# A chef who has cooked 2,000 sheep should kill at least one, otherwise you're a fake." **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 15, 2005, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-chef-who-has-cooked-2-000-sheep-should-kill-at-least-one-otherwise-youre-a-fake/331101 "2005-11-15T02:31:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-chef-who-has-cooked-2-000-sheep-should-kill-at-least-one-otherwise-youre-a-fake/331101/1 "2005-11-15T02:31:51Z")
Any merit to this perspective? [Should Jamie have slit a lamb’s throat on TV?](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=368300&in_page_id=1773) > [@](#): > > Jamie Oliver’s trip to Italy has landed him in further controversy after he was shown on TV slitting a lamb’s throat while it was still conscious. > In a programme broadcast before the 9pm watershed and watched by many youngsters, the animal was held down as the chef pushed a knife into its neck. > > He added: “It’s a beautiful creature, but it is tasty and we are top of the food chain. A chef who has cooked 2,000 sheep should kill at least one, otherwise you’re a fake.” > [@](#): > > "The method of killing the lamb was one not out of the ordinary in rural Italy and one considered humane by all present. > > "Jamie feels that the piece is an honest and powerful account of how meat is respected in Italy. Italians consider animal welfare of the utmost importance. A large percentage of animals are reared organically rather than by battery methods. > > “The hunters of the La Marche region have a much purer notion of the relationship between animals and meat than, say, a person who buys beef burgers on a weekly basis, without anyconsideration for how the animal in the products was raised or by the way in which they were killed.” ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Who](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Doctor\_Who](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Who)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-chef-who-has-cooked-2-000-sheep-should-kill-at-least-one-otherwise-youre-a-fake/331101/2 "2005-11-15T02:41:34Z")
This doesn’t bother me or really evoke any feelings either way. However, on reflection, it’s a bit silly. How about: “A chef who has cooked 2,000 pies should grind his own flour at least once, otherwise you’re a fake.” Plus, seeing as how Jamie Oliver has probably cooked just about every kind of meat at this point, he has quite a lot of built-up slaughter to get out of his system. “Alright, TV crew - bring me a chicken, and a pig, and a baby cow, and a regular cow, and a goat, and a couple of fishes, and … hmmmm … a buffalo, and there was that season we cooked emu…” Just seems silly and theatrical. - Peter Wiggen ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-chef-who-has-cooked-2-000-sheep-should-kill-at-least-one-otherwise-youre-a-fake/331101/3 "2005-11-15T03:22:53Z")
Anyone who eats meat shouldn’t feel too offended by this. After all, _somebody_ has to kill the animal for it to get on your plate. Lambchops don’t grow on trees. If you don’t like it then become a vegetarian. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-chef-who-has-cooked-2-000-sheep-should-kill-at-least-one-otherwise-youre-a-fake/331101/4 "2005-11-15T03:32:10Z")
There is a great Garrison Kellior story called ‘Chickens’ which is about this very thing. At the start he is embarrassed because his aunt will slaughter about 100 chickens one day and freeze them and they do this in town. Sure, other people kill chickens in town, maybe one or two, late at night, but 100 of them in broad daylight! Anyway his job is the same job he had as a kid which is to get a chicken from the garage and take it to his dad. He decides that he must kill a chicken since he eats them. The story is great and it does deal with the theme of killing an animal for food and the respect that farmers show their animals. It’s also one of the funniest stories I’ve ever heard. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-chef-who-has-cooked-2-000-sheep-should-kill-at-least-one-otherwise-youre-a-fake/331101/5 "2005-11-15T03:49:52Z")
“A chef who has cooked 2,000 sheep should kill at least one, otherwise you’re a fake.” Well, that strikes me as a stupid thing to say. There is a difference between a butcher (hunter, slaughterer, whatever) and a chef, and no requirement that if you’re one you must also be the other. Methinks Jamie is a little too full of himself. ---
