Blogging About Critters Since 2007

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Why Top Chef Makes Me So Mad

I'm just watching the fourth or fifth episode of the latest season of Top Chef. It just irritates the hell out of me.

First of all, it highlights the deficiencies of today's chefs' training. Throughout the entire show, the judges and contestants always refer to their meats as the "protein." It's as though there is no other protein around. That's not true. Vegetarians and vegans know that you get protein from vegetables. Protein is not dependent on meat at all. That is total misinformation. Is that all these people can cook?

I've seen two chefs wear stupid meat-inspired shirts. Last season, one idiot (who actually won the season) wore a stupid shirt saying "Bacon is a vegetable." Another one from this season was wearing a diagram of a cow with all its "cuts" outlined.

Today's vile episode is one featuring French cooking. I have yet to see an episode featuring vegetarian cooking. Vegetarians are far more predominant than people who go to snooty French restaurants. And frankly, I'm not sure these chefs have the training to do anything that doesn't involve a baby animal.

Today, I've seen an elimination challenge involving snails and foie gras. The main challenge involves frog legs, rabbits, live lobsters (still moving) and other animals.

What the eff? I am so unimpressed by this pathetic bunch. And this frigging show. Add cooking schools to the list of animal exploitation promoters, along with medical schools.

UPDATE

On Top Chef Masters Season 1, a show in which famous chefs compete against each other for charity, there was a vegan episode.

3 comments:

Bea Elliott said...

Agreed. The thing that bugs me is that they usually call it a "restricted" or "limited" diet. Huh? I eat better more varied (and healthy) food now than I ever did on the SAD diet... And it's all declicious stuff!

Handling the "meat" and calling it "the protein" -- that's funny! :)

Ana said...

I have had non-meat-eating called an "alternative eating style." It didn't hit me for a while, but I realized afterwards that it made it sound like "an alternative lifestyle." Alternative to what? It's not like we're living in the desert, refusing to pay our taxes, with multiple wives or such. But the phrase seems to imply that we are "different."

I should have resisted that, but didn't think about it at the time.

Andrew said...

Ana,

I'm glad they finally featured a vegetarian episode. I certainly wish that these types of programs (I have not seen this one in particular) would feature a wide range of dishes, including some with meat and some without.

Also, thanks for clearing up that misconception about meat and protein (not knowing the first thing about diets, I was not had previously thought that meat was the best source of protein, but obviously I was wrong).

Finally, I can certainly empathize with your frustration with regard to the shirts - which from your description sound extremely distasteful.

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