I Like Hell's Kitchen...Not!

There is a part of me that loves to watch Hell's Kitchen.  It reminds me of when I was a chef's apprentice under a European chef back in the 70's.  Now THAT was Hell's Kitchen!  I was yelled at daily and hit a time or two for being so stupid!  But since I was bound and determined to learn from my chef I took it all because there was no way I was going to leave that kitchen.  My unspoken mentality was "bring it on, bitch!"  I wanted to be a chef dammit and if that was the way of the chef then that was the way it was going to be.  I was going to take the bad with the good because my chef was a magician when it came to food; I wanted to learn how he made such amazing dishes from off the top of his head.  I imagine that many of you reading the blog today can attest to studying or apprenticing under such a chef.

BUT, that is NOT how it should be and the reason I do not like Hell's Kitchen anymore.  The first problem I have is that Hell's Kitchen is a made for tv chef's competition with Gordon Ramsay playing the role of ultimate asshole chef for the show.  Few people know Ramsay to be a very nice person in real life and doubt that they care.  What is troubling to me is that we all know far too many men and women in the white coat who are assholes for real and think that the role Ramsay is playing validates their bad behavior.  It does not and sadly perpetuates it

Worse still, is the way that the chefs talk to each other when they are in the red or blue kitchen.  They are not performing a role like Ramsay, they are behaving the way they think they need to behave to get food to the pass.  Take last night, both Nona and Russell were confrontational, both physically and verbally with members of their crew to get them to cook their dishes properly.  Russell even went chest to chest with one of his crew in front of the cameras.  THIS IS SENDING SUCH A BAD MESSAGE to those who are or one day dream of being a chef.  It may turn on those who are bullies and think that would be a great career.  It also must be a turn off to people like my wife who hates watching the show because she would not subject herself to that abuse. 

Finally, the cameras continue to roll after the battle that is waged in the kitchen.  Even in their downtime the chefs are shown to be petty and stupid.  And most if not all are chain smoking! 

So today I encourage all of you to pick any episode of Hell's Kitchen and show it to your class.  You can get them for free from Hulu.  Have them watch a show and then pick out behaviors of chefs that are exemplary and have them pick out behaviors that are verboten!  Then have them discuss how they would deal with those chefs who exhibit the verboten behaviors because you all know as well as I do that they are out there in kitchens and classrooms right now verbally if not physically abusing members of their crew.  In sum, the bad behavior of chefs must come to an end and we owe it to the profession to turn the tide in our classrooms and kitchens.