**Author:** ![soulmurk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@soulmurk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/soulmurk)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-chef-who-has-cooked-2-000-sheep-should-kill-at-least-one-otherwise-youre-a-fake/331101/6 "2005-11-15T03:57:43Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > Anyone who eats meat shouldn’t feel too offended by this. After all, _somebody_ has to kill the animal for it to get on your plate. Lambchops don’t grow on trees. If you don’t like it then become a vegetarian. I gather that most of the offense taken was that it was shown during pre-bedtime hours, that is, when children would be watching; and that the lamb was fully conscious throughout the slaughtering rather than stunned as the law requires. So, it wasn’t so much the act of killing an animal, but rather when it was shown and how the act was accomplished. What I’d like to know is: a fake what? In any event, the guy got himself some free publicity. ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-chef-who-has-cooked-2-000-sheep-should-kill-at-least-one-otherwise-youre-a-fake/331101/7 "2005-11-15T10:03:24Z")
The law in the UK requires stunning (exceptions for Halal and Kosher), the law in Italy doesn’t. Didn’t see it (the actual slaughter, but I did watch some of the show), but I don’t really see what the problem is. It was aired with plenty of warning about what was to happen, so parents could easily have changed the channel if they wanted. We’ve already got Fearnley-Whittingstall shooting rabbits and plenty of programmes about fishing. If Jamie feels better for having done it himself and the lamb was oven bound anyway, I’m not really feeling much indignation. It does however make me think of my grandmother objecting to me helping to prepare the xmas turkey a few years ago, because she thought that the giblets would upset me. At that point I had to remind her that I’d been dissecting a real human cadaver for the past 3 months, and that turkey guts in a plastic bag weren’t really setting off my gross-o-meter. ---
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-chef-who-has-cooked-2-000-sheep-should-kill-at-least-one-otherwise-youre-a-fake/331101/8 "2005-11-15T10:31:43Z")
> [@PeterWiggen](#): > > How about: “A chef who has cooked 2,000 pies should grind his own flour at least once, otherwise you’re a fake.” Except that…that makes sense to me. I’m a photographer. I don’t normally mix my own chemicals but I have, and it taught me a lot about what I was doing. I would think grinding your flour or seeing your animal throught the butching process would do the same for a chef. Wouldn’t say it makes you a fake not to, but if you’re up around 2,000 pies, or lambchops…that is if you’re serious about what you’re doing, might be beneficial. Might be television histrionics on Jamie’s part, but he might have a point. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-chef-who-has-cooked-2-000-sheep-should-kill-at-least-one-otherwise-youre-a-fake/331101/9 "2005-11-15T10:53:36Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > If you don’t like it then become a vegetarian. I get horribly queasy at pretty much any description of medical proceedures (even, memorably, a black and white line drawing of the insides of a human being) Does this mean I should stop donating blood? Or carry out all my medical proceedures on myself _by_ myself? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-chef-who-has-cooked-2-000-sheep-should-kill-at-least-one-otherwise-youre-a-fake/331101/10 "2005-11-15T11:08:08Z")
OK, I actually watched this programme, and I have no objection either to what happened, or to what he said about it. He’s a young, fairly naive lad that rose meteorically to huge media acclaim as a TV chef, all pretty much by accident; he has always placed the emphasis on _the food_ - the quality of the ingredients, the care of their preparation etc. It’s about _reality_. Ok, then he sold out rather badly to a major supermarket chain, which I hated him for. And this programme has him thrust into rural Italy, living and working with farmers and peasants, supposedly doing what they do, eating what they eat, cooking what they cook, living as they live. And they’re going to have lamb for supper, as they often do; they’re going to slaughter and butcher the lamb the way they always do and they expect Jamie Oliver to take part in the work. He’s obviously a bit distressed about the idea; he actually says “I don’t think I can do it, not with a knife”. But he doesn’t have a lot of choice (OK, I suppose he could tell the camera crew to pack up and they could all go home). So he does what is expected of him, not without a good deal of hand-wringing and anguish. And when it’s done, he has to talk to the camera about it; so what does he say? He says what most people would say; (in so many words): “Fuck me, this is real. This is actually where meat comes from”. He’d always known, on an _intellectual_ level that meat comes from slaughtered animals, but now he’s known that fact _intimately_. Back to reality. Not surprisingly, he feels that the whole process has given him a greater, more _real_ appreciation of what he’s been cooking all these years. It was that rare thing: an honest, powerful piece of television; I applaud it. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-chef-who-has-cooked-2-000-sheep-should-kill-at-least-one-otherwise-youre-a-fake/331101/11 "2005-11-15T14:37:11Z")
