from Waitrose online magazine, food and drink section
Why do male chefs make such a fuss over a simple thing like cooking? Doyenne of the stove Prue Leith advises Marco, Gordon and the lads to count to ten, while Bill Knott profiles a few of the worst offenders.
Why can't these posturing chefs just calm down and cook? It's like watching four-year-olds saying, "My Dad's bigger than yours", or boys boasting about how far they can pee. Even Jamie Oliver peppers his mockney with expletives.
Marco Pierre White started it in 1987 with White Heat, and tales of the feats of endurance he believes are crucial to performance. You have to be a "pain junkie" to succeed, he writes. What arrogant rot! Of course chefs have to run a tight ship, of course they will occasionally get angry. But the Roux brothers, Richard Corrigan, Marcus Wareing, Anton Mosimann, Heston Blumenthal, Raymond Blanc… all have managed to garner Michelin stars without running a galley ship.
In his recent autobiography, White Slave, MPW gives us more tales of rivalry, bullying, and passionate rows: with his mentor Albert Roux, with his partners Damien Hirst and Michael Caine, and with his protégé Gordon Ramsay, whom he's proud to have reduced to tears. He boasts of the brutal way he has cut them all out of his life, and of the "theatre of cruelty" that is his leadership style.
These days, Marco may be 44, out of the kitchen, and more interested in money than bollocking frightened commis chefs, but he still doesn't get it. In a recent interview he said, "all the people who've kicked you in the balls in your life, they were weak, they were ambitious, they were egotistical, they were insecure." Precisely. Couldn't have said it better myself.
Gordon Ramsay, of course, has gone one better than his former boss. He has turned his bad-boy act into a gravy train. You can almost hear the TV director saying, "Gordon, this is getting boring. Time to throw a wobbly."
It's a clever exploitation of his reputation. Not of his undoubted genius for cooking, but of his willingness to be a bastard. Ramsay is a clever chap, indeed a delightful one, but he genuinely believes you get more out of people if you break them down first, dominate them psychologically, drive them, literally, to tears. He seems unaware of the evidence that frightened people cannot learn, that the rush of adrenalin allows only two responses: fright or flight.
Anthony Bourdain now admits that his Kitchen Confidential, the first of the lid-lifting industry confessionals, published in 2000, was "an obnoxious, over-testosteroned account". But Bourdain is a great writer and reader, and brilliantly revealed the underside of restaurants, where bullying is considered management, where filth is normal practice, where drugs and booze keep exhausted cooks awake and help them party through the night, and where the punter is both derided and fleeced.
He's since made a career in TV and books, mining the rich macho vein either of male bonding over a hot stove or the fearless eating of scary things. Others have followed suit. Even gentle Fearnley-Whittingstall's latest book is entitled Hugh Fearlessly Eats it All: Dispatches from the Gastronomic Frontline.
Testosterone sells. But what does it say about us, the readers and viewers, who are generally friendly to friends, polite to strangers and underlings, and averse to swallowing live crawly things, that we applaud this macho nonsense?
Well, there is more to come. Ramsay will presumably keep his enemies and make a few more with his upcoming autobiography, Humble Pie. I doubt if there will be anything humble about it. But I bet we all buy it.
MARCO PIERRE WHITE
Known for his single-minded pursuit of three Michelin stars, the self-styled Godfather of Modern British Cooking was the first British chef – and the youngest of any nationality – to earn them. His often-turbulent private life and all the tantrums are well documented in his brutally honest new autobiography, White Slave.
Age 44. Appearance Always a giant personality, Marco now has a physique to match. The hair is a little tidier than it once was, but you might well find him sitting in one of his restaurants dressed in muddy wellies and an old sweater looking like a retired country gentleman.
So he's a touch eccentric, is he? Marco would much rather be gunning wildlife or dangling his rod from a riverbank than meeting and greeting diners or autographing copies of his book. He is a crack shot both with rifle and a 12-bore, and has caught some astounding pike, not to mention salmon and carp.
