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The news that yet another celebrity chef has jumped on the anti-foie gras bandwagon, has got me thinking about how wrong it is, wittingly or not, for a chef who serves meat to act in a way that threatens to destroy the livelihoods of people who take better care of animals than almost any other meat producers. It also got thinking about what celebrity chefs like this one represent to people like myself and the broader general public.
Now I do not propose to speak for everyone in the profession, nor do I pretend to speak for the general public. But as a 52 year old man who was born into a family full of professional chefs, got his first cooking job at the age of 14 and has devoted the bulk of his adult life to cooking, thinking, writing about and teaching cooking, I believe I have the right to express an opinion on the subject.
When I was a kid, the general perception of what a professional chef actually was, seemed to be only a bit less well-informed than what it appears to be today. If the images of chefs that appeared in movies and advertising of the time are any indication of the general awareness of what chefs really were it was obvious even at that tender age that a lot most people were probably clueless.
Most of these late 20th Century media caricatures of chefs can be described as conforming to one or more of three principle stereotypes: "European Clown," "European Tyrant," "Kind European Father Figure."
Of course all of these stereotypes were male, and in no way represented the full range of personalities and concerns of real professional chefs. Nor were the ways that these media crafted chefs were constructed and shown to work or behave indicative of anything other than the narrowest interpretation of what chefs actually do. It’s not surprising really. Because in those days, the only non-chefs who knew anything about what a real chef might be like were an "elite" group who either employed them or deliberately sought them out to learn from them by reading their books and talking to them directly. So the people who crafted these cartoon-ish characters were marketing them to an audience that knew next to nothing of what it meant to spend the day cooking food for complete strangers who expected nothing more or less than the fulfillment of their unique vision of gustatory perfection.
There were a few well-known chefs who did not narrowly conform to the male clown, tyrant, father-figure stereotypes and who did much more than I can ever hope to do to bring some sense of the dignity and intellectual passion that so many professional chefs try to bring to the table. But the admen and movie moguls did their jobs much too well. They had understood that the public was hungry for these narrow easy junk food caricatures, kept churning them out and never stopped. Come to think of it, not only have they not stopped, but they have refined their spin-craft brilliantly. They’ve dropped the "European" and "male" requirement and identified and added a new stereotype the "chef bimbo."
Of course, there has been real progress. There are some chefs in the media today who do not pander to these stereotypes and who do a terrific job of conveying some sense of how fabulous it is to see life through food and cooking and thinking about cooking. Moreover, there seem to be a lot more people like my host, Michael Ruhlman who are putting themselves out there in a very dignified way and telling the public about what it means to see the world through the kitchen window. But too many of the most visible and financially successful of the current line up of celebrity chefs are all still playing to these narrow, offensive and misleading stereotypes.
I’ll anticipate at least one potential objection to what I’ve said here by saying "Well, they are making money so what’s wrong with acting like a clown or a bimbo while my favorite stereotype demonstrates how to make ice-cream?"
Nothing I suppose, except that it’s embarrassing, there are too many of them and they are hogging bandwidth that could be carrying a finer, more dignified version of who we are and what we do. I don’t care about how well these preening cartoon characters can or cannot cook. It’s how they portray themselves and how that portrayal reflects on me and my colleagues and the thousands of serious professionals and home cooks who are trying to move the discussion about food and cooking forward that I care about. And when one of the richest of them starts threatening the livelihood of some of the most responsible and humane farmers we have. Well, it kind of makes my blood boil.
De-lurking here.
Very well said. I am not a chef. I am not married to a chef. I don’t pretend that I know anything about what you do or how you do it. I do however have a husband who works in an industry that is starting to be portrayed on television. I can’t watch the shows for the exact reason you are talking about. They are giving hard working people like my husband a really bad name by how they are behaving on television, and it boils my blood.
Well said. I still think it reeks of a publicity maneuver on Puck’s part.
Bob, I understand where you’re coming from, but are you kidding? How can it be bad to be ethical?
