RICK STEIN’S ROAD TO MEXICO, BBC2, 9pm
TONIGHT Rick Stein arrives in Mexico City, the frantic, crowded, overwhelming capital. He tries out some smoky street food that’s heavy with “lashings of syrup and flavoured with mango”, and learns there is an essential rule we Westerners always get wrong: the famous dish is never called “chilli con carne”, but carne con chilli.
Indeed, chilli is so important here that you can buy different varieties that are dried, packaged and labelled as coffees might be in a trendy cafe.
But first, some booze. In a colourful bar he samples Pulque, “the original alcopop”, a thick, fruity drink which he’s encouraged to down in one.
I know this is a cookery show, but it’s almost a disappointment when he retires to the kitchen to create some of the dishes he’s learned about, because the chaos and colour of the streets is so exciting that you’re keen for him to get back outside.
INVASION! WITH SAM WILLIS, BBC4, 9pm
YOU might wonder why such an immense subject – the various hordes, armies, and influences that have invaded Britain across the centuries – has been compressed into three episodes. Surely this calls for a mammoth series, but that would require the programme makers to have faith in the viewers to regularly tune in and take on a serious topic. Yet it’s been done with the gigantic Ken Burns documentaries on Vietnam and the American Civil War. It seems the Americans can do it, but not us.
The second episode in this too-short series looks at a particular invader of Britain who is beloved of Hollywood and adventure yarns: the pirate.
Presenter Willis tells the story of the Barbary corsair pirates from north Africa who settled on Lundy Island off the coast of Devon, and for years preyed on the cargo ships trying to sneak past them into Bristol.
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