Ramsay’s F-Word
BBC America
Wednesday afternoons at 3.
Gordon Ramsay's F-Word
Gordon Ramsay might be as well-known for his excessive on-air expletives as he is for his posh gourmet restaurants, TV shows, and cookbooks. I’m relatively new to the Ramsay world; my first impression of him, after a few moments of watching Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America, was “what a potty mouth!” So I’ll immediately clear up any confusion by saying that in the Ramsay TV series in question, the F-word is food.
If I were to break this food-magazine-like show into main departments, they’d be:
- Stressed-out Sous Chefs
- At-Home How-To
- The Unonscious Consumer
- Anything You Can Cook I Can Cook Better.
I’ve seen three episodes of the series so far, I believe from series three. I’m finding some parts valuable for a budding small-kitchen chef seeking new ways to cook healthy, other parts a painful waste of time.
Stressed-out Sous Chefs
Each episode opened with what seemed like a sous chefs competition already in progress. I’m not sure of the rules of the game, but, true to the reality show format, one or more people on today ain’t making it back next week; there are indeed saddened sous chefs that are bidden bye-bye.
In the competitions, the success of a dish (and thus the competing sous chefs) is measured by whether or not diners willing to pay for the joy or misfortune of devouring it. Sometimes there are teams of four working together, other times, two soloists competing against each other. While Ramsay’s either supervising a duo of gangly men or a band of sprightly merry maids, within the space of five minutes he’d be serving up helpful gestures, harsh criticisms, and demonstrations of his precise plating procedures. Useful kitchen wisdom occasionally emerges from these segments: “Season from high so it spreads across it” says Ransay as he sprinkled season atop a dish of scallops, his arm held high and out.
At-Home How-To
In the At-Home How-To segment, Ramsay holds a quick class on preparing one of the dishes featured in the episode’s competition. He makes preparing Beef Wellington look so easy! Though he stops short of presenting a useful ingredient list (if you’re lucky you might find the recipe on the Web site of the British station that carries his show. He’s often cooking with backyard animals such as lambs (Shepherd’s pie) and turkeys (Christmas dinner) he’s raised himself.
While Ramsay demonstrates a dish’s preparation, you hear single-word or short-phrase voice overs—sometimes I’d swear they’re purposefully breathy—accenting key bits of the procedure: Beef fillet. Lean beef. Season. Hot pan. Olive oil. Seal. Mustard. Mushrooms. Season. . . Certainly not self-explanatory, but thankfully each “bullet” comes with further explanation and sumptuous visuals.
The Unconscious Consumer
The original F-Word Web site claims this section “turns up the temperature on some of the hottest issues in the food industry today.” My take: <yawn>. Topics ranged from those the everyday cook loses sleep over, such as Is force-feeding duck for foie gras karma-friendly? to issues only a moron needs clarified, including the earth-shattering expose that products labeled “low fat” could actually have tons of sugar. Duh.
Anything You Can Cook I Can Cook Better
In this segment, we’re back in the restaurant kitchen, where Ramsay has invited a popular British personality or two to a recipe challenge. So far only the lovely ladies from the show How Clean Is Your House?, Kim Woodburn and Aggie MacKenzie, are familiar to me. Before their face-to-face peach-trifle bake-off, Woodburn had Ramsay come face-to-face with his restaurant’s loo’s potties. That scenario was not as appetizing as Ramsay’s caramelized peach trifle looked. Oooo, I want some!
Ramsay’s F-Word’s structure is loose and the pace frenetic. He jumps from one segment to another with little warning. The show reeks sophistication with its trendy celebrity guests and artsy-modern interiors but at the same time seems folksy, especially the at-home segments.
The show is useful for picking up some new cooking and preparation techniques, especially of dishes I’d never think of preparing in my own little kitchen. (You can find some of Ramsay’s basic but helpful video shorts on the Channel 4 Web site.) But I’d have to learn to adjust my brain to British/European/Metric measurements and cooking terms before really tackling any recipe for real. Speaking of which, I think I will try Ramsay’s sautéed chicken breast with ratatouille couscous and apple and lemon olive oil recipe and get back to you.
After the episode with Woodburn and MacKenzie came to a close, I was bopping around our kitchen humming the F-word’s theme tune when my husband noted, “Hey, those cleaning ladies didn’t tell him how dirty his mouth was!”