Cooking

As someone who no longer watches TV, I’m aware that it still exists. I’m also aware that cookery still exists and therefore TV chefs are obviously still around.

I remember Gordon Ramsay, before he was famous, saying how much he hated TV chefs. He was, in fact, only really known at the time because of a documentary filmed in one of his kitchens (where he swore at trainees and reduced some to tears), but that surely made him a TV chef of sorts, didn’t it? The potty-mouthed faux-Scotsman is now probably the most famous of them all.

You can see him swearing at celebrities or novice cooks while he wears chef’s whites and nears a nervous breakdown.

“What the fuck are you doing, you imbecile?” he’ll yell at someone who cuts carrots wrong.

You can see him turn up in jeans and a leather jacket at a pub and call the owner a fuckwit before he revamps the menu.

“You need to serve your twatting prawn cocktails in a whoring glass, not on a dicking plate,” he’ll advise.

You can see him in the gossip section of newspapers and magazines hanging around with David Beckham, probably calling him a spunk rag or something.

“I’m a buggering celebrity now, so I have cocking celebrity friends, you titting fuck nose,” he’ll explain.

He’s everywhere.

His style of presenting is everywhere too.

When once there was just Ready Steady Cook, we now have to endure Masterchef and that Bake-Off thing. It seems to now be the in thing to have people cook for you, taste it and then mercilessly pick apart every last detail.

The Antipodean or the now-he’s-fat/now-he’s-thin one with a face like a constipated turtle will say: “Your cheesecake tasted ok, but the jus you drizzled over it seemed like it was made by a special needs child with no tastebuds. Therefore your dessert is shit, your cooking ability is shit and you, as a human being, are shit.”  

The contestant is then sent home, a shadow of their former selves.

One chef who has always tried to be nice, yet still grates on me, is thick-tongued Mockney, Jamie Oliver.

“Look at me, I’ve got my friends in famous band, Toploader, coming round and I’ve cooked some burgers, innit?” he might slobber.

“Look at me, I’ve lent my friend some cash so he can start a farm and be on TV all the bastarding time, just like me, innit?” he might slaver.

“Look at me, I’m riding round Italy on a Vespa to illustrate the fact that I love Italian food. I can cook it better than them and I’ll prove this by making it in the street for them in a seemingly ad hoc kitchen that my producer has had made especially, innit?” he might spit.

“Look at me, I’m helping disadvantaged youths get a start in catering. Oh, they’re coming in late, if they turn up at all, and they’re stealing from my kitchen. Bollocks, innit?” he might spray.

“Look at me, I’m trying to show that you can make good, healthy school dinners at an affordable price. At the same time, buy my latest cookbook for only £15.99 or one of my plates for £8. Capitalism, innit?” he might salivate.

We don’t need people on TV telling us how to cook. That’s why we have takeaways.