Remembering Gordon Ramsay
Let’s be clear about our intentions from the start: This is a eulogy for the late, little-known British chef Gordon Ramsay. A tribute to the real Ramsay, the chef beneath the facade. A tribute to Ramsay not being a total asshole.
The new season of Fox’s reality show “Hell’s Kitchen,” starring Ramsay, begins Tuesday night. It’s a show that seems deliberately designed to waste Ramsay’s considerable talents as a chef and TV host by having him put inexperienced, untalented chefs through a particularly boring meat grinder. Ramsay and Fox give these wretches simple kitchen tasks that are clearly beyond their skill level, presumably in the hope that they will fail. And then, to Ramsay’s delight, he gets to fake blush and scream. Last season, the producers introduced a particularly tragic character — a fat, slightly nerdy man who, while seemingly nice, was clearly not meant to survive — who didn’t make it through the first episode before bursting into tears. It was a bad moment for anyone. (The man was later hospitalized, his second in two seasons.) The victims — er, contestants — on “Hell’s Kitchen” are just cannon fodder for Ramsay’s rage, proof that American television sure knows how to destroy all things good and pure. That’s right, Gordon Ramsay: good and pure. Because sadly, it never has to be that way. Ramsay — the real Ramsay — is no slouch. His restaurants around the world have earned him a total of 12 Michelin stars. (It may not sound like much, but three stars is the highest possible rating, and winning one is an honor. Lucifer would burn winged pigs to death on a bitter night before most Food Network chefs were likely to earn even one star.) Ramsay was a revered chef in the UK long before he was known to American audiences. He trained under the infamous Marco Pierre White as well as renowned French chefs Guy Savoy and Joël Robuchon, and now has more than a dozen restaurants in his portfolio. There’s no denying it: Ramsay has always been an asshole, long before Fox twisted his character beyond recognition. But his yelling used to have a purpose. It was a small part of what he did in the kitchen — at least the parts we saw on television — and it was done for a reason. To motivate, to teach, to kick ass the old-fashioned way when one of his chefs needs it. On British television, that’s still largely how Ramsay operates. Ramsay, when he wants to, is a great teacher, someone who can make even the most complex techniques instantly understandable, even to an inexperienced home cook. But that’s just how the British experience him. Perhaps it’s a symbol of how others perceive the United States, and even our own insecurities about ourselves: the smart, sophisticated Ramsay comes across to the British (who have managed to maintain a certain sophistication despite basing much of their humor on the theory that ugly men in dresses are never not funny), but the braggart Ramsay is thrown back at us by the stupid Americans — we’re given a caricature, a man who is almost entirely evil, cruel just because he can be. In the United States, only BBC America has given us a glimpse of a different Ramsay. In “Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares,” the chef has one week to save a failing restaurant that barely has a prayer of survival. And if the businesses succeed, all the credit goes to Ramsay, who occasionally displays his familiar rudeness but is also warm, welcoming, and even helpful. Don’t miss the episode where Ramsay saves a restaurant called Momma Cherri’s Soul Food Shack. The shack’s owners and staff actually seem to like Ramsay, and with good reason — with a little insight, he turns a failing but kind-hearted restaurant into a thriving establishment. At one point, owner Charita Jones starts crying when she realizes she won’t lose her business thanks to Ramsay. I dare you to watch that scene without shedding a tear. (The episode will next air on April 17 at 6 p.m. ET.)
