Anthony Bourdain and Gordon Ramsay were acquaintances, but fans of the late Kitchen Confidential author are up in arms over the British chef’s new TV show.
On Wednesday, July 25, National Geographic announced Ramsay’s new series, Uncharted, will feature the foul-mouthed chef embarking “on anthropology-through-cuisine expeditions” to foster relationships with people, places and flavors around the world.
Each episode will also see the MasterChef Junior host, 51, face off against the locals, “pitting his own interpretations of regional dishes against the tried-and-true classics,” before ending with a “friendly competition with local chefs and foodies.”
As many people on social media have noted, Uncharted sounds very similar to Parts Unknown, the CNN show that featured Bourdain traveling around the world learning about other cultures through food. After Bourdain’s death by suicide in June, his friend and fellow chef Andrew Zimmern told Us Weekly that he was worried about similar shows popping up, explaining, “My fear is that having realized how valuable he was now that he’s gone, that there’s some network out there ready to launch 30 Bourdain copycat shows with real idiots hosting them. That’s probably my biggest fear, which would be, I think, a setback to all the work that not only Tony did, but that I’m doing and that others are trying to do.”
Zimmern, 57, added: “That scares me because that’s something that’s very typically American. I know it sounds crass and almost craven to start talking about it just a few short weeks after his death, but I know the way these things work, and I know in some room somewhere there’s people starting to scribble these things on a blackboard and gameplan it and market it.”
What’s more? Ramsay’s history of screaming at and terrorizing chefs in episodes of Hell’s Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares and MasterChef, has many people on social media concerned his irate, profanity-laced outbursts will harm how viewers see other cultures and their cuisines.
Chef Eddie Huang, whose autobiography, Fresh Off the Boat, was adapted into the ABC series of the same name, tweeted that Uncharted is the “last thing the food world needs right now.”
Take a look at some additional reactions below:
nah, anthony bourdain didn’t live his life educating us on food and culture for gordon ramsay to divebomb cooking traditions
— justin block (@JBlock49) July 27, 2018
Gordon Ramsay is no Anthony Bourdain. I will not be watching his new travel/cooking show where he will try and prove he can cook local traditional foods better than the locals. Hard pass.
— Randy Creasman (@randy_creasman) July 28, 2018
World to Gordon Ramsay: You are no Anthony Bourdain by @TimCarman https://t.co/LQBQrY7Bv0
— Karen Attiah (@KarenAttiah) July 28, 2018
Basically, the exact opposite of Anthony Bourdain. https://t.co/DRNtCVLnby
— Charlotte Clymer🏳️🌈 (@cmclymer) July 27, 2018
I imagine the pitch for this went something like: “It’s like Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown except instead of honoring people’s cultures, he’s there to appropriate it in the most imperialistic and insulting way possible.”
— Andre Plaut (@andreplaut) July 27, 2018