The Reason Gordon Ramsay Can't Stand Frozen Meals
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Gordon Ramsay is nothing if not opinionated about food. Although he claims a willingness to try anything, some foods will never have a place at his table. According to the celebrity chef's Reddit AMA, Ramsay noted, "The only thing I draw the line at is eating overcooked food. There is NOTHING worse than an overcooked brussels sprout." Well, that might not be the only thing. Ramsay also draws the line at certain pizza toppings. "You don't put f**king pineapple on pizza," the chef eloquently declared on the U.K.'s The Nightly Show (via YouTube). It seems pre-packaged frozen meals also have a spot on Gordon Ramsay's list of no-no's.
When Bon Appetit asked the Master Chef host in 2009 if there was any food he wouldn't eat, Ramsay responded, "Any ready meal [frozen meal]." While frozen dinners first emerged as a staple of the 1950's, plenty of people still rely on them today. And let's be honest, good frozen dinners do exist. But, Ramsay thinks fresh tops frozen any day. He told Bon Appetit, "It's so easy to prepare a quick meal using fresh produce, such as a simple stir-fry, but people still resort to ready meals that all taste exactly the same." The Michelin-star restaurateur obviously feels strongly about the benefits of quick-cooking, homemade meals – he wrote two books on the topic: Gordon Ramsay Quick and Delicious and Gordon Ramsay's Fast Food (via Amazon). The no-frozen-food policy may or may not extend to the chef's own restaurants though.
Gordon Ramsay was accused of selling frozen food in his restaurants
Despite claims to the contrary, Gordon Ramsay might actually be on board for frozen meals – at least when it comes to a few of his London-based eateries. In April of 2009, Gordon Ramsay was rocked by scandal when The Scotsman reported the chef's London restaurant, Foxtrot Oscar, and three of his nearby gastropubs were serving frozen food. The items in question – fishcakes and pre-cooked coq au vin, for example – were being prepared off-site at one of Ramsay's separate facilities and transferred to the receiving restaurants via refrigerated van. The pre-packaged food was then reheated before being served to guests at a reported 586 percent markup. Ouch.
A spokesperson for Ramsay said the practice "allows each establishment to control the consistency and the quality of the food served." But the food editor for Food and Travel Magazine, Helen Hokin, described it as "an ever-increasing discrepancy between what Gordon Ramsay says and what Gordon Ramsay does." Sorry, but this is kinda sorta the same behavior Ramsay lambasted other chefs for on his show Kitchen Nightmares (via YouTube). To be fair, at least it was still Gordon Ramsay's staff preparing the frozen food... we have to assume the quality was still decent enough. We'll reserve our savage, Ramsay-esque insults for when overcooked brussels sprouts and – God forbid – pineapple pizza start showing up on his restaurants' menus.