Former jailbird and murderer (only of an Australian rat, to be fair) Gino D’Acampo is escaping again – to Italy, for another series of Gino’s Italian Escape (ITV). It’s islands this time, and first he’s nipping about Sardinia in a cute little Fiat 500, wearing aviators and a movie star grin, stopping to take selfies in front of an interesting rock (it looks like an elephant).
“Are you OK?” he asks his young female companion. “I guess you don’t need a seatbelt. You know what, you are the only girl that I had in the car that actually is not talking. I quite enjoy this.” Yeah, women, eh, Gino? Rabbit rabbit, yap yap.
To be fair (again!) she is a pig. An actual pig, a suckling one, and she’s on her way back to Villa D’Acampo to be cut down the middle using a hammer and a sharp knife, then butterflied out and impaled on a spear (“my D’Artagnan sword”), before being roasted in front of an open fire. Don’t worry if you haven’t got an enormous fireplace, you can just put your pig in the oven, says Gino. Provided you’ve got an enormous oven at home, I guess.
Amazing that, during this whole process, the butchery and fire lighting, spitting and crackling, Gino’s immaculate, pale blue trousers remain immaculate, unspotted by blood or soot or spat fat. I think Gino likes to look fresh – at one point, he changes T-shirt mid-journey.
Oh, and that’s it as far as the cookery goes in this episode. And apart from the swording, rubbing in a bit of salt, stuffing in a few myrtle leafs, there’s not an awful lot to it. He does eat a couple of other things: Catalan-inspired sea urchin spaghetti and a lemony creamy pudding in the coastal town of Alghero, which he seems to enjoy. But the only cooking he does is the pig. You might expect more from a chef on a foody journey. People moaned about Nigella the other night, but I’d say her avocado toast was more of a recipe than Gino’s pig.
There is time for a little more tourism, though. Gino takes a boat to visit a cave complex, with stalagmites and stalactites – to take another selfie in front of interesting with some rocks. Say formaggio.