Food _and_ television? Moving thread from IMHO to Cafe Society. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-chef-who-has-cooked-2-000-sheep-should-kill-at-least-one-otherwise-youre-a-fake/331101/12 "2005-11-15T15:27:00Z")
> [@soulmurk](#): > > and that the lamb was fully conscious throughout the slaughtering rather than stunned as the law requires. Whose law? It was a British show that was filmed in Italy. Whose law says that the lamb has to be stunned? ---
**Author:** ![soulmurk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@soulmurk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/soulmurk)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-chef-who-has-cooked-2-000-sheep-should-kill-at-least-one-otherwise-youre-a-fake/331101/13 "2005-11-15T15:39:35Z")
> [@adam yax](#): > > Whose law? It was a British show that was filmed in Italy. Whose law says that the lamb has to be stunned? According to the article: > [@](#): > > Italians are allowed to kill animals in their own homes if it is for personal consumption but an EU directive states they must be prestunned. It also goes on to say that it isn’t a practice that is uncommon in rural areas, and that all present thought it humane. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-chef-who-has-cooked-2-000-sheep-should-kill-at-least-one-otherwise-youre-a-fake/331101/14 "2005-11-15T16:26:22Z")
So is the stunning painful for the animal? I actually don’t have a problem with what Jamie Oliver did, even if I doubt I could do it and prefer to believe that meat was made already cut up and neatly wrapped in plastic. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-chef-who-has-cooked-2-000-sheep-should-kill-at-least-one-otherwise-youre-a-fake/331101/15 "2005-11-15T17:25:46Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > the respect that farmers show their animals. “used to” show their animals. Before the days of large-scale factory farming, battery cages, and industrial processing of animals as commodities. Some farmers probably do still respect animals the old way, but the volume of animals they add to the food supply is insignificant compared to the agribusiness conglomerates, and rapidly declining further. Sailboat ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-chef-who-has-cooked-2-000-sheep-should-kill-at-least-one-otherwise-youre-a-fake/331101/16 "2005-11-15T17:34:29Z")
Ah…EU directives. The laws that no-one bothers to follow. Hell, the EU has decided that the Irish Constitution is sexist and discriminatory, I don’t think Ireland actually plans on doing anything about it, and the EU won’t make them. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-chef-who-has-cooked-2-000-sheep-should-kill-at-least-one-otherwise-youre-a-fake/331101/17 "2005-11-15T22:04:22Z")
So… Would folks have been offended if he had operated the pneumatic hammer to stun the animal, as prescribed in US and UK law, on television? My guess is that we’d be seeing much the same reaction. He killed an animal in order to get meat from it. Well, yes, that’s how it works. He did it using a method which is generally considered to be humane, even though it’s not the same humane method used in some parts of the world. And if it’s OK to do all this in a slaughterhouse or on a farm, it should be OK to do it on television, too. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-chef-who-has-cooked-2-000-sheep-should-kill-at-least-one-otherwise-youre-a-fake/331101/18 "2005-11-15T22:27:59Z")
> [@adam yax](#): > > Whose law? It was a British show that was filmed in Italy. Whose law says that the lamb has to be stunned? If it was in Morocco the lamb would be stunned that gambling is going on. ---
**Author:** ![Rodd\_Hill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3ab097/32.png) [@Rodd\_Hill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodd_Hill)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2005, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-chef-who-has-cooked-2-000-sheep-should-kill-at-least-one-otherwise-youre-a-fake/331101/19 "2005-11-16T00:01:02Z")
No, no. Lambs _gambol_, surely? ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2005, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-chef-who-has-cooked-2-000-sheep-should-kill-at-least-one-otherwise-youre-a-fake/331101/20 "2005-11-16T00:35:50Z")
> [@Rodd Hill](#): > > No, no. Lambs _gambol_, surely? Well, not after they’ve been stunned, no… [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-chef-who-has-cooked-2-000-sheep-should-kill-at-least-one-otherwise-youre-a-fake/331101.md?page=2)