I Cooked Christmas Dinner Inside a Big Steaming Pile of Shit

To celebrate Christmas this year, VICELAND sent Tom Griffiths – chef and founder of east London’s Flank restaurant – to Kew Gardens, to cook a Christmas dinner in shit.

The botanic gardens in deepest west London are home to the largest non-commercial compost heap in Western Europe, which is made up of shredded horticultural debris from the gardens and, importantly, stable manure from the Queen’s Royal Horse Artillery.

Why horse manure? Because the bacteria contained within helps to break down the plant material, meaning it can then be used as compost. Fun fact: all that breaking down can generate temperatures inside the compost heaps of around 80°C.

It may sound slightly ambitious, but that’s technically hot enough to slow cook beef and other edible bits and bobs. Imagine it sort of like steaming, or sous vide cooking, but instead of water gently warming the foodstuff it’s horse shit.

To put this theory to the test we vac-packed all the ingredients of a Christmas dinner, left them in the compost heap for a bit and came back later to check the results. Watch the video above to see how we got on.

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