I’m a veterinary nurse and I’m facing thousands of devestated pet owners whose pets dropped dead because some evil company hid the fact that there was rat poison in their product.
Puck has always annoyed the snot out of me. I’m with you there. But sorry, after seeing the link you provided below, I am going to buy his products.
He is putting more vegetarian food on his menu, trying to keep our oceans healthy and buying humane food. Unless he’s lying, I think he’s doing a great thing.
He can shamelessly promote all he wants! The oceans and animals won’t care if he is obnoxious, and neither do I.
ps I used to work for the Humane Society and they are not out to shame anyone.
The producers of foie gras ducks in this country (at least the ones I’ve read about) do in fact treat their animals very well. Studies have shown that the levels of stress hormone in these ducks do not change before and after gavage. The difference between the lives of Mulard ducks and your average factory farm chicken are night and day. But none of this changes the fact that foie gras production involves, more or less by definition, inducing near-fatal liver disease. The mortality rate at foie gras farms rises dramatically if they gavage for longer than whatever the current standard practice is (I can’t remember the exact number of days off the top of my head).
Bob, you lament that the end of foie gras would mean the loss of these humane farmers’ livelihood. I would argue that they can — and should — apply these humane practices towards the raising of poultry *without* gavage. Truly free-range chickens, such as those from Joel Salatin’s farm described in “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”, are just as happy as any foie gras duck. But on top of being happy, those chickens are *healthy* as well.
If only Ruhlman and Bourdain were here to read these comments………
I agree with Sorcha about it being a publicity stunt because I am not sure what farms people like Puck, Trotter and PETA have seen. Fortunately, The Powers That Be in Chicago may have seen the errors of their ways and now consider the foie gras ban as riddiculous. Not sure what is going to happen out in California though because I think there is a foie gras ban that goes into affect somewhere in the future.
Steve has a good point, that the gavage issue is the big one. Can’t they find another way to do this? By the way the practice has been made illegal in Argentina and Israel, of all places.
However, I would love to see photos of a “foie gras” farm that looked clean and humane. As you can probably guess the animal groups all have nightmare photos.
Leave it to a goofy tv chef to get us worked up over ducks! Oh well, Wolfgang has done stranger things, like appear on Frasier.
“Chef Bimbo”…
…that’s a bit condecending don’t you think? Who are you sterotyping into this category and exactly what revelance does this charactization have to do with WP’s ban on the foie?
I detect a bit of elitism and or jealousy in your rant. Not everyone can be a celebrity.
No disrespect meant of course. Everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion. I actually agree that WP’s ban may be related to the recent Hep C scandal.
Howzabout them chickens….
“The mortality rate at foie gras farms rises dramatically if they gavage for longer than whatever the current standard practice is (I can’t remember the exact number of days off the top of my head).”
I could be wrong about this, but I’m pretty sure that the mortality rate at foie gras farms is 100%.
“I could be wrong about this, but I’m pretty sure that the mortality rate at foie gras farms is 100%.”
I did some research into this statement, and, surprisingly, you are right. There are no immortal ducks. I suppose that means we can do whatever we feel like to them. I completely retract all my previous statements.
What is with the “if only bourdain and ruhlman” laments? Sucking up like ducks to the tube!
@#$% Puck!
When Puck takes on the cattle producers, and insists they slaughter in humane ways, stops wearing leather and stops using drugs tested on animals THEN we can have a reasonable discussion of ethical food and his position. Until then it is purely opportunistic and disingenuous.
I admit I love foie, wear leather and love animals. I admit this is purely speaking something that one could call “a disconnect.” Oh well.
Why isn’t anyone asking PETA about the disingenuousness of their picking on an industry with essentially three US producers and, until about 2 mos ago, no lobbyist. Why not pick on say, Smithfield? A Paula Deen endorsed polluter…
or the upstream cattle farmers responsible (we think) for the e.coli in the spinach?
Hmmm, three producers no lobby versus huge industry, powerful lobby….
