Ramsay Says Use Local, Seasonal Foods or Be Fined - But His Menus Fail

Sometimes you gotta wonder what the problem is with Gordon Ramsay. Does he open his mouth and spew out stuff and then think about it? Does he do things knowing he’s going to look like an idiot afterwards? Even if his own house were in order and if he indeed really did mean things from the heart, just who does he think he is to try and get legislative fines introduced for anything?

Yes, Gordon Ramsay shot his mouth off on Friday and now, with the weekend having passed and critics having gathered, they’re firing back. Looking at things as they are at the moment, Ramsay has managed to anger every United Kingdom cook and chef who wasn’t already annoyed by him.

You see, his general message was rather well-intended. Um, we think. From Friday’s Telegraph, Ramsay was saying that

the industry [is] at risk of “spiralling out of control” as food is flown into the UK from all over the world. Ramsay, whose restaurants include Maze, Petrus and Foxtrot Oscar, said chefs should be confident enough to remove a dish from the menu if the right ingredients were not available.

He said: “Chefs should be fined if they haven’t got ingredients in season on their menu.” “I don’t want to see asparagus in the middle of December, I don’t want to see strawberries from Kenya in the middle of March. I want to see it home grown.

This is where a decent thought turned into draconian craziness though:

There should be stringent laws, fines and licensing laws to make sure produce is only used in season. If we get this legislation pushed through the Houses of Parliament then the more unique this country will become.”

Ramsay said he had spoken to the Prime Minister Gordon Brown briefly about the issue and warned that buying food from abroad made cooks lazy. “If we don’t restrict our movements within this industry of seasonal produce only, then the whole thing will spiral out of control,” he told the BBC.

It didn’t take long for the country’s cooks and chefs and media to retaliate. From Saturday’s Telegragh came:

But Ramsay was accused of hypocrisy after it emerged that more than 15 unseasonal ingredients – including blackberries, parsnips and fennel – are currently being served at his own restaurants and would fall foul of a fine. [….]

Anthony Worrall Thompson, a television chef, was also circumspect: “I trawled through his menus from Claridges and Maze and there were at least 15 items that would have warranted a fine,” he said. “The principle is right but as for fining, I think it is a bit of a nonsense – he likes to keep in the limelight.”

It’s the Guardian’s comments section that Interneters are having the most fun pointing our Ramsay’s own restaurant flaws though:

Poster benbush wrote: “Leaving aside steak flown in from Japan and the USA (bring it on), the raspberries in the quail salad are maybe a little early? And which red fruits are in the Eton mess exactly. Presumably Padron peppers wouldn’t be shipped in from Padron would they? And all those apples they’re using must have been keeping well … What a chump.”

HowardV followed up with: “I heard the story on the radio this morning and immediately thought, ‘Oh no, Gordon again.’”

Our Food Supply: Cheese, Cantalopes and Other Food Warnings to Heed

Our food supply … Is this a place I even want to go? In many ways I’m split. Yes, we should know what’s happening with our food supply as it effects our health. That said, I hate to be one that spreads fear — knowledge yes, fear no.

This also reminds me of the mid-80s to early 90s when there was soooo very much misinformation constantly coming at the public in regards to “everything” causing cancer. Oone week it was hamburgers, three days later it was aspirin, a week later something ridiculous like oranges, then something more believable like charcoal grilling (also not the case however), the next week it was scotch — I swear, scotch — and a couple days later it was water.

It became a nightly ritual to watch the Johnny Carson show and see what food item was killing us today and what wise crack he had to say about it. By the end of the onslaught practically everything that was mentioned in all those years, none of it did squat, that is, 99.999% was noncarcinogenic. So, having lived through that hayday of “everything kills you” and learning at that time to ignore it all … well …. you can see my misgivings.

Still, this is today … and the spinach scare and the lettuce scare were real — and that’s impossible to ignore. Whether we eat at home or outside, whether it’s at a Taco Bell or at five-star Zagat and three-star Michelin restaurants, our food supply basically comes from the same places, so, with that, here’s a brief bunch of articles, links and news headlines to be aware of. All of these are from within the past thirty days:

» Italian Wine Under Investigation for Adulteration
» FDA issues warning on cantaloupes
» Superbug found in Canadian pork products
» Toxic cheese scare rattles Italy
» Battle continues over labeling of rbST in milk
» Meat Packer Admits Slaughter of Sick Cows

Thanks to Chefs, UK Food Industry ‘Runs A Fowl’ of Ready Supply

Not one, but three stories revolving around Jaime Oliver this week.

In the United Kingdom, celebrity chefs have crazy, mad followings. I mean what in America Oprah can do for a book sale, chefs there can do the same for food. For instance, when Gordon Ramsay made a live meal on television where people where to cook along with him a month or so ago the supermarkets in England ran out, completely ran out of the meal’s ingredients. So when chefs talk there, people follow in overwhelming droves.

With this in mind and therefore in the better watch out what you say department, telvision chefs Jaime Oliver and — even more so — Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall have been pushing for free range chickens so hard, people listened — big time. Slight problem: there’s not enough to meet the demand. In short people have literally stripped many stores bare of whole free-range chicken and this had caused major repurcussions in the food industry there:

From Farmer’s Weekly Interactive UK:

what was worrying was that the free range cuts were imported from France. Such is demand that retailers are being forced to look further a field, which will have serious consequences on the British sector if it becomes a long-term fix, as highlighted by the NFU.

So has the push resulting in consumers trading up to imported free range products inadvertently increase food miles and threaten British companies? After all, there was still plenty of high quality, intensively produced British chicken on the shelves.

The TV chefs don’t understand that the UK industry cannot increase supplies like turning on a tap.