Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay says British restaurants should be fined if they serve fruit and vegetables which are not in season.
He told the BBC that fruit and vegetables should be locally-sourced and only on menus when in season.
Mr Ramsay said he had already spoken to Prime Minister Gordon Brown about outlawing out-of-season produce.
For serious foodies, this strikes a big nerve. The latest fashion among culinary snobs is the conceit of believing you’re a better person if everything you eat was grown less than 100 miles from your dinner table. (Tell that to the impoverished farmers in East Africa who depend on shipping veggies non grata to Europe. And the same goes for South Americans exporting produce to the United States.)
But back to my point. And I do have one. Provided nicely by The Independent today:
By making his comments, the chef, author and television presenter was laying down a marker of his personal food philosophy. But he also risked accusations of hypocrisy because he fails quite brazenly to practise what he preaches in his own restaurants, which serve food from thousands of miles away.
Yep. One eponymous Gordon Ramsay restaurant in New York City offers:
- roasted Scottish langoustines and manilla clams [from the U.S. West coast]
- Fillet of Wisconsin veal
- braised Kobe short rib [from Japan]
And Gordo’s UK restaurant at Claridge’s serves Pacific halibut. Got a map?
Yes, yes, I know — Ramsay is talking mostly about produce, not protein. Well, another of his NYC eateries is currently cooking with avocados, limes, cucumbers, artichokes, asparagus, English peas, green beans, white radishes, granny smith apples, beetroots, lettuce, golden raisins, cauliflower, pears, tomatoes, olives, chickpeas, fava beans, black barley, porcini mushrooms, morel mushrooms, baby shiitake mushrooms, onions, almonds, Swiss chard, and celery root.
I’d bet a year’s salary that at least some of these items aren’t in season within a day’s drive of New York City. I have no idea which ones. And you know what? I don’t care. I like being able to eat a diversity of stuff no matter what month it is. It doesn’t bother me that an airplane flies my broccoli in from somewhere else. That plane was probably carrying FedEx packages for someone else anyway.
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Here we go; another celebrity jump on the “Carbon footprint” bandwagon. I wish those people take a time to adjust their trade with their altruistic stance. How fun it would be to see Madonna take the bus instead of flying around?
california is the only state that produces avacados and artichokes comercially. and it also produces most of the winter lettuce, cabbage and other greens like chard.
I ate chard once. I could bend steel in my teeth.
This may not necessarily be a carbon footprint thing. A lot of restaurants where I live import frozen produce that can be purchased fresh locally from overseas, where it is of lesser quality but cheaper. Ramsay is obsessed with fresh ingredients where available because of how they make food taste - I think that’s where the remark came from. It’s also incredibly unfair to lump support of local industry together with disdain for the welfare of East Africa farmers. The two are very separate issues (seeing as the comments had nothing to do with protectionism anyway!).
Oh Gordon please don’t don’t start sounding like a Liberal. I thought you were better than that. Stick with comments like “vegetarians have no palate” and “vegetariaism is on the decline”
You’d be surprised. Out of those 30 some items about 15-20 of them you can find locally and year around.
Also, I’m sick and tired of everyone bring up the Africa card for their defense against something. Yes people in Africa are impoverished and so forth. You brought up South America but seem to forget the drug trades, murders, rapes, kidnappings that go on as a result of our desire to make sure that we can have bananas at 3 AM in the middle of January.
Purchasing local foods from farmers does nothing but help local economy. Sorry it’s not going to solve the problem in Africa, but it will solve the problem here.
Yes Ramsay is an idiot and hypocrite, but there is nothing wrong with wanting to eat locally and even endorsing it.
Couldn’t have said it better myself, Miah! I completely agree.
UPDATE, courtesy of The Daily Mail:
What I’ve seen on Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares show regarding fresh and locally-grown produce and other food items: He goes into kitchens/restaurants which are “in the sh*t” as he says, discovers how they are hemorraging money and suggests ways to help with kitchen costs and increase business: buy locally, create simple, tasty meals that are a good value. His success and his reputation can allow him to be a bit more extravagant with his menus in his own restaurants. I don’t see it as hypocracy.
It smacks of hypocrisy because he doesn’t practice what he preaches. I don’t have a problem with buying locally grown produce, but I’m not going to tell people that there should be a law banning the use of out-of-season produce and flout it for myself. His reputation does not afford him a free ticket to IdontpracticewhatIpreachville.
It’s hard to find locally grown tomatoes in Chicago in February.
There would be no restaurants in NY city if he followed his own dictates.
Is anything grown within 100 miles of Manhattan?
Apples?
I suppose Ramsay is unfamiliar with the term “growing season”. Brits would have to go back to eating pickled veggies, canned foods and storable stuff like potatoes during the six-odd months when its too cold or rainy to grow produce in the UK.
