5 Scenarios You Can Always Expect on Hell’s Kitchen
3. (Self-Professed) Expert Chefs Commit Rookie Mistakes
For the contestants on Hell’s Kitchen to think of themselves as seasoned professionals, they sure do make plenty of rookie mistakes. Perhaps it’s the pressure of working with Gordon Ramsay, or the stress of having one’s fate judged on national television, but you can set your watch by the fact that at least one aspiring head chef will make some kind of boneheaded error that should be beyond the training and skill set of a professional cook.
Anyone could expect that some of the more demanding dishes would throw a chef off his or her game — Beef Wellington alone ought to make even the coolest cook break out in a cold sweat. But it’s some of the simplest dishes that confound these contestants: things like cooking a proper steak or making a risotto that is suitable for fine dining. Scallops have become a particular Achilles’ heel for this season’s contestants, and I’ve seen a depressing number of poorly cooked ones go in the trash bins all season long.
Many of the chefs make the same mistakes over and over again, which brings up the question: why does Chef Ramsay put up with it? If I were him, I’d have scrapped nearly all this season’s contestants and replaced them with new ones!
I would add one more: at least one chef lasts far longer than they should, simply because that individual creates conflict. And conflict makes for good programming.
Exhibit A: Robyn
Exhibit B: Barbie.
I initially believed that morbidly-obese, over-40 contestant Clemenza would be, if not the very first to go, eliminated in the first 2 or 3 episodes. I now believe we’ll see him become one of the Final Two.
Go figure.
Hell’s Kitchen is a train wreck and who doesn’t love watching a good train wreck once in awhile?
You forgot the BIGGEST and most COMMON error of them all…
“IT’S RAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Having a prime-time show about something as mundane and boring as cooking is a sign of our cultural decline.
A cooking show on a public access channel that teaches people how to cook is good. A show about wannabe “chefs” as high drama is utterly stupid crap.
Yep…I remember when cooking shows used to teach you how to use equipment, select ingredients, and make various dishes and meals. These days, it’s all kitchen soap opera – no pun intended; after all, we never see them clean up the messes they make!
Somebody is always cleaning up the pans, dishes, and workspace behind the scenes. I always wondered why cooking shows never addressed the whole issue of getting all of that fancy equipment clean without having to spend more time doing that than it took to cook and eat the food.
I watched this show the first two or three seasons. I finally decided that watching a Grade A A-hole be a Grade A A-hole every week was a waste of my time. I have no doubt that good old Gordon “Commando” Ramsey is a top chef. He’s also a mean SOB that has no business being in charge of other people. There are plenty of other top chefs on food channel like Robert Irvine and Bobby Flay that get their job done and maintain very high standards without yelling at and insulting everyone within ear-shot. I watch those other shows.
Masterchef Australia is hands down best of the lot, production content alone on this show is fantastic. The crowning feature is they give ingredients, quantities, cooking times and temperatures while maintaining pace of the show. There is enough information for viewer to cook these incredible dishes themselves which i have done with several.
It is constructive show providing value to someone watching to get cooking tips and be able to complete some of the wonderful dishes that are focus of the competition. It also provides incredibly scenic backdrops of Australia, Italy and other locations for filming.
There is nothing fun about it. IMO, it turns off people to cooking as a profession. Who wants to be yelled at like a slave over food for God’s sake?
Humiliating people isnt how you run a good kitchen…nor produce an environment where anybody would want to work, much less enjoy cooking.
But alas…
Good Cooking shows…
Good Eats – Alton Brown
Cook’s Country – America’s Test Kitchen – from Cook’s Illustrated (a great periodical too)
Steve Raichlen’s stuff is pretty good targeted stuff for cooking on outdoor grills, ovens, hot plates, smokers, etc.
Those are the 3 top cooking shows. You can actually learn basics and the why and science behind certain processes and ingredient choices to become a better cook in a general sense.
I enjoy some other Food Shows like Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and Bizarre Foods, but those arent cooking shows.
Gordon Ramsey makes me cringe.
I’m in complete agreement. First, let me say, I’m the worst cook imaginable. I can make a decent grilled cheese sandwich, and rustle up some pasta, and I can run a good grill, but that’s it. However, I love to watch expert cooks at work.
I really loved Hell’s Kitchen, but just seeing the preview for this season’s run was enough to turn me off for good. All that kept flashing my head was “Bad Girls Club” (Only with ugly women). It’s like they are purposefully picking contestants they know will contribute to the drama, and I can only endure so much forced drama. Hell’s Kitchen has surpassed my drama quotient.
In defense of the chefs, however, I think that the boot camp style environment they work in, the seemingly 18 hour days, probably take their toll on them, which is what Gordon, and the audience want.
I know do other things during Hell’s Kitchen and sit down to enjoy Master Chef, which is a far superior show in my opinion.
Peter Allis, famed golfer and golf announcer, was skied on the David Feherty show, bout what has changed, and why should change, in golf. He talked about the Ryder Cup and the excessive displays of “triumphalism” in a game that had prized gentlemanly sportsmanship and courtesy. Quaint concepts. In the discussion he mentioned Gordon Ramsey when talking about the sad coursening of our culture, where everywhere foul language and bad manners are required, as if they were virtues. I sometimes think Fox network is the new PT Brnum, getting rich accurately estimating the low depths of human character, and working to take them lower.
Peter Allis, famed golfer and golf announcer, was asked on the David Feherty show, about what has changed, and what should change, in golf. He talked about the Ryder Cup and the excessive displays of “triumphalism” in a game that had prized gentlemanly sportsmanship and courtesy. Quaint concepts. In the discussion he mentioned Gordon Ramsey when talking about the sad coursening of our culture, where everywhere foul language and bad manners are required, as if they were virtues. I sometimes think Fox network is the new PT Barnum, getting rich accurately estimating the low depths of human character, and working to take it lower. Kind of a general media version of Hustler Magazine.
Why is this drivel on PJM? ARen’t there enough bread and circuses elsewhere?
The petty predictability of this show is exactly why I quit watching. It looks like it’ll match up just fine against Honey Boo Boo.
http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/23/here-comes-honey-boo-boo-trailer-signifies-end-of-civilization-video/
For all its faults it has great production values. I do not understand all the cigarette smoking in the dorms. Are chefs supposed to be chimneys…and what foes it do to their palette and their nose, two essential parts of a chef’s repertory?
I agree that the Australia version is probably better with the recipes explained better — a crawl across the bottom would do. They could as well do some things in real time instead of foreshortened time.
This year’s group is not attractive. Timmie and Clemenza should have eloped to another country early on.
I use characteristics such as predictable, trashy, and mind-numbing to quickly eliminate shows from my viewing schedule. I’d learn more by watching a foreign language channel without English subtitles.
“I do not understand all the cigarette smoking in the dorms.”
–
We have a professional chef’s college downtown and anytime I’ve walked by, if the student chefs are on break, it looks like the entire school is down there in their chef’s costumes smoking up a storm.
It might be, it is one of those thing common to that profession, maybe because of tension of cooking on deadlines and short time-tables
Let state right off the bat, I have only watched a couple of the shows and, further, I am not a big fan of “reality” shows in general. In my opinion, there is “real” about them at all.
The few segments of Hell’s Kitchen I have watched however left me completely turned off. And, the biggest reason? GORDON RAMSEY!
I could understand if he were to occasionally loose his temper, but it seemed to me that his primary function was not host or issue challenges or to judge. Rather, it seemed that his main function is bully, harrass, humilate, and to curse out the contestants. And, the contestants know that if defend themselves against this tyrant that they will immediately be off!
This show is disgusting.