Bubbling away in its 20th year, Channel 4’s Come Dine With Me is one of the most delicious reality shows ever created.
Five (or sometimes four) contestants each make a three-course meal for the others over the course of a week, for the chance to win £1,000. Each meal is hosted at a contestant’s house, where wine is drunk, bedside drawers are snooped through, ill-advised party games are concocted and hilarity ensues. Then, in the cab home, the diners rate the meal out of 10.
The show’s appeal lies not just in watching contestants make inexplicable and evening-ruining concoctions in the kitchen (sausage trifle, anyone?), but in the even more bizarre melting pot of social interactions.
The Come Dine With Me format has been replicated across the world, but, unsurprisingly, it is in the UK – where contestants tend to be painfully polite and relentlessly passive-aggressive – that a show based on people rating each other’s dinners often seems at its best. In the French version, they all just cook lovely food, then give each other constructive, educated criticism – and let’s be honest, who wants to watch that?
From awkwardness over the correct number of cheek kisses to questions about the validity of pastry, the UK’s Come Dine With Me’s many tropes are like a hangover-curing, life-affirming pot of leek and potato soup (served with a generous dollop of ice-cream because Aldi didn’t have any creme fraiche).
Here, in no particular order, are 100 of them.
1. The host makes a great show of asking how everyone likes their steak, then immediately forgets their replies and cremates the lot.
2. A woman screams as her stilettos sink into a sodden lawn as pre-dinner cocktails are served alfresco in a back garden in Dundee, where July temperatures have soared to 10C.
3. “Our third contender is wisecracking telecommunications director and collector of vintage German lawnmowers Barclay Gubbins Belshaw!”
4. A heated argument erupts about whether ghosts are real.
5. A contestant shoves a sparkler into a rapidly collapsing chocolate brownie and announces: “I love a bit of bling, me.”
6. A gay man cooks awful food, but wins by complimenting everyone’s hair and hiring a drag queen as entertainment.
7. A diner declares: “I hate lamb.”
8. A contestant cooks an entirely Greek menu because their mate went to Corfu once and brought back a jar of olives.
9. At least three of the guests don’t know what feta is.
10. At least three of the guests don’t know what falafel is.
11. The narrator, Dave Lamb, mutters: “Steady, everyone!” as a belly-dancing troupe shimmies into a tiny living room in Tunbridge Wells.
12. The dining room is decorated with swirly flock wallpaper in black and purple or white and silver.
13. While pouring a jar of Blue Dragon paste on to some unseasoned chicken, a contestant insists: “You can’t go wrong with Thai food.”
14. A guest grandly reveals they once met Les Dennis at the opening of a Carpetright.
15. A man shows off by eating a whole scotch bonnet, then vomits into the kitchen bin.
16. A guest enthuses: “I think this is the most delicious panna cotta I’ve had in my life, Jill, well done you!” Cut to post-dinner interview: “It looked and tasted like sick. Absolutely revolting.”
17. A woman in a floor-length fur coat refuses to eat rabbit.
18. A flummoxed contestant asks: “Why is it all written in Spanish if they’re doing a Mexican menu?”
19. Someone pronounces “chipotle” as “chipottle”.
20. Lamb says: “Blimey, good luck!” as the host slams down plates of pear and peach omelette topped with lightly frozen peas.
21. A contestant cries: “Ooh, two kisses, very European!”
22. A middle-aged man whose whole personality is puns says: “What do you call cheese that’s not yours? Nachos! Wahey!”
23. “The food was all right, but I just feel like she didn’t put the effort in. Just whacked some things on a plate; anyone can do that,” says a woman who previously presented her guests with salad from a bag, a bowl of plain spaghetti and shop-bought ice-cream.
24. A contrite guest explains: “Sorry, but I really don’t like French food at all.”
25. The host strategically positions a photograph of themselves when they were 7st heavier, then is offended when everyone mentions it.
26. A person who is clearly awful says: “I don’t suffer fools gladly! What you see is what you get.”
27. The host delivers an artful smear of pea and mint puree, using the back of a teaspoon.
28. A contestant is introduced as the “fun-loving party girl of the group”, with a montage of them clinking glasses of grape juice in an empty nightclub while the first four bars of Fergie’s Glamorous plays.
