Tag: Food Network

Sometimes Chef Ramsay is Wrong

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Food

I’d probably get thrown off his cooking shows by shouting back at him about some figurative flaw he perceives in my cooking.

  1. I do not think the default cooking time for steaks should be rare. Ramsay thinks it is. His guest chefs appearing as judges on shows like “Masterchef” also think rare is the only way to cook a steak. I can eat rare steak, but I don’t want to. Medium rare is my preferred choice.
  2. On one show, a chef from the South was cooking grits. Ramsay berated her for using water instead of stock. If that had been me, I would have said, “You’re damn right I’m using water because I don’t want my grits to have a chicken or beef stock flavor.” I live in the South. I eat grits a lot. Chef Ramsay comes from the U. K. where few people know how to cook, so he can keep his grits ideas to himself.
  3. Chef Ramsay hates dried herbs served raw. I love them. I prefer using herbs straight from our garden, and I admit that most of the herbs I use–whether fresh or dried–are cooked. And yet, I love raw dried herbs sprinkled on salads like salt and pepper.  Once Ramsay hit the ceiling when a cook topped off a dish with a leaf the size of a bay leaf. Hell, I don’t even do that. What struck me as funny was his warning that nobody likes dried herbs sprinkled on top of food. Ha!
  4. On one show, a pregnant woman ordered tuna and it arrived at her table raw. Ramsay went nuts, asking the chef how he could jeopardize a pregnant woman’s life by serving her raw fish. I would have agreed that the dish wasn’t what she expected, but would have added that pregnant women can eat sushi. So there was no health risk involved.
  5. Ramsay and other Food Network Chefs frequently claim a dish needs more salt. They’re probably right most of the time. I’d be kicked off these shows with the retort that there are saltshakers on restaurant tables for those who want to use more salt than dieticians recommend.
  6. I think my biggest complaint about many of the cooking shows is the chefs’ addiction to the blender. I have a blender. I can’t even remember the last time I used it. Chefs who are contestants on many shows think that a dish isn’t complete unless the primary item is placed on top of pureed something or other. Have these cooks been brainwashed? Why would anyone want a steak or pork chop served on top of pureed cauliflower? Or with a streak of pureed carrots filling up an empty part of the plate?

I’ll admit that I like rustic, earthy cooking. Even so, I think celebrity chefs often go too far out on the edge of nonsense.

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of magical realism novels set in the Florida Panhandle of the 1950s.

Masterchef-style cooking drives me nuts

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Food2 Comments

We watched the recent “Masterchef – Back to Win” TV series because it’s fun watching “home cooks” trying to create modern Gordon Ramsay-style meals in 45 minutes. Some of the meals looked interesting, even good enough that I would try them out if I had a chance and didn’t have to pay $200 for a meal at some fru-fru restaurant.

It comes down to this: my mother and grandmother cooked midwestern-style and southern-style food the way those dishes were prepared in the 1940s and 1950s in home economics courses or as presented in cookbooks like the Joy of Cooking.

  • Among other things, this means that a meal was composed of various elements that were placed separately on the plate rather than as something called a “dish” in which the elements are placed in an artistically assembled thing that’s viewed as one item–meaning stuff is piled top of each other.
  • I generally refuse to eat rare meat even though Ramsay and the other judges consider anything cooked longer than rare to be ruined. I don’t know when rare became the default cooking level when, to me, it’s basically still raw.
  • Whatever I order, I don’t want it placed on top of or next to some horrid-looking puree. This stuff looks (and tastes) like wallpaper paste and makes me want to pass a law that blenders cannot be used in food preparation.
  • If I order meat and asparagus, I don’t want the meat sitting on top of the asparagus. Why the hell would I want each bite of steak to include a piece of asparagus on the fork?
  • I love potatoes, grits, and other starchy stuff, but definitely don’t want it piled on top of the meat.
  • I also don’t want a handful of mixed greens thrown on top of the whole shebang and called a salad. Sautéd arugula is not a salad.
  • Random crap strewn around the plate (connected by colorful smears of puree) and called a garnish and/or an artistic presentation of the “dish” is horse hockey. Place the stuff in small serving dishes so those who want it can dump it on their entrées.
  • I believe that if chefs want to ruin food they should do it in the privacy of their own homes rather than serving it to others as something special for $200 a plate.

I know I’m out of sync with the kind of meals that TV’s Masterchef and Hell’s Kitchen promote, but I like what I like and would rather have a sack of Louisiana chicken and dirty rice from Popeye’s than the swill I see on these purported upper-crust cooking shows.

–Malcolm

Rare steak? I’m sending it back

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Food
Perfectly cooked? Ha! It hasn’t been cooked.

When I was a kid, everyday people ordered steaks medium to medium well. Now, that’s considered gauche, according to the food network. Just ask the bosses on Masterchef, Hell’s Kitchen, and Chopped. When they check the steak and find it to be nearly raw, they say, “Perfectly cooked.”

In a pig’s eye.

I could tell Chef Ramsay that the USDA says the safe cooking temperature for streak is 145˚. Basically, that computes to medium. Apparently the food network chefs have been brainwashed–but to what end?

I think it’s a “beautiful people” thing. Just look at how the people are dressed who come to a Hell’s Kitchen dinner. Runway ready, I would say. I haven’t seen people dressed like that since the last time I watched the Oscars. And that’s been a while. But they look less attractive with blood dripping from their mouths, pooling on their plates, and spattering across the tablecloths like a crime scene. That’s one hell of a fashion statement.

I feel like I should print out this chart wheneve I go to a steak house:

I doubt it would help. My simple rule of thumb is that if the color of the steak matches the color of my red wine, the steak is undercooked. I’ve had multiple arguments with servers about the doneness of my steaks, but then I didn’t have the chart with me. Usually, couple of thugs with meat cleavers come out of the kitchen and say, “Something wrong with your food, you uncultured oaf.”

“It’s fine,” I say, before putting a hex on the thugs.

Then the chef comes out in full splendour and says he has his standards but the customer is always right. Then, and only then, does my steak come back perfectly cooked. (They probably popped it into a microwave.)

Frankly, it’s easier to order something other than beef and avoid the arguments.

-Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell

Publisher: Thomas-Jacob Publishing

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My characters don’t eat raw meat.