What about that story I heard…? I should make very sure of your facts, if I were you. Marco has been to the libel courts several times and invariably wins.
ANTHONY BOURDAIN
Chef and author Anthony Bourdain first came to public attention with the publication in 2000 of Kitchen Confidential, a highly colourful account of his culinary career. The book, described by AA Gill as "Elizabeth David written by Quentin Tarantino", became a bestseller and launched his new career as a writer and TV presenter.
Age 50. Looking good on it? Not bad, considering the constant diet of booze and drugs he chronicles in Kitchen Confidential.
What's his diet like these days? Nothing too rich – the occasional snack of ant's eggs, raw seal's eyeballs, or maybe the still-beating heart of a cobra, complete with blood and bile on the side.
Eurgh… And that's just for breakfast or as an amuse-bouche.
Any jobs going in his kitchen? You could try his New York eaterie, Les Halles: just don't put any Billy Joel on the ghetto blaster. That apparently constitutes grounds for instant dismissal.
A little light Mozart, then? Try hard-core New York punk: Bourdain dedicates his latest book to The Ramones.
GORDON RAMSAY
Ex-footballer Gordon Ramsay's rise to the top has certainly been no secret: he has interests in a host of restaurants, including his flagship on Royal Hospital Road, which has three Michelin stars. In the public's eyes he is just as famous for his autocratic kitchen persona and his breathtakingly Anglo-Saxon outbursts.
Age Turning 40, although his tantrums make him seem a lot younger. About three, in fact.
Wearing well? A moderate drinker and a non-smoker, he's done several London Marathons.
He seems a bit of a bully on TV He graduated from the Ecole de Hard Knocks working for Marco Pierre White, who made him cry…
Aah! Poor Gordie And superchef Joël Robuchon once tipped a dish of steaming ravioli over his head.
Temper, temper! In fact, he can be terribly charming in person. But it wouldn't really work on television.
Is he nice to anyone? Anthony Bourdain: Kitchen Confidential was his Desert Island book. But his taste in music – Kim Wilde and Bryan Adams – would get him thrown out of Bourdain's kitchen.
TOM AIKENS
Apart from being a jolly talented chef with a Michelin-starred Chelsea restaurant, Tom is famous for two incidents with cutlery: one in which he 'branded' a young chef with a hot palette knife, and the other in which he's said to have confronted a diner after her £600 lunch, accusing her of having stolen a silver coffee spoon.
Age 36. Appearance Fond of slightly odd but very expensive haircuts; ditto with clothes. Very King's Road, very Chelsea.
He seems such a nice, shy young man Yes, but not when it comes to other chefs. He described one meal he ate at Nico Ladenis's restaurant in a volley of four-letter words, of which 'Nico' was easily the most polite used.
Wait a sec, haven't I seen him hanging around the Natural History Museum late at night? I am informed that he takes fencing lessons in the basement.
Any other dangerous sports I should know about? He also plays polo, apparently.
Ah, I like a chukka with pukka tucker! Tom's your man. Just make sure you count the spoons.
HUGH FEARNLEY-WHITTINGSTALL
No flying meat cleavers for Eton-educated Hugh, who's worked in Africa doing conservation and at the touchy-feely River Café – he was sacked for being too messy. The TV series A Cook on the Wild Side made his name (he infamously made a pâté from human placenta) and was followed by the River Cottage series and books.
Age 41. Appearance Famously unkempt, with little glasses and straggly shoulder-length hair.
What's this about him murdering Delia? Not that Delia, idiot! Delia was the name he gave to one of his River Cottage sows. She was turned into rather delicious salamis at the end of the series.
Wasn't that Gordon Ramsay's idea? Er, no, not until years later…although his piglets were also named after TV chefs. Prosciutto of Ainsley, anyone?
Does he mind being known as 'Hugh Fearlessly Eats It All'? Not at all: in fact, it's the title of his latest book, which features such acts of culinary bravado as tucking into fugu, the treacherous and occasionally fatal Japanese puffer fish. "Poisson roulette", he calls it.
from Waitrose online magazine, food and drink section
Why do male chefs make such a fuss over a simple thing like cooking? Doyenne of the stove Prue Leith advises Marco, Gordon and the lads to count to ten, while Bill Knott profiles a few of the worst offenders.
