressed appropriately for something called Banana Rama?

[Ed Gamble]

I love that. This man's gonna be in an episode of Frasier. Yeah, we know what the side dish is. Gonn.

[Chris McCausland]

There you go. So I'd love to have me dinner. Yeah. I'd love to be in an episode of. They do a good antipasti.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, yeah. They would put that together beautifully. But they'd tell you what all the meats are. They'd love to take you through what all the meats are.

[Chris McCausland]

They would. You know, I'd put up with it for that.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, they're allowed to do it.

[Ed Gamble]

Today's episode of the Off Menu podcast is brought to you by Real California Milk.

[James Acaster]

For California's dairy farm families, tradition runs deep. 99% of dairies in the state are family owned, passed down through generations of farms. Farmers who care for their cows, care for their land, and the quality of every product they make. That dedication is what makes holiday favorites taste so special. I'm talking rich hot chocolate, buttery cookies, or that creamy holiday eggnog.

[Ed Gamble]

So this season, when you're shopping for your favorite treats, look for the real California milk seal. It's real quality from real California farm families.

[Chris McCausland]

Eggnog.

[Zoe]

Guys, thanks for helping me carry my Christmas tree.

[Drew Ski]

Zoe. This thing weighs a ton.

[Chris McCausland]

Drew Ski, lift with your legs, man. Santa. Santa, did you get my letter?

[Drew Ski]

He's talking to you, British.

[Better Wild Announcer]

I'm not.

[Zoe]

Of course he did.

[Chris McCausland]

Right, Santa, you know my elf, Drew Ski here. He handles the nice list.

[Drew Ski]

And elf. I'm six' three. What everyone wants is iPhone 17 and at T Mobile, you can get it on them. That center stage front camera is amazing for group selfies. Right, Mrs. Claus?

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[Chris McCausland]

Okay Main course.

My wife's Brazilian and I, I must admit that the, the Brazilian offerings of food are absolutely solid.

They are. You know what I mean? Brazil. Brazil, solid offerings.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

They love, they love steak. You know, I love that cheese bread.

[Ed Gamble]

You know the, it's like good like panda cajo or something that where it's like looks like a bread roll and then you tear it open and there's more cheese than bread in there. Yeah, absolutely amazing.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, they've got a lot of the baked goods are nailed in, in Brazil, a lot of kind of pastels which are like, you know, egg and chicken and in, in like a, a pastry kind of.

Chicken and cheese fried sandwiches. It's phenomenal. But like, so they do p. Which is steak and it's steak cooked on a. I think they cook it on like an open flame, but it, it's just salted. It's really salted, just salty steak. And then they'll carve it thin into small pieces. There's only one thing better. I love a, I love a male. You might have figured out that I don't have to use a knife. Right. So you get, you get the steak kind of in bite sized pieces. You can just eat. It comes with like black beans, garlic and onions in. They've got this thing called frother, which I always take the piss out of because it's like sand. It's like some of these empty their flip flop on your plate. You know, it's like a pile of sand. I think they make it with flour. It looks like a grain, but it mops up the, the black bean sauce and the garlic and, and just kind of gets involved with the other foods. And I'll have some chips with that. Some chips and yeah, steak, black beans, faroffa. It's good.

[Ed Gamble]

The faroffa thing is wild. Cause I've been to Brazil and I had no idea what it was. But you're right, it sort of. It soaks up whatever moisture's left. Right. And then you've just got a completely flavoured flavored sand. But it's almost like clumping cat litter is the way I think of it.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, but it works.

[Ed Gamble]

It does well, it works. It's delicious.

[Chris McCausland]

You wouldn't eat it on its own. Yeah, it'd just be like a little cup of sand. Cup of sand. But when you've got a bit of juice going on, you've got a bit of meat juice, you've got a bit of black bean juice. It, it all lends itself and everything on that plate can be eaten with a fork. You can just kind of stab and shovel and get involved and get like there's loads of garlic in the, in the black beans and. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's good.

[Ed Gamble]

Do you like the Brazilian barbecue places where they bring around the skewers and just cut, cut it off for you?

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, I love it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, Keep going.

[Chris McCausland]

And you have your little traffic light on your table and they completely ignore it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

You know, green means meat, red means come over and check if I want some meat.

Yes. I just noticed your thing is already you showing them. Oh God. Then.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I would have been to one of those places once, but that was, that's exactly the experience. And also they told me about the system really strictly beforehand, as if I was going to be able to do it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And then they didn't do it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. I went to one in Philadelphia.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Called Fogo de Chow, which I think is a chain.

[James Acaster]

It's one I went to.

[Chris McCausland]

Is it?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

But in la.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh. And I went absolutely wild. Obviously. I ate so much meat. And the salad bar as well is basically like you can just go and get huge chunks of Parmesan. So I did that and I was only staying in Philadelphia for one night and went back to the hotel room and did the worst farts I've ever done all night to the extent the next morning I checked out and I felt guilty. I was like, they're gonna have to, have to burn the whole hotel. This is the worst. It was in the curtains by the end.

