KEY POINTS:
For all his alpha male posturing, Gordon Ramsay has rarely managed to induce in me waves of nausea. The man's standard currency is deliciousness and his wallet is usually full. His declaration, however, that chefs who use ingredients that are neither local nor seasonal ought to be fined did make the bile rise.
This is a man who operates a restaurant in Dubai, for God's sake, where absolutely nothing is local or seasonal.
Last year, having visited his outpost on the Arabian peninsula and eaten the scallops, pork belly, halibut and beef that had arrived in Dubai by air, I contacted the chief executive of Gordon Ramsay Holdings, Chris Hutcheson, who happens to be the chef's father-in-law. I had a proposition. How about they charge every customer £1 ($2.55) to cover the cost of offsetting the carbon emissions for flying all these ingredients around the world? It would, I said, be a good marketing strategy.
As a chef who cared about the best ingredients, Ramsay surely also cared about the environment required to produce them?
After toying with the idea, Hutcheson declined to do so. A few weeks later, I bumped into Ramsay, who said such a scheme wouldn't change anything. They wouldn't be doing it.
Now all of a sudden he is arguing that Parliament should pass laws to penalise errant chefs and the money raised used to offset carbon emissions. Is that sound I hear the rumble of a bandwagon being leaped upon as it passes?
So much for the messenger. What about the message? Clearly the notion of legislation is a non-starter. What happens if native raspberries happen to ripen early?
The last country that attempted to legislate over what its population ate was the Soviet Union. It introduced a state cook book and anybody who has had the misfortune to eat in Moscow recently will know exactly what lasting damage that did to the progress of gastronomy. You can have whatever you like there as long as it's a dumpling or a pickled cucumber.
There is nothing more depressing than being offered asparagus or strawberries in December when they are such a joy during their true summer season. Emphasising the importance of local produce over a faddish interest in something like organics is also to be applauded.
We are coming to understand that an organic apple which has been flown here from New Zealand is not such an object of desire. But indulging in hyperbole about this stuff serves no one.
Chefs and diners do need to be educated about the seasons because the right stuff at the right time tastes so much nicer.
Britain's food culture has come a long way in the past few years, often thanks to the efforts of celebrity chefs such as Ramsay who have opened the door to the global larder. The sudden rise of a food Taleban insisting that the door should now be slammed shut serves no one.
- OBSERVER
