Acelebrity chef is a kitchenchef who has become acelebrity.[1] Today, chefs often become celebrities by presenting cookery advice and demonstrations, usually through the media oftelevision andradio, or inprinted publications.[1] While television is ultimately the primary way for a chef to become a celebrity, some have achieved this through success in the kitchen,cookbook publications, and achieving awards such asMichelin stars, while others are home cooks who won competitions.[1] InSouth Korea, a celebrity chef is referred to as acheftainer.[2][3]
Celebrity chefs can also influence cuisines across countries, with foreign cuisines being introduced in their natural forms for the first time due to the work of the chef to inform their viewers. Sales of certain foodstuffs can also be enhanced, such as whenDelia Smith caused the sale of white eggs across theUnited Kingdom to increase by 10% in what has since been termed the "Delia effect".[4] Endorsements are also to be expected from a celebrity chef, such asKen Hom's range of bestsellingwoks inEurope, but can also lead to criticism over which endorsements are chosen such as whenMarco Pierre White teamed up withBernard Matthews Farms, or when Darren Simpson advised and endorsedfast-food restaurantKFC.
Cooks rising to prominence date at least as far back as theRoman Empire. The Roman historianLivy dated the advent of Rome's decline with the cook's "rise above his station". "And it was then," he wrote, "that the cook, who had formerly the status of the lowest kind of slave, first acquired prestige, and what had once been servitude came to be thought of as an art." He was not alone in this belief: Roman sumptuary laws were passed to curb what was seen as a culture of excess.[5][6]
The earliest chef to be credited with being acelebrity was the 16th century Italian,Bartolomeo Scappi. He was the personal chef toPopePius V, and is credited with writing the first cookbook,Opera Dell'arte del Cucinare in 1577.[7]
The 19th-century French chefMarie-Antoine Carême has also since been referred to as a celebrity of his era, due to the complexity of his recipes.[8]
The first chef to achieve widespread fame and celebrity status wasAlexis Soyer. Born in France, Soyer became the most celebrated cook inearly Victorian England. In 1837, he becamechef de cuisine at theReform Club in London, where he designed the kitchens withCharles Barry. His exceptional cooking skills were combined with an excellent eye to marketing and self-publicity to ensure that he molded the public's perception of him. His image was even successfully used as a trademark to market a range of bottled sauces produced byCrosse & Blackwell.[9]
Soyer also invented many popular new recipes and foods; he produced and marketed a popular drink made of a variety of fruits mixed with carbonated water, which he called Soyer's Nectar Soda Water. His special dish at the club, Soyer's Lamb Cutlets Reform, is still on the menu today. At the Reform Club, he instituted many innovations, including cooking with gas, refrigerators cooled by cold water, and ovens with adjustable temperatures.[9] His kitchens were so famous that they were opened for conducted tours. WhenQueen Victoria was crowned on 28 June 1838, he prepared a breakfast for 2,000 people at the club.[9]
He was also well known for his philanthropy. During theGreat Irish Famine in April 1847, he implemented a network ofsoup kitchens to feed the poor. His "famine soup" was served to thousands of the poor for free. Soyer wrote a number of bestselling books about cooking, one of them even selling over a quarter of a million copies. His 1854 bookA Shilling Cookery for the People[10] was a recipe book for ordinary people who could not afford elaborate kitchen utensils or large amounts of exotic ingredients. Other works includedThe Gastronomic Regenerator (1846),The modern Housewife or, Ménagère[11] andSoyer's Culinary Campaign (1857).