[Chris McCausland]

Oh man. You have to. My mother in law does this thing whenever she, whenever she, she wants to get rid of an odor in the kitchen. In the kitchen, in the, in the bathroom. She'll, she'll, she, she, she lights a match and waves it around as if she's just burning the, the, the fart.

[Ed Gamble]

I think that what works.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

In his bedroom that night.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. It would have been like a terrorist.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Flaming head in the toilet.

[Chris McCausland]

But does it work? Because it does. What, what like she claims it does? That it burns the aroma in the air or does it work because the room just now smells a burnt match?

[Ed Gamble]

That one. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

It's definitely just because it smells. You just put a stronger smell in.

[Chris McCausland]

Just a stronger smell in.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

How long have you been to Brazil, Chris?

[Chris McCausland]

A few times. Yeah. Not as often as. So me mother in law lived over there. But she was, she also, she came over when we had our daughter and she lived over here for, for ages. It, it's, you know, for all of its good points with the food, it, it, it's bloody hot, isn't it? Oh God, it's so hot. Yeah, it's. I remember first time, I remember when the first time I went, me, my wife was like bigging it up and she was going, oh, the food you're gonna love the food you're gonna love.

[James Acaster]

She was big enough.

[Chris McCausland]

Bigger than it. Yeah.

She goes, oh, the food, the steak, the blah blah, blah. And she goes, the beer, the cold beer. Oh, they Love a cold beer. Brazilians know a good beer. They love a cold beer. And I turned up. Do you know what it was? Skull. Skull. Everywhere. They sell it in the shops, they sell it on the beach. They have guys walking up and down the beach with bags of skull. I said to a skull is like, literally, like, the only place you can buy it's quicksave in 1992. But, yeah. So they love a cold skull.

[Ed Gamble]

But, yeah, it's anything. Any color is good, right?

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's.

[Ed Gamble]

It's.

[Chris McCausland]

It's so hot. I. I had this thing with it where, like, we were. You couldn't walk on the sand. It was so hot, the sand, that you couldn't burn your feet trying to walk across to find that where you were going to go to, like, pitch up on the sand. And I said to her, why can't I just wear me socks? And she said, I'm not taking you out with socks on the beach. I said, why can't I just. Like, it makes no sense because we're walking on the beach. It's too hot. Then we're putting the towel down and we're standing on the towel and we're letting our feet regain a little bit of normality before getting off the towel and walking, carrying on walking. Then we're putting the towel down. I said, if we put socks on, it's like, we've got towels on our feet. We've just got towels on our feet. We can just walk and then take this. She said, no, I'm not being seen with socks on the beach. I said, well, there you go. You're putting completely kind of a slight aesthetic, qualities of a practicality.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

It's a fun return home for your wife.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah. Yeah. Feet towels.

[Ed Gamble]

And wait till you hear my ideas about toothpaste.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah. Do you know what, though? If, like, if there was no such thing as socks.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

And then somebody, like, somebody said, like, oh, I've invented something. You just put it on your feet and you can walk on the beach. It's called feet towels.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

They. They would sell like hotcakes. Oh, my God. Feet towels have changed the world. My life is now completely different.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

With feet towels.

[James Acaster]

Feet, toes. It's a shame, really, that socks got in there.

[Chris McCausland]

Socks got in there. They've ruined it now.

[James Acaster]

People can't view them differently. Yeah. I guess you could bring out feet towels and just make sure they're made of the exact same material as a towel. It could be your. This could be your Dragon's Den moment.

[Chris McCausland]

What do you reckon Stephen Bartlett would say to. I'm stood up there in front of him. I'm saying, he's saying, how high up the leg do they come? I'm like, well, they just need to be trainer size because it's only the sole, the figure that he's protecting. Stephen.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

They are made of, of regular towel and material. And, and I reckon they'll, they'll sell like hot kegs, in a very small.

[James Acaster]

Phrase because it's, you're meant to be cooling your feet down, maybe selling like, cold cakes.

[Chris McCausland]

They'll smell like cold sandwiches.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

In a very small number of countries.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Okay. Well, you might lose Bartlett on a very small number of countries.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Your dream, dream Christmas dinner.

[Ed Gamble]

Merry Christmas.

[James Acaster]

Merry Christmas, Chris.

[Chris McCausland]

Merry Christmas. Ho, ho, ho.

Cream. Cream. Dream Christmas dinner.

[Ed Gamble]

If your dream Christmas dinner is just some cream.

[James Acaster]

A bowl of cream, please.

Like a cat.

[Chris McCausland]

Do you know what? Like, I had, I remember going back years, I had this Christmas dinner that I. So this must be like in 2008, 2009, somewhere around there. And I'd cooked it, right. And, and we had friends coming over and one of them is an Italian chef. And so I'd really, really planned this Christmas dinner.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

And like, you know, there's a lot, a lot of things going on. I researched what I need to do to make everything good. I didn't want to be showing up. Yeah. And I'd like, worked out the times. I kind of half cooked some things and then put them on the side so I could put them on. Have everything done at the right time. I had the times worked out. Four different timers going at once for things, and I had it. It was, couldn't have been gone better. And then he turned up and he, he rolled a spliff.

