Can't cook, won't cook - Young British women "can't cook to save their lives"

telegraph - uk ^ | 23/10/2005) | Chris Hastings and Elizabeth Day

[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.

[LibWhacker]

The vegetarian complains to Ramsay that he has played a "mean" trick on him, but Ramsay jokes that he "hasn't come out in a big rash". He is then filmed laughing at the man and asking him if he would like some more,...

Lol, in my experience, more than 90% of vegetarians are phoney liberal poseurs... "Oh, look how much more highly moral and ethical we are than Christians and conservatives; we don't eat meat, just as God would've wanted, if he existed..."

I mean, WHERE were these vegetarians in the 50s, before it became a big liberal poseur fad?

Still, I don't know if I'd pull the pizza stunt myself; you've gotta recognize that some vegetarians aren't poseurs, (and might even be conservatives) and don't deserve to be mistreated for that particular preference.

[R. Scott]

As much as I like that breakfast, I have to limit myself to a few times a month.

[MarkL]

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.

Well, a lot of people complain about British cooking, but I've got to say, Nigella's quite yummy!

Mark

[kingsurfer]

You started it!
I heard a joke about British women, I'm sure I'll get som e nice flames for it (I really do love the Brits, but can't resist a cruel joke against English women)...


Q: What do you call a beautiful woman in Liverpool?
A: A foreigner.

___________________________________________________________

ROFL

[MarkL]

While I'm all for making fun of veg-heads myself, what the chef did by telling someone that they were eating a viggie pizza and afterwards telling them that there was meat on it was not funny at all. I'd have to say that the chef was lucky the guy was a veg-head. Since it seems that most are leftist bed-wetters (but not all!), he must have thought he was safe.

Mark

[kingsurfer]

Does anyone in that nation have a spice cabinet?
___________________________________________________________

We pretty much invented the spice trade.

[MarkL]

my gf cant cook either.

She can burn water

A buddy of mine (who's since been divorced and remarried) told me a few months after marrying his first wife, "She treats me like a G-d. I get burnt offerings every night!"

Mark

[hispanarepublicana]

Thanks for the Certo/pectin info. A habanero (aka Scotch Bonnet pepper) is a hot pepper that looks like a tiny orange bell pepper but kind of twisted up. It's VERY VERY VERY hot (something like tens of times hotter than a jalapeno). I think it's known as THE HOTTEST pepper there is.

[metmom]

My b-i-l would love it. He's moved to TX recently so probably knows about it by now.

[bk1000]

"It can be deeply upsetting for vegetarians to find they have eaten any part of an animal in error. Would Gordon find it equally amusing if an anaphylactic customer died at the table due to eating nuts?"

Typical leftist drivel. How can anyone compare someone whose feelings got hurt to someone who is dying from lack of oxygen?

[stanz]

Spent a few weeks in the West country in August. Local inns and pubs actually served meals which were quite good. One complaint...all salads smothered with mayonnaise-based salad creams. Found many good seafood meals in the Cotswold inns and in Sussex as well.
Women there are gorgeous, but the old weight factor (even with children) is creeping up there just as it is here.
One warning: Stay away from Bill Wyman's place "Stickyfingers" in Kensington. When we complained about no bread on the table, they brought us out one hamburger bun and charged us £4.50 for it. We promptly redressed our grievances.

[AlaninSA]

We pretty much invented the spice trade.

Just inventing the trade means nothing if you retain nothing of what you've gained during an import/export process. :-)

[bmwcyle]

#3

[kingsurfer]

We pretty much invented the spice trade.
Just inventing the trade means nothing if you retain nothing of what you've gained during an import/export process. :-)
___________________________________________________________

The most popular dishes int he UK are Indian and Thai curries. Spices and herbs are used in most cooking in the country.

London, and the rest of the country, has had a culinary renaisance in recent years.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4606874

[Jaysun]

My daughter married a Brit whose mother is a gourmet cook of Chinese food, Best I ever tasted, but then again, she's not a Brit female. My daughter is known as a great cook to most guests at her table. They are always surprised that she cooks from a scratch and does not abide prepared foods. However, I tend to agree with the idea that most Brit women are poor cooks. I have eaten meals all over the world, but the worst were there in Old England.

My wife is from Germany. Some would expect sour kraut three times a day, but she's an excellent cook. What's more, she makes everything from scratch just as your daughter does. She goes so far as to make all of our bread. It's a wonderful and increasingly rare thing to have a wife with such skills.

[Da_Shrimp]

Just the introduction of garlic and black pepper alone would make a chef a superstar there.

Oh perleeese! I'm a Brit bloke and I've been using garlic and black pepper in my cooking for over 20 years. There are some wonderful places to eat out in England, here's one of them, just down the road from where I live:

The Hardwick Inn

Sample Menu:

• Fillet of fresh sole wrapped around fresh crab and prawns
• Sea Bass pan fried with garlic and dill
• Game and ale casserole
• Venison steak in ale
• Half a braised guinea fowl
• Rabbit and cider* pie

_{* Real cider with alcohol, not the poncy American apple juice travesty.}

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Also, It appears that almost nobody ever makes gravy anymore. When I needed a new roasting pan, I discovered that all the pans had coating on them and the directions said not to place them directly on the burner, which makes it impossible to make real homemade gravy.

Oh goodness! If the roasting pan can't go on the burner, remove the meat to a plate and pour the juices out into a frying pan or sauce pan, add flour, salt, and pepper, etc., and mix in water or milk or whatever to create the sauce once you have a good paste. That's what my mom and dad always did, and it is what I do. It works great.

The real problem is the stores cut off so much fat from the meat, that its hard to get a good level of drippings to make gravy (or Yorkshire pudding).

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Yorkshire Pudding:

1-1/2 cups flour
3/4 tsp. salt
1-1/2 cups milk
3 eggs

3/4 cups pan drippings (add melted butter to make-up for any deficit)

40 minutes before meat is finished, combine all ingredients and stir well until just smooth. Place hot pan drippings into a 13x9x2 baking dish or distribute evenly into muffin cups until each cup is about 1/4 full. Then pour in batter. Bake 30 minutes at 400 deg. until pudding rises on the sides and turns golden brown. Serve immediately.

YUM!

Notice the recipe can be cut by thirds or increased by thirds as desired. You may want to put a cooking tray beneath the dish or muffin tins to prevent pan drippings from running out and going all over your stove.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

It's England! English food is terrible. Most British women throughout history have never been able to cook!

It says a lot that when given a choice, every British boy's dream was to run off to sea and eat salt pork and sauerkraut, which was undoubtedly a step up from gruel and porridge that was "nine-days old" as the nursery rhyme says.

[metmom]

Thanks. I'll give that a try. How on earth did you dig up this thread? It's been so long.