29. The host forces her guests to say which animal she reminds them of, then cries when everyone says rat or snake.
30. The host proclaims: “Tonight, I’m so proud to be giving my guests a proper taste of my heritage, although I am taking a shortcut and using this Old El Paso spice mix, because it’s just easier.”
31. The host makes a flawless three-course banquet with great care and skill, but is marked down an entire six points on the soup course for serving a slice of bread they didn’t bake themselves.
32. “Who’s got time to make their own bread? No one’s got time for that.”
33. The guests follow an inexplicable beach-party dress code, where everyone wears oversized sunglasses and colourful beads while eating beef wellington in the middle of January.
34. Lamb announces: “This week, we’re in Dribblington-Upon-Avon, where the world record was once set for the most pansies deheaded in 24 hours!”
35. A discussion about who is the most or least posh descends into a debate about foxhunting, then one of the guests quits the competition.
36. A diner declares: “I hate fish.”
37. An instrumental version of Nicole Scherzinger and AR Rahman’s Jai Ho! plays on the backing track while someone makes a curry.
38. A guest says: “I have never heard of baked camembert, but it sounds absolutely foul.”
39. Lamb: “Aaaaaand here we go, fourth cheesecake of the week!”
40. A host makes meringue, then tests it by holding the bowl over their head, squealing: “Ooh, I don’t like it! I don’t like it!”
41. A contestant asks: “How old do you think I am?”
42. A balding 50-year-old from Slough insists he was once mistaken for Jake Gyllenhaal.
43. A Jamaican contestant is warned by everyone to put way less spice than usual in their jerk chicken, then they all complain that it’s not spicy enough.
44. Starter: scallops and chorizo, pan fried and served on pea and mint puree, which everyone says is very fancy. Main: rack of lamb with unseasoned carrots and potatoes, which everyone quite likes. Dessert: cheesecake with a base so solid that a guest makes a show of hacking at it with their spoon and says: “Phwoar, got a hammer for this, mate?”
45. “This is recruitment consultant and part-time sit-down salsa dance instructor Elaine!”
46. A conversation takes place about star signs, in which three people conclude they are soulmates, one person feels left out and one person says they “don’t like all that sort of thing”.
47. The host says: “I’m half Moroccan, so I’d really like all my guests to learn about the food and culture of the Middle East and get in touch with their inner Shakira.”
48. A contestant is exiled after daring to put fruit in something savoury.
49. “Ooh, another great shirt!” says the host to a guest wearing his third Hawaiian top of the week.
50. A host shows off rapport with their local butcher by saying “mate” and “wicked” a lot and ordering an unnecessarily huge cut of beef.
51. An instrumental version of Lily Allen’s Smile plays on the backing track as someone scowls into a rice pudding.
52. A strawberry is plopped ceremoniously into a plastic flute of prosecco.
53. A diner declares: “I absolutely hate bread.”
54. A contestant says: “Life’s too short to make your own pastry.”
55. A contestant says they “really like to push the envelope” with their cooking, then makes a rack of lamb with carrots and potatoes.
56. A contestant says: “This is a unique dish passed down through my family, so I’ve got a real place in my heart for it, actually,” then makes a rack of lamb with carrots and potatoes.
57. A contestant says: “So, we’ve got a vegetarian and a pescatarian, and I know Julie really hates lamb, so I’ve decided to do rack of lamb with carrots and potatoes.”
58. A contestant ruins their chances by telling everyone to expect a Michelin-starred meal.
59. “Next up, it’s door-to-door candle-wax salesperson and hummingbird-conservation enthusiast Bradley!”
60. First guest’s intro: “There’s nothing I hate more than someone who’s outspoken, really up themselves and lives for the attention.” Cut to second guest’s intro: “I tell it like it is and I’m a bit of a showoff, actually, yeah.”
61. Guests have a look around the host’s bedroom, find a nurse’s uniform and conclude that the host is a stripper.
62. “There’s a lot at steak tonight … see what I did there?”