And he said, have some of this. And I just, I, I, I, in, in the space of two minutes, I forgot everything that was on the oven. Literally. It was like. Honestly, I, you can imagine that there's the chaos in my mind of like, I couldn't even see what was on the oven. I couldn't even remind my. Usually I lost track of all the times I lost track of what I was cooking. I, I, I just ended. The whole thing was so farcical to me that I thought it was all ruined. I thought, that's it, the dinner's gone. And then he stepped in and he saved the dinner because he's an Italian chef. But, but the combination of having this dinner that I was half responsible for, that I thought I'd lost that. Suddenly somebody else stepped in and saved and probably made better than what I would have made it. And combined with the fact that I now had the munchies.

[Ed Gamble]

I absolutely love that sliding doors moment. You've got everything prepared, and then an Italian chef comes over and says, do you want some of this? And it's just. It's yes or no. And the day is so different. Based on which question?

[Chris McCausland]

Oh, God. I couldn't even tell you what vegetables I was cooking. Oh. Just. I just had no idea of anything. I didn't even. I didn't know where to begin. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Oh, God.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah. So that. That was a. That was a good Christmas dinner for a lot of reasons.

[Ed Gamble]

Was that, Was that, like. The traditional Christmas dinner was like, turkey.

[Chris McCausland]

So I don't. I don't really go for the turkey. I don't. I, I can't. I can't cook a turkey. I love it. You know what? Like, just for tradition's sake, if I'm out somewhere that's doing Christmas dinners, I'll. I'll have a turkey. A turkey dinner, like, once a year. Just to say I've done it. Cranberry. I don't. Keep your cranberry sauce. Do you know what? I. I don't get it. I don't understand why. It's like one kind of mad person did it 200 years ago, like, put. You know what? I'm gonna put jam on a dinner.

Like, like just some absolute loon. What. What's. What we got? Well, we've only got five things left. We've got some turkey, we got some jam. Let's have turkey and jam.

[Ed Gamble]

It was probably like, Like a member of the aristocracy or something, or someone in the royal family. So everyone had to agree with it and eat it at the same time.

[Chris McCausland]

And then all of a sudd. Like, a thing that we have to do. It's just if you have a Christmas dinner sandwich. Oh, it's. It's just like someone's put. It's like somebody's combined a meat sandwich with a jam sandwich.

[James Acaster]

You like jam, though. You like Pearl Jam.

Which I've just remembered what Pearl Jam means.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. It's all down your trap.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah. Yeah.

There's just no way of you editing that out now, is there? It's been such a key part of the thread of the podcast. The Runner.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, Trousers.

[Chris McCausland]

I, I, you know, get rid of that. I, I think Christmas dinner is as much about enjoying the leftovers as it is about the dinner itself. And on that Regard. Yeah, just a ham. Ham, Lovely ham. Ham for you. Cuz. Ham's great cold, ham's great hot, ham's great cold, ham's great sliced thin fat chunks in a sandwich on its own. Used as a vehicle for something else. Almost like. It's like a meaty poppadom in it. You can just.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

Ah, so ham, lots of ham.

[James Acaster]

Christmas ham.

[Chris McCausland]

Christmas ham.

[Ed Gamble]

Lovely gammon, basically. Like a big slices of gammon.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah. And then it. It's good then in any form over the next few days, isn't it? Yeah, love a ham. The stuffing's good. Again with the applesauce. Like I'm not as anti applesauce as I'm cranberry, but I still wouldn't put it on my dinner. Yeah, like just keep it to yourself. It's. It's not as harsh and as jam, like as cranberry, but still it's not for me.

[Ed Gamble]

I do kind of agree with you on the, on the sweet sauces. I would do it out of tradition, but how do you feel about bread sauce?

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, it's a bit savory, isn't it? I mean, you have it with the turkey, don't you? You don't have it with ham.

[Ed Gamble]

You could have it with ham.

[Chris McCausland]

Could you have it with ham?

[Ed Gamble]

I'd. I'd, I'd have bread sauce with ham. I'd have. I'd, I'd. I'd pop horseradish radish with ham. I pop mustard. I bought mustard with ham. Chris.

[James Acaster]

Yes.

[Chris McCausland]

I don't know. I mean, it's weird, isn't it? Because, like I've only ever had mint sauce with lamb. I wonder where the mint sauce would go with other things. It's never been. It's never been an available option for me.

[James Acaster]

Work in a kitchen and we make a, like an onion salad with mint sauce and just have to mix it all together and it was actually really nice. Yeah, send that out. And that was with other dishes that weren't just lamb. I can't actually remember what it was with now, but like it was quite a popular item on the menu.

[Ed Gamble]

I'd go mint jelly over mint sauce. Anyway. I love mint jelly.

[James Acaster]

Didn't know that about you.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, I remember when I was a kid, this has gone about years. I remember having like a side, like a little spooned out kind of combination on a salad of celery, beetroot and apple, like chunks of apple. And that, that was, that was good, like apple adding a bit of sweetness on like in that form to a. To something that's savory was good.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

But not. I think the sources just get a bit. A bit sickly, don't they?

