The Cruel Prank Gordon Ramsay Used To Pull On Vegans And Vegetarians
Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay is not someone who's known to take it easy as far as his words are concerned. The "Hell's Kitchen" chef has been known to be especially brutal when it comes to voicing his views on vegetarians and vegans. Per She Knows, he's been known to joke about veganism on Twitter. In 2018, he wrote, "I'm a member of PETA ! People eating tasty animals." Ouch. That's not all — when a fan in 2016 asked about any allergies that he may have, he simply said, "vegans." Yes, that happened.
Per the Mirror, Ramsay took things a bit too far in 2005 when he met a vegetarian while filming his TV show "Kitchen Nightmares" at an eatery in Hertfordshire. He prepared a pizza and asked one of the people there to try it. The person in question had been religiously sticking to a vegetarian diet for eight years. Of course, the chef didn't reveal what was exactly in this dish and told the poor dude that it was a "special vegetarian pizza."
It was a brutal prank
After the vegetarian diner ate some of the pizza, Gordon Ramsay dropped the bomb. As the Mirror notes, Ramsay told him, "Unfortunately, that pizza has got a lot of mozzarella and tomatoes, but underneath all that there is parma ham." Ramsay dismissed the guy's concerns when he expressed his disapproval and basically mocked him as he walked away. He even asked if he wanted to have some more pizza.
Many viewers were upset by Ramsay's actions. A spokesperson from Channel 4 tried to do some damage control, saying "We believe this was a genuine mistake and that Gordon Ramsay did not deliberately set out to give meat to a vegetarian."
Ramsay seems to have changed a bit since then, though. In March 2021, he even shared a vegan steak recipe with his fans on Instagram. Per Delish, Ramsay felt motivated to add more vegan dishes to his diet thanks to his kids, even though the Mirror notes he once said he would "sit [his kids] on the fence and electrocute them" if they ever became vegetarians. Also, he knew that more customers were embracing plant-based diets. "Getting creative with plant-based is equally as important as cooking fish or meat," Ramsay told Delish, saying plant-based offerings at restaurants "[need] to match the standard" of more omnivorous fare. Turns out even the most foul-mouthed of chefs can have a change of heart.