Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay
Posted on 10/23/2005 1:44:45 AM PDT by dennisw
Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay
 15 May 2005: Ramsay's pizza joke outrages vegetarians |
He is infamous for his raging four-letter-word tirades but now Gordon Ramsay has managed to insult 50 per cent of the population without uttering a single expletive.
The television chef has provoked uproar by claiming that young British women "can't cook to save their lives". In a move likely to alienate his army of female fans, the 38-year-old Michelin-starred chef, who is currently filming a new series for Channel 4, says that Britain has produced a generation of women who can "mix a cocktail" but are incapable of doing anything else in the kitchen.
Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay The former professional footballer said that while more and more men were making their mark in the kitchen, far too many women were surviving on a daily diet of expensive and unhealthy ready-made meals.
"I have been visiting ladies' houses up and down the country with our film crew and you'd be amazed how little cooking the girls are doing," he said. "When they eat, they cheat - it's ready meals and pre-prepared meals all the way.
"Seriously, there are huge numbers of young women out there who know how to mix cocktails but can't cook to save their lives, whereas men are finding their way into the kitchen in ever-growing numbers. Trust me: I am only telling you what I've discovered."
The comments might come as a shock to Ramsay's wife, Tana, who cooks for their four young children in a separate kitchen at home.
Ramsay, who has become an unlikely sex symbol through his regular television appearances, makes his scathing comments in an interview to promote his new series, The F Word, in which he cooks a three-course meal for each episode.
He tells the current edition of Radio Times that he has no time for "stick-thin models who never eat" and he says that he would refuse to serve anyone in his restaurants who asked to go off menu because they were "on a stupid diet like the Atkins or GI".
"They would be out of the door before they knew what was happening," he said.
His damning verdict on the culinary skills of young women is causing controversy. Female cooks and writers accuse him of ignoring the inroads made by a new generation of women chefs into what was previously a male-dominated world.
The number of female chefs at work in Britain has been rising steadily for years. They include Ramsay's former protégée, Angela Hartnett, the 36-year-old chef-patron at the Connaught in Mayfair, central London, in addition to Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray at the River Café in Hammersmith, west London, who trained Jamie Oliver.
Clarissa Dickson Wright, who shot to fame as one half of television's Two Fat Ladies, said that Ramsay's remarks were "rubbish and about 10 years out of date".
Ms Dickson Wright, who was until recently the rector of Aberdeen University, said: "I think when I first joined the university there were young women students who didn't know how to cook. But I think the situation has completely changed over the past five or six years.
"Young women have read books by food experts and chefs and are now much better informed on what they should eat and how they should prepare it.
"I have noticed the sea change because unlike a lot of so called celebrity chefs I spend my time with real people rather than the glitterati."
Tamasin Day-Lewis, a food writer who contributes to The Daily Telegraph and Vanity Fair, described the Ramsay thesis as "complete b*****ks".
"I have a 20-year-old daughter at Bristol University who has already written a student cookbook and prides herself on cooking from scratch, buying good food and making sure her store cupboard of essentials never runs out," she said.
"My three children are all like that and so are their friends."
Skye Gyngell, a chef and the food editor of Vogue, agreed that cooking was a dying art but said it was "bull***t" to suggest that women were worse than men.
"We live in a world of convenience and life is so quick that a lot of us can no longer be bothered to learn cooking as a craft or skill," she said.
Ruth Watson, the proprietor of the Crown and Castle Inn at Orford in Suffolk, who presents Channel Five's The Hotel Inspector, said: "I don't disagree that a lot of people aren't bothering to cook real food during the week but as Gordon Ramsay seems to rate everyone on the size and efficacy of their balls, it's hardly surprising he gives women the thumbs down."
Nigella Lawson, the television chef and chat show host, has herself previously attacked British women for "vaunting their undomesticity".
"Of my friends, it is mostly the men, not the women, who cook," she said.
****.... (of course, we homeschool, so they learn nearly everything at home).****
Good for you. If my kids were still kids, I'd homeschool too.
How do you make it? I have a recipe for it and popovers and can make the popovers work but have never been able to get the Yorkshire pudding to come out the way I had it in England. :(
That's great! Can I use that at work?
Thanks. And sure, why not? I use it at work.
People at work think I give them hell sometimes. This is inaccurate. I just tell them the truth; they think it's hell.
***I did. This site explains catnip. By the way I have never had a cat that paid attention to cat nip much to my disappointment.***
I'll be darned! I thought I read enough about catnip to go into business as an expert. LOL! But you found the answer for me. Catnip and oregano are cousins. Hmmmm....I wonder what would happen if I offered my cats some oregano. I'M GONNA DO IT. Right now. I'll let you know if they react. LOL
Ever had British "food?"
Does anyone in that nation have a spice cabinet?
***There's a catalog that we get called "Lehman's Non-Electric Catalog"". It's an Amich company and they sell all kinds of old-fashioned stuff like that. Their web address is www.Lehmans.com. (LOL)***
THANK YOU. I'm adding that to my favorites.
Second best breakfast.
Canning is nearly a lost art - for city folks.
YORKSHIRE PUDDING
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
2 eggs
Mix all ingredients with HAND beater.
I use what is feloniously called whole milk today. What we get in my area is laced with powdered milk, but it works.
I've found there are two secrets to success. First do NOT overbeat it, just mix the stuff up good. Second, use the size pan the recipe calls for if you want it to raise and stay raised. Oh, and a third secret. Don't mix it up until you plan to bake it.
My recipe calls for a 425 degree oven for 30 to 40 minutes. But I find that it cooks faster than that.
OH, another thought, if you use glass pans, it's much easier to wash them out later.
For the recipe above, the pan should be 9x9x2".
I just fed one of my kitties a bit of oregano. She liked it, but didn't rub her chin in the way she does with catnip. And she didn't fall asleep after the way she does with catnip. In fact, I think it was just the smell she liked because she didn't eat much.
I second that!
THANKS! I'll give it a try. We only use whole milk, too.
Actually, I have to! I cannot digest milk products! In fact, just today I had a home-made Focaccia!
In fatto, questa focaccio fatto per mia moglie era molto buono!
LOL! Thanks for the advice, but I'm a woman and can't bear to put a poor worm on a hook. (Their insides squeeze out. It's disgusting.) But I sure don't mind eating them. The fish I mean.
I really admire you! Pressure canners are scary things.
In the first hospital I ever worked in, they made homemade cornbread every day (From scratch mind you). Texture like pound cake...OH MY!
Anyhow, they'd save all the leftover cornbread, white bread, rolls etc in the cooler, and once a week make from scratch 'dressin'. Again, it was wonderful.
Everyday they also had homemade vegetable soup, made with the veges etc from the previous day. It too would make you slap your Mama.
It is actually very delicious, but you probably don't want to know what it's made of. It's suet (fat from around beef kidneys) which is grated and mixed with flower and raising. It's wrapped tightly in white cotton in a sausage shape and boiled. It's eaten hot with syrup all over it. We called it suet pudding growing up, but it's the same thing.
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