63. The starter is served on a slate, the main is served on a wooden plank and the dessert is served in a teacup.
64. The only man in the competition wins, then says with a chuckle: “Well, it seems like the best man won!”
65. Every time someone is making meatballs, dough balls, gulab jamun or anything else vaguely spherical, they say: “Ooh, I’m good at handling balls!” (Wink to camera.)
66. Establishing shots of Stoke-on-Trent whiz across the screen to the instrumental version of the Pussycat Dolls’ Don’t Cha.
67. A cloche of prize money is revealed to a stilted cheer that clearly took 20 takes at 11.30pm.
68. The bottom of a cake tin falls out and the contents land on the floor. The contestant scoops it up with kitchen towel, arranges it artfully on the plate and squirts some whipped cream over it.
69. A contestant tries to jazz up their disastrous dessert by making an outline of a spoon on the plate with cocoa powder and a stencil.
70. The favourite to win scuppers their chances by discussing farts at the table.
71. “This week we’re in Little Whitherford, famous for being the first place in Britain where someone parallel-parked a Ford Mondeo.”
72. A guest produces a wig from under the table: “We found this on a mannequin in your guest room! Are you a drag queen, Mick?” “No, I’m a trainee hairdresser.” “Oh.”
73. Everyone sits in stunned silence as the host sways around the dining table serenading the group with Frank Sinatra’s My Way.
74. “Winner, winner, chicken dinner,” says a man called Dave, proudly holding aloft a saucepan of burnt chicken korma.
75. There is unbridled horror at the revelation of shop-bought pastry.
76. A contestant says they have “accidentally” run out of eggs and calls their mum to bring some round, so she can be on TV for three seconds and say: “All right then, love. Good luck! See you later!”
77. A host tries to make chocolate domes by drizzling melted chocolate over an inflated balloon.
78. “My first impression of you, Siobhan, was that you were a bit arrogant, a bit of a know-it-all, a bit me, me, me … and now that we’re at the end of the week, that impression still stands.”
79. A guest in novelty sunglasses says: “I love a laugh, me!”
80. Ice-cream comes out of the freezer rock hard, so it is put in the oven and forgotten about.
81. A contestant who says in episode one that they are “the life and soul of the party” manages to alienate or offend everyone by episode three.
82. While rating their meal in the back of the cab, a contestant holds up a “9” card, then, shaking their head, flips the card upside down.
83. The host, who is the only blond person at the table, accuses a guest of “planting” a blond hair in the tiramisu.
84. “Next to arrive at the party is property surveyor, part-time children’s entertainer and collector of limited-edition lion-taming DVDs Mimsy Jane Backenroth!”
85. Guests show off their “party tricks”, which involve flipping up their eyelids, raising their eyebrows several times in a row or using their toes to pick up the saltshaker.
86. Calls are made for the host to be disqualified when they reveal they worked as a chef in a breakfast cafe in 1991.
87. A contestant is labelled “a game-playing ponce” because their menu is in Italian.
88. Things rapidly go south when someone says they once saw the queen’s convoy ride past and someone else says they actually met the queen.
89. A contestant runs up a flight of stairs, giggling. “And they’re off to get glammed up!”
90. A glass of gin and tonic is served with a complete herb garden in it.
91. A contestant holds up a garlic crusher and claims: “I have genuinely never seen one of these before in my life.”
92. A contestant makes a show of uncorking a bottle of champagne with a hiss, rather than a pop, usually in a conservatory and perhaps with the aid of a tea towel.
93. The inexplicable use of food colouring ends up dyeing a brown thing green or a green thing brown.
94. When everyone fails to grasp the concept of vegetarianism, the vegetarian of the group is served fish one night, a plate of plain boiled veg the next night and a baked potato on night three.
95. A contestant says: “I’ve eaten at London’s finest restaurants on several occasions.”
96. The host says, while carrying an armful of barely touched bowls of soup back to the kitchen: “Well, I think that went really well.”
97. A contestant complains that their lamb is overdone and underdone.
98. The “joker” of the group decides to arrive dressed as a giant banana for no discernible reason.
99. A contestant admits: “We’ve said we’ll stay in touch, but I’ve got no interest in speaking to any of them ever again, quite frankly.”
100. And finally … “TAXI!”
Come Dine With Me is available to stream on Channel 4