Why can't these posturing chefs just calm down and cook? It's like watching four-year-olds saying, "My Dad's bigger than yours", or boys boasting about how far they can pee. Even Jamie Oliver peppers his mockney with expletives.
Marco Pierre White started it in 1987 with White Heat, and tales of the feats of endurance he believes are crucial to performance. You have to be a "pain junkie" to succeed, he writes. What arrogant rot! Of course chefs have to run a tight ship, of course they will occasionally get angry. But the Roux brothers, Richard Corrigan, Marcus Wareing, Anton Mosimann, Heston Blumenthal, Raymond Blanc… all have managed to garner Michelin stars without running a galley ship.
In his recent autobiography, White Slave, MPW gives us more tales of rivalry, bullying, and passionate rows: with his mentor Albert Roux, with his partners Damien Hirst and Michael Caine, and with his protégé Gordon Ramsay, whom he's proud to have reduced to tears. He boasts of the brutal way he has cut them all out of his life, and of the "theatre of cruelty" that is his leadership style.
These days, Marco may be 44, out of the kitchen, and more interested in money than bollocking frightened commis chefs, but he still doesn't get it. In a recent interview he said, "all the people who've kicked you in the balls in your life, they were weak, they were ambitious, they were egotistical, they were insecure." Precisely. Couldn't have said it better myself.
Gordon Ramsay, of course, has gone one better than his former boss. He has turned his bad-boy act into a gravy train. You can almost hear the TV director saying, "Gordon, this is getting boring. Time to throw a wobbly."
It's a clever exploitation of his reputation. Not of his undoubted genius for cooking, but of his willingness to be a bastard. Ramsay is a clever chap, indeed a delightful one, but he genuinely believes you get more out of people if you break them down first, dominate them psychologically, drive them, literally, to tears. He seems unaware of the evidence that frightened people cannot learn, that the rush of adrenalin allows only two responses: fright or flight.
Anthony Bourdain now admits that his Kitchen Confidential, the first of the lid-lifting industry confessionals, published in 2000, was "an obnoxious, over-testosteroned account". But Bourdain is a great writer and reader, and brilliantly revealed the underside of restaurants, where bullying is considered management, where filth is normal practice, where drugs and booze keep exhausted cooks awake and help them party through the night, and where the punter is both derided and fleeced.
He's since made a career in TV and books, mining the rich macho vein either of male bonding over a hot stove or the fearless eating of scary things. Others have followed suit. Even gentle Fearnley-Whittingstall's latest book is entitled Hugh Fearlessly Eats it All: Dispatches from the Gastronomic Frontline.
Testosterone sells. But what does it say about us, the readers and viewers, who are generally friendly to friends, polite to strangers and underlings, and averse to swallowing live crawly things, that we applaud this macho nonsense?
Well, there is more to come. Ramsay will presumably keep his enemies and make a few more with his upcoming autobiography, Humble Pie. I doubt if there will be anything humble about it. But I bet we all buy it.
MARCO PIERRE WHITE
Known for his single-minded pursuit of three Michelin stars, the self-styled Godfather of Modern British Cooking was the first British chef – and the youngest of any nationality – to earn them. His often-turbulent private life and all the tantrums are well documented in his brutally honest new autobiography, White Slave.
Age 44. Appearance Always a giant personality, Marco now has a physique to match. The hair is a little tidier than it once was, but you might well find him sitting in one of his restaurants dressed in muddy wellies and an old sweater looking like a retired country gentleman.
So he's a touch eccentric, is he? Marco would much rather be gunning wildlife or dangling his rod from a riverbank than meeting and greeting diners or autographing copies of his book. He is a crack shot both with rifle and a 12-bore, and has caught some astounding pike, not to mention salmon and carp.
