ABSTRACT
The original version of this chapter in the first edition of Strategic Questions in Food and Beverage Management elicited from others a great number of positive informal comments made at conferences or other meetings, usually offered with a sideways look (to check no one else was listening) and a lowered voice. Many saw the chapter as a humorous attack on celebrity chefs which was not, in reality, its main purpose. Others were more critical, even ‘sniffy’. One senior hospitality academic said my analysis was no better than ‘Sunday newspaper journalism’ (a comment that I was then, and still am, inclined to treat as a compliment). A number of other detractors criticised my (very indirect) casting of celebrity chefs as crass cultists – it should be noted that the chapter’s original title was ‘Why are there so many celebrity chefs and cooks (and do we need them?) Culinary cultism and crassness on television and beyond’. The presence of the celebrity chef and cook in our lives – and especially on television – is as ubiquitous today as it was 16 years ago. One interesting development has been the seeming increase, and increase in significance, of television programmes involving members of the public (and, occasionally, non-culinary ‘celebrities’) in culinary competitions. The growth of the Internet and of ‘smart’ devices and their associated ‘apps’ has given celebrity chefs new areas of media to conquer. And of course, there has been a growing backlash, or number of backlashes, against both celebrity chefs in general and individual examples of the species.