[Ed Gamble]

They sort of take everything over.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, they take over. Yeah. No, I'm happy with the gravy, to be honest. Gravy, parsnips, carrots. Get a bit of. I know broccoli is not traditional, but it absorbs gravy. It's a good. I also like to pretend I'm a giant when I eat broccoli. And, like, I pulled up trees from the road and then I like. And I eat it. Like, I honestly do the noise. Like I'm kind of. I don't know, like, giants can't eat anything without going, like, before they put it in their mouth, they probably just eat like us, don't they? Just bigger.

[Ed Gamble]

I just imagine your Brazilian wife sat there now.

[Chris McCausland]

That's why she doesn't take me out. That's why she doesn't take me out.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm in the room.

[Chris McCausland]

Restaurant.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Talk about feet.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, yeah.

Roast potatoes, parsnips. I. I do. You know what? Like, parsnips. For me, there seems to be a trend of trying to make the parsnip the full length of the parsnip, you know.

[Ed Gamble]

Interesting.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, yeah. And it's quite lethal for a blind man having a sharpened parsnip.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

On a fork. Because you don't. You don't know. First of all, often you don't know what you got on your fork.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

Also, even if you do know what to pass them, you don't know where you've skewered the parcel. You don't know how much of the spike you. I've had them up my nose and everything. So, you know, you go to. You go to kind of get one in your mouth and it kind of hits you with it. Up the nose, in the eye. Quite a lethal vegetable. Especially if it's well roasted, quite sharp on the end.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. And we've got to stick to the tradition with parsnips, which is you get the fat end and then the spike, the spiked end. Right. Two separate parsnips.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah. Shorten them.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. You short them even more.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

The thing for me, when that happens, it's often the short end, the flat end looks like a roast potato. So I think I'm. It's like. It's like you with the poppadom dips. I think I'm getting a roast potato and then it turns out it's a Parsnip. I'm not happy with that.

I don't like that.

[Chris McCausland]

No. Is there a. Do they look the same or you just.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, okay, yeah, I'll offer a counter argument and say they don't look the same.

[Chris McCausland]

They don't. I wouldn't imagine. They look the same.

[James Acaster]

Look the same. No, they're identical, Chris. Are they.

[Chris McCausland]

They're not identical, mate. I think you're cutting your potatoes too small.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. You're cutting your potatoes too small and cutting the ends off weirdly.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Chris is the one who's in the right here, and Chris is blind. Yeah, look, Chris is telling you they don't look the same, and he's.

[James Acaster]

It's a low point for me on the podcast.

[Chris McCausland]

They don't look the same and your trousers look fine.

Do you know what? Like the amount of times as well. I'll tell you, this is the worst. This is the worst is when you're having your dinner if you like not being able to say, it's like Russian roulette. You don't know what you got. So you got it. Yeah. The number of times I've thought I'm biting into a juicy quarter of tomato and it's a whole piece of lemon.

[James Acaster]

Oh. And.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, but I mean, that is the. That is the opposite of fizzy water. Yeah, that is. You know, the fizzy water. You think you're getting something. You're getting nothing. Yeah. That. You think you're getting a little bit of something. You're getting everything. Getting too much. Too much.

[James Acaster]

Your dream side dish, Chris, now, is that just the chips that you chose earlier?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, I think there was chips with the picanha.

[Chris McCausland]

Right. I guess.

[James Acaster]

But if you have a different side dish you'd like to pick.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah. I mean, this is really sad, but when I was in uni, I used to love. Love pot noodle sandwich.

It just.

[James Acaster]

It is sad.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

A piece of white bread with a beef and tomato pot noodle. Yeah. Spoon it onto the white bread.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

Don't even butter it, Just fold it over. Just a pot noodle fold over.

And that was a hearty meal for a starving student. Wow. And I'd never dream of making one now, you know, at the distinguished, distinguished age that I am. But this is a fantasy dream restaurant, isn't it?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Where.

[Chris McCausland]

What, what, what. What goes on in the fantasy dream restaurant stays in the fantasy dream restaurant.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

So, yeah, I think I'd like one single white bread pot noodle fold over. I also remember. Do you know what? Like, I was so Kind of unworldly with my foods. Like, the first time I ever had pizza was when I was a student at uni. I'd never eaten pizza. It just wasn't a thing that, like, I mean, it was a thing, but there was, like, there just wasn't with the. We didn't go out for. We didn't go to pizza restaurants when I was younger. Going to a restaurant just wasn't a thing that we did really. Do you know what I mean? And. And I also didn't like cheese when I was younger. And I didn't know that melted cheese tasted so much differently to blocks of cheese.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

And. And a mate of mine in uni said, you want a piece of this pizza? It was a 99 piece Sainsbury's. Kind of thin smear of cheese on a burnt bread base and with like eight pieces of pepperoni on it. And I said, no. And he went, you sure it's good? You know, And I. A piece. And it was the greatest culinary revelation of my life. Is that. That single piece. And I'm glad I started with a 99 pence pizza because I've had to gone straight in Domino's. I don't. I probably wouldn't be here to tell the tale. I. It would have been too much for me.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

So that moment was one of the greatest kind of shifts in my eating was the realization that melted cheese and pizza was incredible. And. And I. I still had a world of pizza to enjoy from that moment. I started at the bottom. It's the best place to start.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Now we're here.

