The Appeal of Various Television Chefs

 Anthony Bourdain
There was a time when I really liked Anthony Bourdain. I thought it was a refreshing change from the good-natured wholesomeness of Bobby Flay and Jamie Oliver. It turns out I was just watching too much Food Network. Bourdain now strikes me as pretentious. He is so dedicated to furthering his writer-image and his bad-boy live-for-the-day pseudo-rockstar image that I don’t think he even really cares about food anymore. That show on the travel channel is more about him eating than it is about true food appreciation. Emphasis on him. If I want to watch a guy eat I will watch Man Vs Food. The Show is like a testament to how awesome he is because he certainly thinks so. He rubs his smoking and his barbed wire tattoo in your face at every opportunity because he wants to remind you of how non-conformist he is. He is the anti-Flay. Tanned as compared to Flay’s ghostly whiteness, tall and thin as compared to Flay’s short stockiness, and he has an earring. Even Zimmern has an actual shtick, he eats bugs and testicles almost exclusively, Bourdain’s show is just about convincing you that he is thoughtful and interesting, which he is not. He goes off into these little monologues that are supposed to sound profound and poetic but are more reminiscent of how non-writers think writers sound.

Gordon Ramsay
Here is a chef I actually like. Bourdain claims to respect him though I think he’s just scared. The food-service world is full of jerk chefs who use their status to treat underlings like crap because that’s how they were treated and they think it’s one of the benefits of the job. Then there are chefs who treat their underlings like crap so as to motivate them to work harder, better, to develop a thick skin and to take the work seriously. There is a difference. I like the fact that he speaks his mind and the object is always to put out a better product. He is a symbol of straight-forward no BS honesty that is refreshing because it is displayed nowhere else in media. Not CNN, not religious TV, not the comedy channel. It is interesting that if you want to hear somebody tell somebody else the cold, hard facts on American TV you have to find a British chef, not a media pundit or a comedian. If you want to get a taste of what is really awesome about the man (or his TV persona at least) get hold of some of the British episodes of Kitchen Nightmares which are like the American ones but for grown-ups.

Bobby Flay
I would like to tell you how much I hate him and second rate I think his food is, but I can’t. I actually like his TV character. He comes across as good-natured and unfussy, which while probably making his food mediocre makes him likable. Watching him on TV he comes across as sloppy and not really very focused which makes me doubt his foody-credentials, though obviously not his business-smarts. Also, he is a bit too ever-present on the food network, it makes him look like a mascot rather than an actual chef. When does he get time to run all those restaurants that we keep hearing about?

|Jamie Oliver
The anti-Ramsay. It does not matter what he throws into a pot because he, like Tyler Florence, are celebrity chefs because they look good. He is an actor. All that fake enthusiasm about food, is meant to get lonely middleaged divorced women to go buy his books, and Calphalon cookware and to gush over his dustjackets or to him talking about fresh herbs. He is a male Rachel Ray, a presenter of mediocre food for people used to Hot-Pockets.