Underneath all that there is - an arsehole

Gordon Ramsay is an arse. I was beginning to warm to him but his latest arrogant and rude exploit just confirms what A. A. Gill said about him: 'A first-rate chef but a second-rate human being'.

This was Ramsey recently while filming his new T.V. series:

One of the volunteers who agrees to take part says that he has been a vegetarian for eight years. Ramsay replies that the restaurant's chefs have prepared a vegetarian pizza and gives him one to try. After the volunteer - identified only as "Bob" - has eaten the pizza, Ramsay tells him: "Unfortunately, that pizza has got a lot of mozzarella and tomatoes, but underneath all that there is parma ham."The vegetarian complains to Ramsay that he has played a "mean" trick on him, but Ramsay jokes that he "hasn't come out in a big rash". He is then filmed laughing at the man and asking him if he would like some more, while telling the restaurant's chefs that they have "converted a vegetarian". As the volunteer hurries out of the restaurant, Ramsay calls out after him, "Good luck with the Vegemite!"

If he'd done it to me I would have shoved his currant-eyed, pudding face into the fish fryer. What gives this twat the right to treat people with contempt?

Ramsay is just one example of the latest fashion in chefs. They need to be aggressive, rude, bullying and 'macho'. Chefs like Anthony Bourdain, seen posing like a Mexican bandit with kitchen knives shoved in his apron strings, or Marco Pierre-White, strutting around like someone out of a spaghetti western. The truth is that most of these people are just bullies. Notice who they pick on in the kitchen. Notice who Novelli threw a plate at in 'Hell's Kitchen' ? It was the geeky, nerdy student and not the builder who looked like he could has snapped the little chef in half with one hand. In fact the builder, Stein Smart, was:

ordered to leave by ITV bosses after unleashing a four-letter tirade against Novelli, calling him a "fucking French cunt". A spokesman for the show said there had been a "fundamental and irretrievable breakdown in communication". 

Kitchens can be stressful places and the shouting and banging around can sometimes seem to outsiders like bad temper and naked aggression but it's not. It can often be the only way to communicate in a fast moving, hot, noisy and dangerous environment. The vast majority of head chefs get the maximum effort from their brigade through a sense of loyalty and respect. Famous chefs may be able to intimidate some of the poor young sods who are desperate to work in a well known kitchen but for the rest of the profession abuse is likely to get you a punch in the mouth...or worse.

My kitchen hero? The great French chef, now living in the U.S., - Jacques Pepin.