[Chris McCausland]

But you know what? If I could recreate that moment of that first piece of pizza back, then just give me that as a little side.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, yeah. Nice. So we're dispensing with the pot noodles.

[James Acaster]

I think I'm gonna give Chris both because I like both.

[Ed Gamble]

The pot noodle fold over.

[James Acaster]

I think we're doing like Chris's uni years.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

Uni university years.

[Ed Gamble]

University platter.

[James Acaster]

As the.

[Chris McCausland]

As the side dish.

[James Acaster]

Because I don't think we'll ever have a pot noodle fold over again on the pod.

[Ed Gamble]

I think this. We've got to grab this with both of us. Yeah, very much.

[James Acaster]

Sounds like an invention that Chris has come up with.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

Add it to towel, socks or whatever.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

Feet, towels. Yeah. Trademark TM Copyright 2025.

[James Acaster]

I don't know how Bartlett is going to respond to the pot noodle fold over. I can't see him going in on this. Well, if he's out. If he's out.

[Ed Gamble]

If he's out for the feet towels. Imagine Dragon's Den. He's out for the feet towels. Chris doesn't get investment. The next person in is Chris. Clearly just wearing a hat, holding a. Right, hear me out. That's you. I know.

[Chris McCausland]

That's you as well. Back in the day, like, going back to, like, I don't know, late 90s or something like that, you go into a festival, like you went to the Reading Festival or something like that in the late 90s, they would have a pot noodle stand, an official pot noodle stand. Right. And. And it was a giant Pot noodle. And you'd go into the Pot Noodle to order a Pot noodle. And I, like, I would. I would go in to get a Pot noodle just because the thrill of being in a pot noodle was so much fun that you, like, the idea of being in the pot noodle was better than the Pot Noodle. So it almost feel like you were going in, like, on a ride.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Do you want your dream meal to be in a Pot Noodle?

[Chris McCausland]

A massive Pot noodle?

[James Acaster]

A Christmasy one?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah. Well, yeah, if it fits the. If it fits the format.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Let's not forget that this is. This will have to be a big Pot noodle restaurant in the middle of an episode of Frasier.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

Giant Pot noodle the size of the Seattle Space Needle.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

But honestly, like, walk, like. So the whole. It just looked like. Because I could see back then. So for the people at home, it just looked like a huge Pot noodle. Yeah. But the front of it was cut out, like a little doorway. And you'd walk in the Pot Noodle and you'd come out the big Pot Noodle with a little pot. With a little Pot noodle diddle. And even just now, the thought of it's making me giddy with, like, excitement. It's a thrilling thing to do. Where else do you get to go in the big thing and come up with a little version of the big Thing?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, that's a good point.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah. There's not enough of that in life.

[Ed Gamble]

Eiffel Tower, maybe.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah. Well, okay. That's a commemorative thing, isn't it? Like. Yeah, but.

[Ed Gamble]

But not a natural working. Yeah, I know what you mean.

[James Acaster]

Outside of landmarks box.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

The big Pot Noodles probably the only example of that.

[Chris McCausland]

I mean, if you got to, like, if you're at a burger shop, make it a big burger. And then the amount of people that would go in the big Burger to come up with a little burger.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

Oh, your burger sales will go through the roof.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Literally.

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[James Acaster]

Your dream drink.

[Chris McCausland]

I don't think my dream drink exists.

[James Acaster]

Okay.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

So I love Bartlett's getting ready.

[Ed Gamble]

This is the third time you've been in here today.

[James Acaster]

Here we go again.

[Chris McCausland]

I love, I love it and I, I always get confused. I always got confused between ginger ale and ginger beer. Right? Yeah. And now I came up with a way of remembering it and it is the ginger beer cheer. Ginger ale fail.

[Ed Gamble]

Right. Perfect.

[Chris McCausland]

And, and that's because ginger ale I think is like a bit too lemonade Y and ginger beer is the gingery one with a bit of a kick.

[James Acaster]

Yes.

[Chris McCausland]

No, I don't like it sweet. I like it quite, you know, dry and gingery. But whenever I have a ginger beer, I always think, I wish this was more gingery. Yeah. So I want the most gingery ginger beer. Like so, like, I want it hot. I wanted to burn the back of my throat. I want it to be, I wanted to, I want it to come with some pain like you would get with a chili like you get. People enjoy hot foods and hot sauces and, and, and there's a certain level of kind of pain that comes with the enjoyment. There's this physical reaction. There's a sensation to it. I want a ginger ginger beer that kicks my ass.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we can do that. For you, I can use my genie powers and make it the most gingery, fiery Ginger. Ginger beer.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. What's the. What's the ginger beer that's commercially available that you think gets closest to that?