What about that story I heard…? I should make very sure of your facts, if I were you. Marco has been to the libel courts several times and invariably wins.
ANTHONY BOURDAIN
Chef and author Anthony Bourdain first came to public attention with the publication in 2000 of Kitchen Confidential, a highly colourful account of his culinary career. The book, described by AA Gill as "Elizabeth David written by Quentin Tarantino", became a bestseller and launched his new career as a writer and TV presenter.
Age 50. Looking good on it? Not bad, considering the constant diet of booze and drugs he chronicles in Kitchen Confidential.
What's his diet like these days? Nothing too rich – the occasional snack of ant's eggs, raw seal's eyeballs, or maybe the still-beating heart of a cobra, complete with blood and bile on the side.
Eurgh… And that's just for breakfast or as an amuse-bouche.
Any jobs going in his kitchen? You could try his New York eaterie, Les Halles: just don't put any Billy Joel on the ghetto blaster. That apparently constitutes grounds for instant dismissal.
A little light Mozart, then? Try hard-core New York punk: Bourdain dedicates his latest book to The Ramones.
GORDON RAMSAY
Ex-footballer Gordon Ramsay's rise to the top has certainly been no secret: he has interests in a host of restaurants, including his flagship on Royal Hospital Road, which has three Michelin stars. In the public's eyes he is just as famous for his autocratic kitchen persona and his breathtakingly Anglo-Saxon outbursts.
Age Turning 40, although his tantrums make him seem a lot younger. About three, in fact.
Wearing well? A moderate drinker and a non-smoker, he's done several London Marathons.
He seems a bit of a bully on TV He graduated from the Ecole de Hard Knocks working for Marco Pierre White, who made him cry…
Aah! Poor Gordie And superchef Joël Robuchon once tipped a dish of steaming ravioli over his head.
Temper, temper! In fact, he can be terribly charming in person. But it wouldn't really work on television.
Is he nice to anyone? Anthony Bourdain: Kitchen Confidential was his Desert Island book. But his taste in music – Kim Wilde and Bryan Adams – would get him thrown out of Bourdain's kitchen.
TOM AIKENS
Apart from being a jolly talented chef with a Michelin-starred Chelsea restaurant, Tom is famous for two incidents with cutlery: one in which he 'branded' a young chef with a hot palette knife, and the other in which he's said to have confronted a diner after her £600 lunch, accusing her of having stolen a silver coffee spoon.
Age 36. Appearance Fond of slightly odd but very expensive haircuts; ditto with clothes. Very King's Road, very Chelsea.
He seems such a nice, shy young man Yes, but not when it comes to other chefs. He described one meal he ate at Nico Ladenis's restaurant in a volley of four-letter words, of which 'Nico' was easily the most polite used.
Wait a sec, haven't I seen him hanging around the Natural History Museum late at night? I am informed that he takes fencing lessons in the basement.
Any other dangerous sports I should know about? He also plays polo, apparently.
Ah, I like a chukka with pukka tucker! Tom's your man. Just make sure you count the spoons.
HUGH FEARNLEY-WHITTINGSTALL
No flying meat cleavers for Eton-educated Hugh, who's worked in Africa doing conservation and at the touchy-feely River Café – he was sacked for being too messy. The TV series A Cook on the Wild Side made his name (he infamously made a pâté from human placenta) and was followed by the River Cottage series and books.
Age 41. Appearance Famously unkempt, with little glasses and straggly shoulder-length hair.
What's this about him murdering Delia? Not that Delia, idiot! Delia was the name he gave to one of his River Cottage sows. She was turned into rather delicious salamis at the end of the series.
Wasn't that Gordon Ramsay's idea? Er, no, not until years later…although his piglets were also named after TV chefs. Prosciutto of Ainsley, anyone?
Does he mind being known as 'Hugh Fearlessly Eats It All'? Not at all: in fact, it's the title of his latest book, which features such acts of culinary bravado as tucking into fugu, the treacherous and occasionally fatal Japanese puffer fish. "Poisson roulette", he calls it.
