Debbie Schlussel: Real "Kitchen Nightmare": Chef Gordon Ramsay's Hypocritical Statism
Meet the Nanny Chef, Gordon Ramsay, the anti-carbon print kitchenmaster.
Personally, I don't like British Chef Ramsay's two successful FOX reality shows, "Hell's Kitchen" and "Kitchen Nightmares." He's overly abusive with his quick temper, and takes the Simon Cowell schtick too far.
But what I really don't like is how he's now trying to use government power to impose his idiosyncracies and politics on other chefs. Oh, and he doesn't practice what he's trying to get government to do to his kitchen colleagues across Britain.
Ramsay wants the British government to fine chefs who don't use his politically correct choice of produce and ingredients--so-called "local ingredients." It's the latest rage across America, too: You're supposed to help your community and reduce the carbon footprint (in terms of packaging and delivery fuel costs to import the food) by only buying local ingredients and only when they're in season.
Yet, while Ramsay wants others to do this, he himself doesn't practice what he preaches. And that's in addition to his nanny state approaches results--putting poor farmers in the Third World out of business. I'm all for buying American and supporting your local economy, and I try to buy products made and ingredients produced in America to support our economy. But that's a choice, and that's the way it should be--not a government mandate. What Ramsay is trying to do in British kitchens and haute cuisine is haute statism:
Britain's most-decorated chef - he has been awarded 12 Michelin stars - demanded the Government outlaw all out-of-season food from every restaurant in Britain.By making his comments, the chef, author and television presenter was laying down a marker of his personal food philosophy. But he also risked accusations of hypocrisy because he fails quite brazenly to practise what he preaches in his own restaurants, which serve food from thousands of miles away.
Making a call for legislation on Radio 5 Live, Ramsay said: "There should be stringent laws - licensing laws - to make sure produce is only used in season.
"The quicker we get legislation pushed through the Houses of Parliament, the more unique this country will become in terms of its sourcing and level of inspiration. Chefs should be fined if they haven't got ingredients in season on the menu."
Again, at Ramsay's restaurants all over the world (including in New York and the Mid-East), he regularly imports ingredients from all over the world. Do as Chef Ramsay says, not as he does.
And it's interesting that Ramsay is concerned with the carbon footprint when--to film his two reality shows in America--he constantly flies himself and production staff all over America, and then constantly flies back home to Britain. That's a lot of fuel wasted, more than was used to make your non-local-ingredients gourmet meal.
Hmmm . . . I think we see what the real "Hell's Kitchen" looks like. It's not the one hosted by Ramsay on FOX. It's the one hosted by Ramsay and the British Government in the UK.
Time to deport this alien chef away from America's kitchens. Gordon Ramsay's politics and hypocritical statist goals are a recipe for disaster. Keep them off America's menu.
Exit question: What's the carbon footprint for production, sale, and delivery of these many Gordon Ramsay products?
Hard to say, but it surely rivals the cash footprint left in Ramsay's bank account. That's the only real green Chef Ramsay really cares about.
Posted by Debbie on May 14, 2008 10:44 AM to Debbie Schlussel