Celebrity chefs have become so commonplace throughout much of Europe that they’re now in danger of going unnoticed. They fill up afternoon television schedules with their ‘larger-than-life’ personalities, they appear unrelentingly in adverts for supermarkets and, very occasionally, they bicker with the government about policies.
This rise to near-ubiquity gained considerable momentum during the 1990s, when television programmes began to soar in popularity and features on cooking became increasingly numerable in the printed press.
Over the last decade or so – a period that has witnessed a shift in consumer preference towards convenience products, the dominance of fast food outlets and the rise of obesity – the celebrity chef has arguably reached new levels of influence.
Many celebrity chefs in Europe have been instrumental in encouraging consumers to return to their cobweb-covered kitchens and to discover – or rediscover – their passion for cooking, commonly with fresh fruits and vegetables.
For example, French chef Paul Bocuse is famous for his promotion of French cuisine, stressing the importance of fresh ingredients of the highest quality.
The UK’s Jamie Oliver recently headed a campaign to ban unhealthy food in British schools, encouraging children to switch to fresh, tasty and nutritious food.
In May, French chef Raymond Blanc teamed up with Garden Organic, the leading organic growing charity in the UK, to launch Go Organic, an initiative aimed at inciting more
people to grow, cook and eat organic food. The chef also promotes seasonality, and his restaurant boasts a two-acre garden in which over 90 varieties of vegetable are grown.
UK chef Gordon Ramsay recently called for restaurants that source out-of-season produce to be penalised. “Fruit and veg should be seasonal,” he said. “Chefs should be fined if they haven’t got ingredients in season on the menu.”
However, two centuries before the rise of the modern celebrity chef came Marie-Antoine Carême, a French chef who gained fame in the early 19th century for his simplification of the haute cuisine style of cooking. While some might indeed regard him as the first celebrity chef, it is Martino da Como, a 15th century culinary expert unrivalled in his time, who deservedly holds that title.
Author of the first known cookbook, Maestro, Martino’s reputation was such that he ended up working as the private cook to Pope Paul II and Pope Sixtus IV and was known by the epitaph of “the prince of the cooks”.
Although celebrity chefs have a crucial part to play in increasing fruit and vegetables consumption, some in the UK have come under fire in recent weeks.
Dr Layla Jader, a public health consultant, criticised several UK television chefs for failing to wash produce before preparing dishes: “It’s irresponsible. If they are going to do something that’s not healthy, they should say: ‘We are in a hurry, but please wash the salad and vegetables before you serve it’.”
Gordon Ramsay’s bold remarks inevitably drew close inspection of his own practices: dishes such as “ravioli of Italian winter squash”, served at one of his London restaurants, raised a few eyebrows and led some to label him a hypocrite. I’m sure Gordon could think of far worse names than that.
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