Celebrity Chefs – Should they be held culpable?
Back in Olden Times (OT), BCC (Before Celebrity Chefs) we used to cook wholesome, nutritious tasty food purchased from our local Supermarket and generally based on Jars, Bottles, tins and the freezer section! Then two things happened, TV Dinners and TV’s obsession with Celebrity Chefs (CC) and cookery programmes. I suspect that they are very cheap to make and generally enable the CC to sell an associated book/DVD to make millions. Finally they elevated themselves into semi-deictic status and started preaching to us about the quality of the food we should be feeding ourselves. So these days these guys dominate both daytime and prime time TV schedules, Magazine stands and our bookshelves. They dictate what food we are able to buy from Shops, what shops we should frequent to keep our consciences clear and the sort of farming that we as a nation find acceptable.
When Fanny Craddock was the doyen of TV Cookery, we were spared her autobiography when she was only 35 and indeed had to wait until she had actually achieved something worthwhile! Her programmes were rare and much loved, as much for the running battle’s she had with the long suffering Johnny. She was content to try to expand her audience’s awareness of different foods and the drinks that suited them and didn’t try changing the Nations eating habits to conform to her own particular view of the world.
This Christmas my stocking bulged with Cookery books and cooking DVD’s. Now was someone trying to tell me something? As a 50 something Male, the kitchen hadn’t been my natural haunt and the addition of all these beautiful pictures tempted me to chance my arm – literally as it turned out.
Have you noticed that none of these beautifully produced books have any disclaimers? For instance that it is worth attending a knife skills course before embarking on any of these demanding tasks. Or that no matter how much money you spend on quality ingredients you will never achieve the same look as the one in the book.
Having had to visit our local Minor Injuries unit twice in the last two months, I am currently typing this with my left index figure bandaged up like the Mummies fist, having only just had my thumb released from a similar dressing, I have to declare a personal interest here! When the nurse at my Doctors surgery defers to my knowledge of wound dressings as having had more personal experience than she has had I think that I can speak with some authority on the subject of sharp knives and using them. DON’T DO IT!. Think about your family, work colleagues and golfing buddies (because you won’t be playing any Golf until that dressing is off) before picking up that knife. Think about the state of the NHS and how much you are going to cost it –DON’T DO IT!
Now, if we as consumers were able to claim against the author and publisher of these books maybe they would show a bit more consideration for us? If they had to work in a home kitchen environment with limited resources and no assistance, had to walk in having just worked a straight ten hour day and had to produce a tasty, nutritious and healthy meal for three or four people then maybe, just maybe the whole tone of these bloody smug self satisfied books would change dramatically. Maybe, just maybe they would tell me to buy freeze dried packs of Rosemary, instead of picking it out of the garden and slicing it and my figure nail at the same time. Tell me that if I spend hours making Steak and Guiness pie there is no way until hell freezes over that it is ever going to look like the one in the book because they have a team of people creating both the pie and the artistic shot at the same time.
If we as consumers were able to hold these people culpable for the huge amount of money that they encourage us to spend every week in our local Supermarket, that we will burn, curse and throw away, be criticised for by the family, because frankly it isn’t very nice and I know that it isn’t, and am ashamed to admit it and because we are tired and emotional end up having a blazing row and sulking until tomorrow night, when it is time to venture into the kitchen again.
So there you go, in my opinion Celebrity Chefs are responsible for personal injury and disfigurement, for all that ails the NHS, for loss of productivity at work, for increasing Supermarket profits, for breakdown of the family and soaring Divorce rates across the country WHY CAN’T WE HOLD THEM CULPABLE? All they need to do is put a disclaimer on the Book/TV Programme/DVD –’This is potentially dangerous and under no circumstances should be attempted at home’ and I’d be happy and whole again.
