I would love an action figure Gordon Ramsay, with HK catchphrases.
“It’s raw!”
“Oh, God all mighty.”
“Get out! Get out, get out! You idiot! You donkey!”
“*One *scallop, *one *risotto and *two *beef wellington.”
Good point. I end up doing little “bite” tests while cooking risotto, where I’ll just nibble a few grains of cooked rice to see how it’s progressing. Judging by the frequent yelling from Ramsay about it being “too salty!” or whatever, it sounds like the contestants don’t taste nearly as often as they should be - or else they have no palates.
That explains the meh risotto I just had last week, then. I don’t like this show because I don’t like shows where people constantly yell. I read a New Yorker profile on Ramsay last year–he really did used to yell and abuse staff that way. I forget when or where he had his epiphany that this might not be the best way to deal with people, but he apparently doesn’t use his new found civility for the show. (also, don’t most kitchens tend toward verbal berating? I worked in a few back in the day…maybe not. Perhaps it’s just a stereotype?)
Not really. It isn’t necessary to absolutely hover over risotto from start to finish, and there are plenty of other dishes cooked in a restaurant kitchen that are just as labor intensive.
The trick is to find a restaurant where the chef knows how risotto is traditionally served. It isn’t supposed to be heaped up like mashed potatoes. Really good risotto crawls across your plate.
In addition to all the other factors listed, we can’t forget the contestants themselves. For example, I’ve never worked in a kitchen, but it would seem to me that teamwork is important: all the chefs and cooks must work together to produce meals that are up to the head chef’s standards. And that seems to be key to staying on and winning Hell’s Kitchen–the ability to work well and get along with others (staying calm the whole time) in the pressure cooker that is Ramsay’s kitchen will produce winners such as Michael (season 1), Heather (season 2), and Rock (season 3).
But as for this season’s contestants, my wife put it well when she once said, “They need to remember they’re on Hell’s Kitchen, not Survivor.” There seems to be a definite “what can I do to screw my competition?” vibe happening among the contestants, and naturally, this precludes the teamwork that Ramsay wants to see and that will produce meals up to his standards.
Well for fuck’s sake why can’t you get one? I’d buy it. It would be better than the Napoleon Dynamite talking pen we use at work to express our dismay when things go wrong.
So should I forgive them for their culinary mistakes because they’re not really working in a true kitchen environment, or are their failures inexcusable given their claimed level of skill?
I imagine the patrons of Hell’s Kitchen are encouraged to send their food back on the slightest provocation. I always get this “tee hee” vibe off the shots where they’re sending the food back.
Count me down for a pre-order of the Ramsay action figure.
“Now with real garbage can kicking action!”
And never underestimate the power of editing: turning a full evening by each of eight people into 23 minutes gives you a lot of power to pick out the worst moments.
I constantly catch creative editing with this show. Someone sounds flustered while talking and they will repeat a 1 second sound bite of that a few times so it makes him seem flustered for longer.
Or the latest episode when Matt was slapping his head they showed it again from a different angle to make it look like he did it for longer.
Also, you can hear them splicing together phrases to make sentences or reusing words several times.
However, I’m sure this is common of most reality tv.
True enough, though with my luck with rice (generally poor) I find it best to keep a very close eye on the stuff. I will say that my luck is not as bad as some on this show… Plus with frequent stirring it seems like it’s easier to come up with a great texture. It isn’t like a stew or a roast or even just cooking plain rice where it gets left alone for a while, but it still takes a long time to cook, and needs frequent additions of ingredients (usually a little broth multiple times, and then others after the rice is just about done) and lots of stirring.
My favorite bit of editing is the “Ghost conversations” Where it seems there is a feud between two people who have their backs to the camera and are obviously doing something else besides arguing.
Throughout there are audio clips played as if they are talking… sometimes using the same phrases over and over and cuting back and forth quickly between two backs to create conflict.
The editing of this show is worse than any reality show I’ve ever seen. I’m used to the misleading segments into commercial. They make it look like something is really happening and it never does.
One example: Last night Ramsay told Corey to leave the kitchen. She said “No”. Then he yelled at her to leave the kitchen. She says “No” again. Ramsay yells “What?!?” and break to commercial.
Oooh, the tension builds. Corey is defying Ramsay and there is going to be a blow up, right? No.
When we return, we find out that it happened like this. Ramsay told Corey to leave the kitchen. She said "No. Then he yelled at her to leave the kitchen and she LEAVES.
The edit inserted her telling him “no” a false second time, and his screaming “What?!?” was dubbed from later in the service when Matt told him he had a migrane.
I have no problem with trying to build the drama through editing, but editing to create an outright falsehood crosses the line…
Yeah, and they’re serving 100+ people. They don’t show the 98 times the risotto was perfect, just the one time it was screwed up and Ramsey went off.
Ramsey reminds me of a short-order cook, with a limited repetoir, and an unlimited capacity for foul-mouthed screaming. It is amzing how much this guy screams-is this the point of the show?
I’d like to see a real chef who actually MANAGES his sou-chefs (instead of humiliating them).
You should watch Heck’s Kitchen then. 
Or more seriously, watch Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares - I prefer the version on BBC America to the one on Fox. You see him trying to get people to work together, to use good ingredients and make delicious food, to keep their restaurant clean. There’s much more fretting and direct talk than yelling.
And when Ramsay does yell on Kitchen Nightmares, it’s pretty satisfying because he doesn’t usually snap unless the chef/restaurant owner is being obstinate/rude/ignorant/aggressive. The Americans, especially, seem to think they can intimidate him into getting off their backs when they’re fucking up.
It’s always difficult to tell just how competent and talented cooks are in these sort of reality shows–obviously we can’t taste the food, we can’t see them in the kitchen without editing, etc etc. I think the chefs that are still remaining on HK are quite good. Gordon doesn’t give out compliments unless he means them, and he was quite pleased the past few weeks on the challenges. I think they all seem like they can’t cook because of the reasons already mentioned in this thread, but I’m sure if they can create dishes that makes Gordon say “Oh, that’s very nice” then they can cook dishes most of us would enjoy eating.
Colette in Ratatouille
I watched the Channel 4 series kitchen nightmares with gordon ramsay and its loads better than the FOX version. The problem basically is that FOX as per usual had to ad the “FOX studio exec touch” to the program making it follow some ridicolous format that theyd dreamed up. Its all foxed up i says.
ETA: basically the incompetence is because thats the format. Not as in the original show, diffrent problems for each show.