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| Gordon Ramsay, from "Gordon Ramsay: Shark Bait" |
I just watched “Gordon Ramsay: Shark Bait” and boy do those Brits know how to rip out your heart and turn it into sashimi. I had been somewhat aware of the “finning” issue, where sharks are hunted for their fins. But I found myself in tears for sharks around the world when I watched Ramsay’s Shark Bait.
Gordon Ramsay is passionate in his mission as he travels from London to Taiwan to Costa Rica. The world-wide demand for “shark fin soup”, a dish known for its status, but not necessarily its taste, is rapidly growing, especially in Asia. But the acts that are committed in order to supply this demand are horrendous.
Shark poachers around the world catch their prey, cut off their fins and then discard the rest of the shark’s body or use for bait. The show had a gruesome scene where a hammer head shark’s fins were cut off as it flopped around, and then it was thrown back in the water, mutilated and helpless. I’m not Miss Green Peace, but I was mortified. Sharks have always been seen as powerful and majestic creatures. To watch such an amazing animal treated so inhumanely is just so... wrong.
Thanks for the nightmares, Gordon Ramsay. No – sincerely, thank you. I may just go out and join Greenpeace (or at least become one of their biggest advocates).
It looks like Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares isn’t just about the restaurant anymore. According to The Daily Mirror, the Kitchen Nightmares’ star and executive producer has added a number of irrelevant questions to the Kitchen Nightmares contestant application. How much a contestant weighs, as well as their height, eye and hair color are just a few of the questions that have been added. But my favorites of all of them are these:
- Have you ever had a restraining order filed against you?
- Does your family have a history of depression?
- Are you easily upset?
A friend of mine had filled out an application for Chef Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen (as a joke) and told me that they had similar questions on the application he filled out, which he thought was strange. Considering that Kitchen Nightmare’s is supposed to be focused on the restaurants and not the contestants, asking such personal questions doesn’t seem right.
Moreover, Chef Gordon Ramsay should be focused more on cleaning up his muddied image instead of adding to his laundry list of drama and evil doings.
Are those questions even legal? But then again, does he really care?
More on Gordon Ramsay and Hell's Kitchen:
The Sharks that Gordon Ramsay Killed: The Movie (warning: video contains graphic violence)
Gordon Ramsay Tossed to the Sharks (Warning: Contains graphic photo)
I am always amazed at the selective process used when it comes to water dwelling creatures. We just pick one and decide this is the one we will stop catching. Then we have people like Ramsay, who does more abuse to the cooking industry than anyone else in it, deciding to become a humanitarian to fish but continue abusing people.
ReplyDeleteI would like to see an experiment. Lets place a giant aquarium in a prominent place where everyone will have to work around it, right on Hell's Kitchen. We can put two sharks in it, and require Gordon to give the exact same treatment to the fish that he gives to his students. The difficulty in this experiment of course would be that Sharks aren't prolific in the English language. I'm sure the producers of Hell's Kitchen could easily overcome this without any trouble. Devising a way to deliver the horrid treatment Gordon gives his students to the fish in a way they could understand it, can't possibly be outside their wide scope of respected talents.
Since Gordon is now becoming "Fish Savior" perhaps he would curtail the temper tantrums he throws at his students, because this would mean he would have to deliver the same to the sharks. The Queen would Knight him as "Lord of the Sharks" and his students could erect a giant bronze shark statue, celebrating what the sharks did for them!
Dave McVey from Pensacola FL
May 6 2012