[Chris McCausland]

I look, I mean, I like, I like a Fentan because the Fentimans comes in a decent sized bottle. Sometimes if you order a ginger beer, you get like a tiny little miniature that they'd use the top of a. Like a. A short. The Fentanyns comes in a decent size bottle, like 200 milliliters or something. And it's, it's not too sweet, it's quite. It tastes quite dry. So that's kind of the go to if you're out and about. But like, it could do, like. I'd love like an ultra version.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

Extreme. Ventiman's Extreme.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. I really want a ginger beer now.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah. I've sold it well, haven't I?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

And imagine going in a massive ginger beer to get a smaller ginger beer.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, it's gonna happen for the dream.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. I can make sure, we can make sure that every course.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

You're doing a giant when you're eating.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Or drinking it.

[Chris McCausland]

That, that would be. That, that, that would be good. Yeah. Except I don't know how you do a big poppadom. It'd just be like a. Like a gazebo, wouldn't it? Where the top was, the popper Dom.

[James Acaster]

Would have to be.

[Ed Gamble]

Otherwise it'd just be a door, wouldn't it? You just walk through and you're out. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

You just smash right through.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah. I think if you had a gazebo as well, where the top was a poppadom, you get sick of having to point it out to people, wouldn't you?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

Because like, massive pot noodle looks like a big pot noodle. You'd have to say to people, do you like me gazebo? And they go, yeah, it's nice. And then you have to go, the tops of Popper dump. Oh, is it? Yeah. I never noticed that. Yeah. Oh, I can now you've pointed it out. I can see it.

[James Acaster]

We know that all too well. We had, we had a. We did a live show, this podcast. We had a set behind us with a massive jump, giant popper Dom. And everyone just thought it was the moon.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Just look at the moon.

[James Acaster]

Every guest was like, there's the moon.

[Ed Gamble]

From the show.

[Chris McCausland]

Come on.

[James Acaster]

From the show.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Ginger beer always makes me think of the Famous Five. They would always have ginger beer lashings and lashings. Do you think you'd be a good addition to the famous five, Chris. Do I Solving crimes with four kids. Kids and a dog.

[Chris McCausland]

Okay, do you know what? Like I, yeah, I, I think I. It's of a time, isn't it? Yeah.

[James Acaster]

I like the words criminals and stuff.

[Chris McCausland]

I like the words they use. You know, there's always those words, isn't he? The good food words that she used in those books. Like she'd mix the words up, wouldn't she? Like delumptious and scrilicious and things like that. So yeah, it's innocent times, isn't it? Yeah. I'd imagine being in the gang this whole time. Crimes.

[Ed Gamble]

They didn't solve proper crimes though, did they?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, there'd be like drug dealers in the. Drug dealers or something.

[Ed Gamble]

They didn't do drug dealers in a lighthouse, did they? Oh yeah, definitely murder. And did they do murders? Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

Five. Five. Find a shiploader Ket.

[Ed Gamble]

That was one of them.

[James Acaster]

We arrived at the dream dessert. Chris.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

Do you have one?

What, what we in a giant one of now?

[Chris McCausland]

Oh God, this meal's dragging. Is it?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. No, when we can see the exact moment our guest runs out of energy.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, I, I, so I love, or I did love. I probably wouldn't love them now, but like I did, I love a school dessert and when I was in school I loved school desserts and I also remember the joy of a pink custard day or a chocolate custard day and they're probably so sweet for my 48 year old palate now. But like if I could eat those desserts with the palate of a child and just the amount of custard, the, the like what winds me up is when you go somewhere and you order a pudding that should be in a bowl and it comes on a plate and they, you know, you get like, oh, I love the treacle sponge and custard and you get a block, a little block of sponge on a plate with a drizzle of custard on it and you want to send it back and go where is this an acceptable vehicle for treacle spun? I want it swimming in it. I want a bowl, I want a bowl that facilitates the custard being higher than the sponge. I want to be surprised when I see sponge in there. I want it to be a bowl of custard and I want to excavate the sponge. Like I'm an archaeologist.

So good old school desserts with huge amounts of custards of various fluorescent colours with the palette of a child.

[Ed Gamble]

So we're going with the treacle sponge. Is that the one that you would have.

[Chris McCausland]

Love a treacle sponge. Yeah. A good old spotted dick. Even like a Bakewell. Bakewell tart with custard. Love all them.

[Ed Gamble]

I love jam Rollipoli.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Big time.

[Chris McCausland]

With a good old. I mean a pink custard. I mean, does that still exist? Do people still have pink custard?

[James Acaster]

I don't think so.

[Ed Gamble]

I've not come across podcast for a while.

[James Acaster]

When you did Strictly, did you have to change your diet at all?

[Chris McCausland]

When I did. So when I did Strictly, which I talk about in my book, Keep Laughing, which is out for Christmas, makes a PR. Guys out there, they'll be. They'd be like, oh, God.

[Ed Gamble]

Left ages ago, Chris.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah. Thank God he's brought it back to the book. I. I could eat what I wanted. Like, literally, it was insane. Like, we'd be training eight hours a day. I. I would have a. I would have a burger for like a Tuesday dinner time. Who's having a burger for a Tuesday dinner time at the age of 48? And then. And then I go, john, I'll have a burger again on the Wednesday or. And I. It just didn't matter. Like, I was. I was eating chocolate like it was Christmas and. And then it was Christmas and. And so there was the calories. Didn't matter. I ate what I wanted and I still lost weight. It was in. It was insane.