Jacqueline
aka the Leather District Gourmet (loft district so-named after its leather manufacturing history)
“Chef Bimbo” isn’t condescending if you take it as a part of a whole cultural package that includes Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee, Chef Buffoon, Chef As#$%le, and Chef Falstaff. They all work to make a kind of food porn that, like porn of any other kind, tells the viewer that what is being shown is easy and requires no commitment. The culinary arts are like any other art form: they’re a vocation, a calling, a long ole slog of a lifelong work-in-progress. The reality of serious cooking stands in stark contrast to the EZ Cheezee Mac Ranch products advertised on most food programming, and, by extension, to the programing itself.
Bourdain and Ruhlman think the foie gras ban is bullshit. And that the farms that are raising the geese in a humane way are getting the shaft because of it.
THAT’S what the LAMENT was about.
You all might want to reach back to previous posts that Ruhlman wrote to help you undertand that Bob isn’t alone in his point of view.
Jacqueline you wrote
“Why isn’t anyone asking PETA about the disingenuousness of their picking on an industry with essentially three US producers”
!High Five!
“Why not pick on say, Smithfield? A Paula Deen endorsed polluter”
Bec. to succeed in winning people to their cause they feel they need to stoke the ancient fire of animosity between “the elite” and the “masses.” It’s a time-tested tactic and it works.
Smithfield is pork for the masses -which may be one reason why they choose a porcine spokesperson.
Foie Gras is “understood” to be for the privileged elite. It’s like fur, most believe only the rich can afford it. This is partly the fault of the foie producers who have always marketed it as a luxury product.
It’s not expedient for PETA to try to arouse the masses to be indignant to the practices of Smithfield bec. Smithfield is “of” the masses. It’d be like trying to get people fired up about the abuse of fur bearing animals by throwing red paint on calligraphy students who use fur brushes -pointless.
Going after someone like Paula Deen who is virtually unknown outside of the boob-tube-foodporn world? (I had to actually look her up after Mr. Bourdain lobbed that TV chef grenade in here a few weeks ago.) Anyway she looks like somebody’s grandmother.
Now Mr. Puck, with his foie gras at his Spago and his Hollywood friends and his clownish Germanic chef tyrant persona. Now there is a good target.
I actually have empathy for the man,he’s a hard working guy who doesn’t deserve to be beaten on, but the brand has me illin.(sic)
Bob…or should I say bob…
BRILLIANT!!!!
“privileged elite” that has me illin (sic)…
I got my computer back from the shop just in time.
First, complaining about animals being overfed and ignoring animals being cramped, squeezed, fed animal parts, steeped in (and being made to breathe) concentrated waste that is the largest single source of pollution on the planet goes well past the boundaries of disingenuous to the outer reaches of hypocrisy. Puck deserves to be spanked on the air by Al Gore.
Second, Hollywood and her bastard stepchildren feel no compunction about misrepresenting anyone or anything. Did Stan Lee get his idea for a radioactive spider from the professor on Gilligan’s Island always explaining that radioactivity was the reason for this week’s predicament? Do you still look at a tape drive and say “computer?” Rampant phoned-in science has its roots in the pop culture gatekeepers lazy asses.
..just correcting ma name
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I have been in the restaurant business for better than 30 years and I too am sick of the ‘chef bimbo’s’, yes it is condescending because it’s insulting how the chef bimbo portrays those of us who love what we do. It’s hard, sometimes nasty work for little pay and very long hours. We cook because we love food and we love being creative. For those of you who are appalled at how the ducks are treated while producing these enlarged livers I suggest you take a close look at how your everyday food is raised. Have you seen a chicken farm? Or how cows are usually raised? I believe that on all these farms the mortality rate is 100%. I believe PETA has a place and a purpose but this was an easy bandwagon for them because foie gras is considered an elite food item and because they are only a few places in the U.S. that produce it. I’d like to see them take on the poultry or cattle industry and shake them up a bit, but wait, don’t they have huge lobbying power in Washington?????