• BURN@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Watch him on master chef junior and you can see how well he treats the kids and how encouraging he is. Even on master chef he’s a lot less of an asshole vs hotel hell or hells kitchen

    • Pons_Aelius@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      Exactly. In the UK version he was not an angry, shouty cunt. That was added for the US show.

      It’s as if people think The Rock was actually the heel he played in WWE or Anthony Hopkins is actually a cannibal who kills and eats people.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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      9 months ago

      This is it. His shows are overproduced for Americans, using cheap effects and dramatization for terrible reality TV. So I never watch him.

      I think it’d be a lot different if I saw a version that was just what happened. Like kitchen nightmares but without all of the dramatics. That I would watch all the time. So of course they don’t make it.

    • FireTower@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Spot on. Him on TV playing into his character seems like a POS. But from some of his other stuff he seems like a decent dude who acknowledges he doesn’t know everything.

    • 9715698@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Is it really for American audiences? He seems the same to me in the UK Kitchen Nightmares

      • Stern@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        In the U.K. he’s way less hard on folks then in the states. Of course, it could also be they’re way less combative. No Amy’s Baking Companies in the U.K. I don’t think.

  • guyrocket@kbin.social
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    9 months ago

    A British chef? Oxymoron much?

    Brits are going to teach the world about FOOD? Do they even know what spices are? Does ANYONE else think BEANS on TOAST is GOOD?

    Next we’ll get some Jamaican bobsledders, one-handed clapping, military intelligence and accurate estimates.

    • xkforce@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Ah the british: know how to use spices, built a globe spanning empire to acquire them and stereotypically dont use most of them.

      • Mr_Blott@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Ah the three American spices; butter, sugar and high fructose corn syrup

        It’s funny how the two countries who take the piss out of British food are the french, who eat snails (and that’s not even a meme, it’s actually true) and the yanks, whose food is genuinely the worst shit you could possibly imagine, but just covered in sugar and chemicals 😂

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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    9 months ago

    After seeing him attempt and fail at making a “fancy grilled cheese” I don’t even know if he’s really a chef or just an actor. What kinda chef uses cheese that doesn’t melt to make a grilled cheese sandwich?!

  • Donjuanme@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I really enjoyed watching Alton Brown on “hot ones”, he was cool and composed the entire way through, actually had critique of the flavors and why they didn’t work well, he never complained about the spiciness of the food, but had a nuanced and appreciative evaluation of what was occurring in his mouth.

    The algo recommended this chuckleheads appearance on hot ones next, he went full schtick with it, I don’t think I got hallway through before getting tired of it.

    I enjoy seeing him humble (how to cook eggs), or humbled (James May head to head), but I don’t like his manic energy and crass style of criticism delivery.

      • Donjuanme@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I don’t watch a lot of hot ones, but his is shoulder above heads better than any other episode of ‘hot ones’ I’ve seen. There have been other good episodes, but for a sauce/flavor breakdown Alton Brown does it phenomenally

        • athos77@kbin.social
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          9 months ago

          I watched it last night and the way he was just like, “oh, nice use of ginger”, “too much cilantro”, and “I can fix this!!” was great! He wasn’t focusing on the heat, he was focusing on the taste and it was great!

          • Donjuanme@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            It’s amazing to me that he can separate the discomfort from the quality, I went into the other "chefs"that have done the show looking for similar evaluation, and I’ve been disappointed every time. Alton Brown is truly another level of professional, I need to re rewatch good eats.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago
    1. All trash beyond the early European version of kitchen nightmares
    2. Probably generally fine as he actually started as a decent chef in actual restaurants, but they are very likely not “his” recipes and instead written and maintained by an editorial staff.
    3. Unfortunately modeled after actual fine dining restaurant chefs from my first hand experience (though things are likely evolving from after the financial collapse forward and the general shift away from fine dining).
    • threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      Thanks for sharing! I had not seen that!

      I love how it ended.

      “It’s 3-2.”

      “It got two?”

      “Um, so, uh, the winner is… James.”

      “Are you any good at driving?”

      “Beaten by a fucking shaggy tramp, that spent four hours peeling his fucking potatoes!”

  • Nomecks@lemmy.ca
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    9 months ago

    He yells at people for using thermometers on Hell’s Kitchen. Hey carpenter, how dare you use a nail gun! One of the most useful tools for making sure food is safe and he thinks it makes you less of a chef.

    • lobut@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      They’re going to be a head chef at one of his restaurants. I don’t think it’s a crazy requirement as so many contestants are able to do it just fine.

      • Nomecks@lemmy.ca
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        9 months ago

        It’s taking an important tool out of the tool box for no other reason than his personal bias against them.

        • lobut@lemmy.ca
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          9 months ago

          You don’t think it’s a metric of competency? I don’t know, I’m not in the restaurant industry but it seemed like a skill to me.

          • Nomecks@lemmy.ca
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            9 months ago

            Just because it’s a competency doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use the tools available to you. Should I not use woodworking jigs because I’m competent in cutting dovetails? It makes the job easier and less prone to errors.

            • lobut@lemmy.ca
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              9 months ago

              Gordon always makes it a point that it’s extremely easy to do, but I genuinely don’t know cooking so I can’t check the veracity.

              However, I also can’t check your analogy either because I’m not great at cooking nor woodwork. If it were programming and someone had to use GitHub CoPilot during an interview to do what I considered an easy task then I’d not want to have them at a high level.

              Once again, my analogy I’d probably bollocks because I don’t know cooking.

              You bring up some good points. I just figure it was a high level competition, but I see where you’re coming from.

              • Nomecks@lemmy.ca
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                9 months ago

                I think a better analogy would be if you were interviewing and someone didn’t do simple functionality testing because they were such an awesome coder, what would you think

  • johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I think it’s mostly a personality made up for TV. He seems fine. I don’t think I would consider the majority of TV chefs to be the top tier in the culinary world. Not to mention, the definition of the “best” recipe isn’t static. There’s a whole lot of “well how much work do you want to put into it?” and not to mention “are you OK if it has an entire stick of butter in it?”