[Ed Gamble]

Wow.

[Chris McCausland]

But, you know, to counterbalance that, I was also held together with physiotape.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

It was physically, kind of slowly ripped me apart over four months. People go, do you feel healthier? I literally feel like I've been in a car crash.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

Like.

Me ass is literally sellotaped to me back, like, with actual pieces of tape. They. They've taken tape, they've attached it to me cheeks, and they've stretched that out to me shoulders.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Chris McCausland]

And they've gone, this will hold you in the form of a human for another week.

[James Acaster]

You just say to your wife, that's a Brazilian butt lift.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, I could eat what I wanted. It was. It was good. But then you've really got to reign it in when it finishes because you don't carry on dancing. And that's the one thing you can't carry on eating like that. Otherwise you. It all goes wrong, doesn't it?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, it was great. It was great to watch it every single week. Every time we. Like. I can't believe I'm still in it.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, I honestly thought I said no to it a few times because I didn't think it was possible. I thought, like, I'm all for diversity. I'm like, we should have more diversity, more representation across mainstream program. Do you want to do Strictly? Are you insane?

Literally insane.

[Ed Gamble]

Come on.

[Chris McCausland]

In what world do you think this is even possible? And I didn't. I didn't know what it was they were asking me to do because I couldn't. You can't describe it. Describe it. It was dancing. But how good, how technical, how fast. What are the dances to the only worker I. I was able to figure out what it was they wanted me to do was by doing it. So it was so the unknown, most terrifying thing I've ever done in my life and, you know, top 10 scariest things I've ever done in my life at 10 episodes of Strictly. Hands down. It was. It was that. That feeling of 8 million people watching, watching at home, and you're in the studio while that VT plays and you're just waiting for this moment of reckoning, and then it comes in the studio and they go dancing or whatever. Chris. And honestly, the nerves, I've never felt anything like it. And you just have to flick those switches in your head and just try and belt through it, you know, but it is. It's terrifying. Which is why as soon as that dance was over, if I felt like I'd done a good job and we put the hours in, we done all right. I went straight into comedy mode because that was me safety, you know, that was like, I've just blocked me. Well, I've just blocked myself as a dancer for the last two minutes. Yeah. Now let's take the piss out of Craig and have a laugh and, and do something that I. I know I can do. And. And it, it works. People kind of. People liked it. But the thing is, is that, I mean, think I'm proud of with it is that for none other weeks, throughout the whole 13 weeks were me and Diane ever kept in above somebody that got more points than us. Every, every week, the person that went out had less points than us, but from the judges. So we always held our own. Even though it connected with the audience at home and, and they liked what we were doing. And we had people supporting us and stuff. We. We always held our own up up until the final. And then in the final, over three dances, we only. We only were only four points off a maximum. So I couldn't be prouder. You know, it was.

Remarkable. And even when we got to February, two months After I'd look back and like, just when you're out of that bubble for just two months, I'd look back and I go, how the did we do that?

It just felt. It felt, it felt insane that that was even something that happened. So. Yeah, but it's. It's all in the book.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

Pot noodle.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Dance in the giant pot noodle, Chris.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah. Yeah. I. I suggested, you know, I. Of the music that you dance as well. You're allowed to kind of. It's a three way kind of conversation between Strictly and you and Diane and your dancer. And I don't. I, you know, I have my input on some dances and some ideas and. But I'd say most of the things I suggested on that show were shut down quite early on. A lot of my musical. I mean, me and you, Ed, share a lot of musical tastes. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Chris McCausland]

A lot of my musical tastes were like. I'd play Diane something that I thought had a really good beat and a really good rhythm, and she'd say, you just can't dance to this. There's nothing in it at all that even remotely resemble. I'm like, listen to that bass line.

[James Acaster]

Any examples of the ones that got away?

[Chris McCausland]

You know, I did play some Pearl Jam. I play. So I was told that, like, what. The couple's choice. You can do something that kind of means something to you. And also the paso doble, I was told, is kind of the one that you could do something heavier too. I went through a whole morning of playing, playing Diane Sepultura and Soulfly Song, which is Brazilian thrash metal. Thrash, groove metal. And kind of arguing with her in disbelief that she was saying there was no rhythm to them. It's pure rhythm, too much rhythm, I would say. I would say it's the cranberry source of the musical world. But.

Yeah, but I see a point. And I realized, doing Strictly as well, that it's as much about the song as it is about the dancing. Like, people will only like a dance if they like the song.

[Ed Gamble]

Interesting.

[Chris McCausland]

And I think that the song really, unless it's a paso, which is like traditional kind of. It works well with the traditional music. I think it needs to. It needs to have words to the song. It needs to be. They work better than like a score or. I remember, I remember Shane, who I was on with, did one of his dances. I can't remember which one it was, but he did it to whatever that tune is. That's the theme tune for Alton Towers.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And Fall of the Mountain King.

[Chris McCausland]

I can't remember how it goes.

[James Acaster]

It gets faster and faster.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah, it's the Fantasia thing as well, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He did it to that and I was listening to it because I'd do that every week. I'd be up there like there'd be an amazing dance get stood and they'd finish and I'd say to die. God, the band's amazing.