The earliest television celebrity chefs in Britain wereMarcel Boulestin (1937 -Cook's Night Out),[12] andPhilip Harben (1946).The earliest television celebrity female chef in the UK wasFanny Cradock.[13] She appeared on British television for over two decades, from the 1950s through the 1970s. She originally became popular following the publication of her first cookbook in 1949,The Practical Cook, and after gaining a cult following with cookery demonstrations in theatres around the country. Her television career came to an end when she appeared as a judge onreality television showThe Big Time in 1976. She appeared to pretend to retch as contestant Gwen Troake described her menu for formerPrime MinisterEdward Heath. PresenterEsther Rantzen later described the incident as like "Cruella de Vil meetsBambi".[citation needed]
Described as America's first celebrity chef,[14]Julia Child first appeared on American television in 1963 on the Boston-basedWGBH-TV. She soon starred in her own show,The French Chef, which was followed by other shows. At the time of her death, she was credited by the media as having "demystified the art of cuisine for the home cook and inspired many of today's celebrity chefs".[15] Such was her impact on American cuisine, her kitchen has been preserved on display at theSmithsonian Museum of American History.[16]
In recent years, gaining aMichelin star has increased chefs' profiles sufficiently for them to be featured on television and become a household name.Marco Pierre White became the youngest chef in the world to achieve three Michelin stars,[17] which went on to make him a household name and have one of his cookbooks,White Heat, described in 2005 as "possibly the most influential recipe book of the last 20 years" by food criticJay Rayner.[18] More typical of Michelin-starred restaurants in recent years, the success ofGordon Ramsay led to the commissioning of a five-part television series,Boiling Point, by the UK'sChannel 4, which followed the chef as he opened his first solo restaurant,Restaurant Gordon Ramsay.[19] WhileJoël Robuchon,Alain Ducasse, and Gordon Ramsay all run restaurant empires that each hold more than 10 Michelin stars, Ramsay is arguably the more famous chef due to his number of television shows broadcast internationally in the UK, the United States, and around the world.[20]
Dedicated food-related television channels have also become a medium for chefs to become household names, for example in the United States, theFood Network features shows from celebrity chefs such asPaula Deen andBobby Flay.[21][22][23] While in the UK, theGood Food Channel has shows with chefs such asRick Stein andJamie Oliver.[24] Certain chefs, such asNigella Lawson, have had shows featuring on channels in more than one country.[21][24]
MasterClass has a number of celebrity chefs includingThomas Keller,Massimo Bottura,Alice Waters,Roy Choi, andGordon Ramsay.YouTube has brought other celebrity chefs such asChef Jean-Pierre andJamie Oliver to a wider audience.
Celebrity chefs have changed the styles of food that the general public consume. For example, despite the fact thatAsian cuisine had been available in the UK since before the Victorian era, only due to the influence of chefs such asKen Hom andMadhur Jaffrey in the early 1980s did the public become aware that these anglicised meals were not the authentic article.[25] Tying into his first television series in 1984,[26] the bookKen Hom's Chinese Cookery sold 1.2 million copies in the UK alone.[27] Chef Jamie Oliver ran a campaign in the UK in his television showJamie's School Dinnersto introduce supposedly better eating habits inschool dinners for schoolchildren.[28] The campaign caused a change in food-standard requirements across the United Kingdom.[29]
Endorsements by celebrity chefs have led to increased demands for certain food products. Both Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson caused a surge in sales ofgoose fat after including it in recipes,[25] and Ken Hom's first television series caused a surge in sales ofPeking ducks.[27] Endorsements by Delia Smith became so well known that the "Delia effect" was added to the British dictionary in 2001.[25]
Product range tie-ins on housewares have also becoming a staple part of a celebrity chef's income. More than 4.7 million of Ken Hom-endorsed wok range have been sold inEurope.[26] The writing ofcookbooks has also been a regular product of the celebrity chefs, from both those who have gained Michelin stars, and homestyle cooks who have had books produced as a tie-in for television shows.[30]
Certain endorsements by celebrity chefs have led to high levels of criticism from the food industry and the public. In 2011, Australian chef Darren Simpson created a range of burgers for fast-food restaurantKentucky Fried Chicken, leading to comments being posted onTwitter such as "Darren Simpson you complete and utter sell-out. KFC? Seriously?".[31] Australian television chef Colin Fassnidge said that the move by Simpson resulted in him becoming a laughing stock, and that while celebrity chefs can make a fortune from such deals, they also risk their credibility.[31] In the UK, Marco Pierre White drew criticism after teaming up withBernard Matthews Farms in March 2010 to create a range of ready meals that were dropped after a year of production.[32]
A 2012 paper published in theBMJ found that recipes in top-selling books by television chefs (Nigella Lawson,Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Jamie Oliver, andLorraine Pascale) were less healthy than supermarketready meals. Neither ready meals nor the chefs' recipes met national or international recommendations for a balanced diet.[33][34]
Nothing was more scandalous to the Romans than a reputation for enjoying haute cuisine. Celebrity chefs had long been regarded as a particularly pernicious symptom of decadence. Back in the virtuous, homespun days of the early Republic, so historians liked to claim, the cook "had been the least valuable of slaves," but no sooner had the Romans come into contact with the fleshpots of the East than "he began to be highly prized, and what had been a mere function instead came to be regarded as high art." In a city awash with new money and with no tradition of big spending, cookery had rapidly become an all-consuming craze.