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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/ShooHonker on 2025-02-05 17:47:55+00:00.
Hi! First post on the new account. (No, you can’t know the old one.) Normally, this is where I’d say buckle in, but this one is short and sweet. It’s a ride, just a ride down the road for some milk, you know?
The First Sin
Alright, so: When Gordon Ramsay, celebrity chef and restaurateur, was shooting for Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted, his crew realized they were short on footage, and this shortly after visiting an Australian cheesemaker. Gordon’s tired. He’s jetlagged. If you ask me, he’s possibly hungover.
In a random house in the Tasmanian countryside, no grocery store for miles, he thoughtlessly throws together some video material to fill the air. He has no kitchen equipment, just a wood fireplace, and a cast-iron skillet. He has no ingredients, just a hard loaf and some artisan aged cheeses.
But the show must, regrettably, go on.
He makes the only thing he realistically can, a grilled cheese.
He slices the hunks of cheese as best he can, two kinds of fine, aged stuff. He slices the bread as thin as it will allow, which is about an inch wide. The poor guy is doing his best; he personally salts the butter. And because he can’t help but be bougie, he adds some kimchi.
He does everything as right as he can. He doubles up on fat to crisp the exterior, oil in the pan and butter on the bread. But he still makes mistakes. The fireplace blazes hot. He’s visibly sweating. In his exhaustion, he didn’t even think to oppose the two cheeses so you get both kinds in each bite.
It’s all to no avail. The bread is burnt, and the cheeses, fats locked in over months or years, have not cooperated. (Culinary nerds will know that aged cheeses melt very poorly, and when they do, the fat and oil just splits and oozes away.)
And because he’s in presenter mode, he’s forced to talk up his mistakes. You know how he talks about making everything? ‘Beautiful’? ‘Gorgeous’? ‘Delicious’? That’s how he’s talking about this sandwich as he cuts the world’s saddest cross-section.
Don’t look away. Go back to that link. Look at it. Look at what he was forced to make. This alone would hurt any chef’s pride. But Ramsay isn’t just any chef. He’s a public figure, and this was content. Which means the internet gets to judge him.
The Shame
Immediately, this video trends for all the worst reasons. Uploaded in 2020, it has since accumulated 5.4 million views. (“That doesn’t sound like a lot, ShooHonker!” That’s because people are sharing sad screencaps and dunking on him in comments, not watching him!)
And you have to admit, it’s a little funny. I mean, if you’re a random netizen and you hear that Gordon Goddamn Ramsay made that sandwich, it’s bound to be good fun to pretend he had every reason to do it right and just couldn’t.
People are saying he’d shit on this if it was served to him, people are saying he made it because he’s out of touch with the common man. -isms are tossed around, mainly classism. Here is the bourgeoisie manifest, fame and riches so alienating that even a man born in the working class can’t make a meal for children! And the ego! He dares call this beautiful?
And for years in the wake of this, he’s getting tagged. Every time you cook a scrumptious cheese sam, and you want it to reach more people, just add a dunk on the most high-profile chef in the world and guffaw. “This was so simple!” “Can’t believe you couldn’t make this right!” “Put me on Iron Chef instead!” Tom Brady even gets in on it.
The Double-Dip
Time to take the trolls to task. Gordon is shooting in Southern California, in a public square for a live audience. You just know he’s itching to deliver this rejoinder, but he’s not being bitter. The vibe is more that he’s just eager to prove himself.
This time, he’s pulled out all the stops. He has a special-built cooking stage, with a logo of the word ‘idiot’ in a sandwich lit in neon on the front, a classic reference to the defining moment on Hell’s Kitchen.
He makes his own jalapeno jam. He sears mushrooms. He makes a chutney sauce. He cuts fine Italian country bread, and it’s actually cooperating with his knife. Aged hard cheeses? Nay: Gruyère, cheddar, and taleggio, all either soft or young. And, of course, braised shortrib, seared to perfection.
Here it is! The glory! What a redemption! At last, Gordon Ramsay has proven all the haters wrong, and demonstrated that he can in fact make a delectable and gorgeous vegetable and shortrib melt.
Wait.
The Spirit of u/Fuck_Blue_Shells, Sandwich Reaver
That’s not grilled cheese. That’s a melt! HE DIDN’T MAKE A GRILLED CHEESE! Sound the alarms! He said he’d make grilled cheese, and he made a melt! There’s other ingredients besides bread and cheese!
So yeah, that’s the consensus opinion. It’s undeniably a competent sandwich. “Well done Gordon,” we all say, “Would. That said, is the grilled cheese coming after this one?”
Naturally, the new sandwich trends again amongst those of us following Ramsay’s toddler food arc. No reply has come out, not even a year later. People are still mocking him, too, but at least they're doing it in a more light, teasing way. (Like how you'd mock a math professor for forgetting their algebra.)
My take? I say we give him one more shot. Let him make a wellington beforehand to get the itch out of his system, give him three ingredients, and let him loose. If he goes 0-3, then we can declare that this eight-Michelin-starred chef couldn’t hack it in a middle school cafeteria.