But he did it to that and it sounded amazing. But I was just thinking I don't think people are going to like the song compared to you know, the other choices on that week. So I think that's important something, you know.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. I. I really wish I'd been able to see you dance to a soul flow song.

[Chris McCausland]

Would you do it?

[James Acaster]

No, never. I wouldn't. Hold up, Chris. I'll be out week one stress. I'll be pleading the down the bound of the camera for them to vote me off. Please no one vote for me. I can't take this anymore.

[Ed Gamble]

Also costume would have an absolute nightmare with him when he just gets egg on it every single week. Please stop eating breakfast wrap just before you go on.

[James Acaster]

I can't help it. Let me to make you back to you now, Chris.

[Chris McCausland]

Oh yeah. Let's have this. Okay.

[James Acaster]

Still water. Absolutely. Pop it on spoons of condiments straight into your mouth.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Start an antipasti for four beef, different types of ham. Breadsticks, sun dried tomatoes, mozzarella, olives. Main course green.

[Chris McCausland]

Let's get rid of the black ones. Let's just go with the big green ones. Just a big green great ones.

[James Acaster]

Main course, picanha, Brazilian salted steak cooked on an open flame with black beans, garlic frofa and chips. Christmas dinner. You would like a Christmas ham. You love ham. Stuff in roast potatoes and parsnips. Side dish, beef.

[Chris McCausland]

And did that make it clear how much I like ham?

[Ed Gamble]

You didn't really say ham enough.

[James Acaster]

No, not enough. Side dish, beef and tomato pot noodle sandwich. A fold over on white bread and a bite of of your first pizza when you were at university.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah. Life changing. Life changing.

[James Acaster]

Drink the most fiery gingery ginger beer that we can make for you. And does a school dessert. Huge amounts of various custards with the palate of a child.

[Chris McCausland]

Well, can I just say that it sounds like the pallet of a child is the thing that's been eaten there. Can I just. I don't want a bowl of custard on the palate of a child. Child. Just if anyone's tuned in at the End. I don't know why they would, but maybe they got bored and just skip to the end to see how it finishes.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, maybe. People do that sometimes with our episodes. I'll hear the menu to know if I'm gonna like this episode.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, my God. He's eating the pallet of a child.

[Chris McCausland]

Yeah. What the hell for?

[James Acaster]

This is a nice guy. From strictly.

[Chris McCausland]

A little bit more context to it than that.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

What a lovely Christmasy way to end it. Chris, thank you so much for coming to the dream restaurant.

[Chris McCausland]

Thanks for having me.

[James Acaster]

Thank you, Chris.

[Chris McCausland]

Ham.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, there we are, James. What a lovely start to our Christmas specials.

[James Acaster]

Well, I mean, a crazy journey there we're in giant pot noodles, wearing towels on our feet.

[Ed Gamble]

Frasier.

[James Acaster]

Frasier was there. That was the most normal part.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, that was the most normal part. But lovely to see Chris. Lovely to chat to him.

[James Acaster]

Always.

[Ed Gamble]

Always funny. Get his book. Keep laughing.

[James Acaster]

On audio as well.

[Ed Gamble]

You can get it on audio. I'd say buy it in hardcover and buy it in audio. Makes a lovely Christmas gift. Maybe get one for yourself and one for your loved one.

[James Acaster]

Wait till the paperback comes out. Get that.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Complete for the completists.

[Ed Gamble]

You got it for the completists. And also, Chris did not say Chris Dingle.

[James Acaster]

No, he didn't say that.

[Ed Gamble]

Which you were glad about because I was enjoying the chat.

[James Acaster]

I would have been surprised if you said Chris Dingle with. Given what his food choice choices were. Yeah, I don't. I thought. I don't think he'll really like an orange with, like, dolly mixtures and raisins stuck in cloves.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. And clothes. We've had clothes already as a secret. Definitely disgusting.

[James Acaster]

Yes. Next week there's another Christmas episode.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes, there is, of course.

[James Acaster]

And, you know, let's just say similar vibe.

That's the clue.

[Ed Gamble]

That's the clue. It's a good clue. Why it's a good clue is it's not true. So it'll really throw people. People off the scent.

[James Acaster]

Okay. Yeah, well, you know, we'll see. See what. What people think if. If I'm right or you're right.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes. Okay. This is available tomorrow on YouTube if you're listening to this on the day it came out. Otherwise, pop on YouTube. It's probably there. Anyway. Had a few messages from people saying that Benito's winning, that they're listening to the episode on audio and then watching it on YouTube.

[James Acaster]

Benito's. Oh, that's because of us. That's because we're doing his bidding for him and saying that it's on YouTube.

[Ed Gamble]

I love to do his bidding.

[James Acaster]

We should stop promoting it. Yeah, No, I love promoting the uk.

[Ed Gamble]

I love to do Benito's bidding.

[James Acaster]

I hate it. I hate doing his bidding. It's the worst part of my life. Do his bidding all the time.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, Merry Christmas, James. Merry Christmas to all of you. We'll be back next week with another Christmas episode, but for now, bye bye jingle bells.

[James Acaster]

Bye bye jingle bells.

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