And what about all those Indian, Balti and Chinese restaurants? Where they gonna get their exotic ingredients? should they just close up for six months each year?
Bottom line: Ramsay’s just another brainless elite shoots off his mouth without thinking things through.
And if you wanna make a “green” restauranteer go bonkers, just tell him you don’t want any of his over-priced “sparkling” bottled water because its carbonation offends your attempts to maintain a low “carbon footprint”.
And oh yes: myself, I would enjoy placing my “carbon footprint” squarely on Ramsay’s smarmy ass.
It is extremely important to buy locally and seasonally. Food that is shipped long distance not only destroys the environment, it also tastes bad. Food that has to be shipped long distance has to be harvested before it is ripe so it will be more durable for the long trip. That is why you so often see mealy and flavorless fruits (apples, pears, tomatoes, peaches, strawberries, etc.). Also, our bodies have evolved to eat seasonally. For example, eating citrus in the winter gives us the vitamin C we need to fight off colds. Eating berries and stone fruits in the summer provides us with a refreshing source of energy (carbs and sugars), vitamins, and hydration with out making us feel sluggish. Root vegetables (potatoes, carrots, parsnips, etc.) and orchard fruits (apples, pears, etc.) in the fall help us to store energy for the winter with their high starch content. Spring vegetables like peas, fava beans, ramps, green beans, etc. replenish the vitamins we need after the long winter. Eating seasonally and locally also supports high quality, small, family farms instead of huge, low-quality, government subsidized “farms”. Furthermore studies have shown that homogenizing species’ of vegetables (like on those huge, low-quality farms) has caused the nutrition content of fruits and vegetables to decline due to the fact that farming in this manner depletes the soil and harms the environment on a huge scale. So, it saves the environment, TASTES BETTER, and is better for you.
Not to mention that it costs less because you don’t have to ship it.
Ron has obviously never been to any of Manhattan’s many farmers markets. most notably the one held in union square.
Miss Squidy, how about me? I live in an isolated part of Canada. There is no farmers’ market, there is no farms near by that grow anything beyond wheat. So what do you say? What are we suppose to do? It is 4 hours south through the bush to the nearest town that has a population of 15-20 thousand. The closet town to the north is White Horse and it takes 10 hours to drive there. They also do not have an abundance of farms. So, then if we “bought locally” we would all be hunting for our food, growing gardens in our yards every year and pickling and canning all of our food. Which would not give us the fresh healthy food you seem to be plugging. What people like you and Mr. Ramsay need to realize is that lots of people in this world cannot depend on locally grown food. Not to mention we get 6-8 months of winter here. That’s right, growing season doesn’t start here until June and ends in September. Infact, I was in my garden at the end of April and could not dig into the soil because the dirt was STILL FROZEN! I hadn’t even dug a in a whole foot.
Ramsay looks so hot on this photo..
Miss Squidy
May 29th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
It is extremely important to buy locally and seasonally. Food that is shipped long distance not only destroys the environment, it also tastes bad. Food that has to be shipped long distance has to be harvested before it is ripe so it will be more durable for the long trip. That is why you so often see mealy and flavorless fruits (apples, pears, tomatoes, peaches, strawberries, etc.). Also, our bodies have evolved to eat seasonally. For example, eating citrus in the winter gives us the vitamin C we need to fight off colds
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Yeah, Citrus grows so well in the winter.
Actually, DaBoss, that’s what most people are suggesting you do- GROW YOUR OWN. That’s what I do and it isn’t that hard. And, AND..home processed food retains it’s nutrition. So say you don’t know how or that you don’t want to put in the effort- don’t tell me you can’t. P.S. ever built a mini-greenhouse?
Miss Squidy- for the most part, Amen.
GWB- “for example, eating citrus in the winter gives us vitamin C…” Key words: for example. Jesus.
As for Ramsay, he’s a chef. It has nothing to do with celebrity- he’s a chef. I work in kitchens, I’m a chef’s assistant, this is how they (we) are. Fresh, close to your home food will always, without a doubt taste better than something that took a week to ship up. On top of that, shipping costs jack up the price of not only the food but of oil. Most locally grown food is grown on small, family farms. This supports the local economy, not an agro-company (as a sidenote, it’s been proven that nearly all contaminated foods are found on gigantic commercial farms. General consensus is because they really could care less about the product.). That will, in turn, foster the growth of local town and city revenue and give more people access to cheaper, better food.
But what if I live in X and I can’t grow X??? Then you don’t eat it. Duh. It’s about rediscovering your local foods that grow well, taste great and are right around you.
As for requiring a switch, he’s making a point. Economy, health (Britain’s health is now declining like the US. hooray.), and common sense. Give the guy a break..