Talk:Celebrity chef

Name ordering: Japan
Why order all the names in Western order except the name that is purportedly Chinese? "Chen" is, indeed, a Chinese surname, but "Kenichi" is a Japanese name, probably assumed when Chen went to Japan. Rather than making some sort of distinction between Asian and Western name ordering (especially between Chinese and Japanese names), why not simply call him "Kenichi Chen?" Nightclerk 21:27, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

For that matter, why is it that every Japanese chef listed has been an Iron Chef? Someone must know others. Actually a chef (talk) 19:32, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Who's a "celebrity chef"?
The introduction to this article -- or rather, the preamble to the set of lists -- is candid in admitting confusion over "celebrity" status. What does the term mean? The WP article on celebrity seems terribly confused; I prefer the tentative notion of fame based on fame. But perhaps we can agree that we more or less recognize "celebrity" when we see it (gushingly described in the low/middlebrow media).

Right then, how is Elizabeth David -- to take an example of somebody I know of -- a "celebrity chef"? She certainly wrote books and became well-known for these. And her books do have personal anecdotes. But they seem different from those newer cookery books that provide photos of their author. I submit that ED is/was well-known, but (to her credit) not a celebrity. -- Hoary 02:47, August 11, 2005 (UTC)


 * In the UK at least the phrase "celebrity chef" is heard all over the place, we are just borrowing that usage and it means whatever people take it to mean I suppose. Pcb21| Pete 07:43, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Whether or not Ms. David was a celebrity, was she a chef? Literally, 'chef' just means 'chief,' and is short for chef-cuisinier. I acknowlege that the word has come to mean almost anyone who cooks professionally, but Ms. David did not cook professionally. She wrote books. Her own wikipedia article calls her a 'cookery writer,' which is a much better description. In that light, this whole list has problems. MFK Fisher wasn't a chef, and it could be argued that Julia Child wasn't, either. A good test might be that chefs make food, writers make books. Actually a chef (talk) 19:44, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Jenny
The stuff under the Jenny person's name who is celebrity chef in SA should be cleaned up, maybe moved to a separate article?

Just the UK?
"In practical terms however [celebrity chef] grew in popularity during the 1990s, particularly in the United Kingdom." Not just in the UK. Celebrity Chef came into common usage in the US during the same time.--Trweiss 03:21, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Mario Batali needs to be credited
I think it is a bit outdated to call Mario Batali a rising celebrity chef or super chef. Because as listed earlier, Ming Tsai is stated as a super chef yet does not fit the criteria of owning restaurants in different locations nor is he listed in Juliette Rossant's official list. Mario Batali is not either, considering, but in all effort has proven himself much more, especially recently, than Ming Tsai has. Simply consider that although he does not own any restaurants outside of New York City, IN the city he owns EIGHT restuarants and a wine shop. Keeping his restaurants local in the city he loves is admirable. He has also written five books and has numberous television shows, and is an Iron Chef. He has a cookingware line out now and also has a pizza and sausage product line out. In recognition, he was recently awarded the James Beard Foundation "All-Clad Cookware Outstanding Chef Award" for 2005, a national award. If that doesn't make a super chef I don't know what does.

"Super chef" self-promotion"
Okay, I've had enough. I've expunged the whole self-promoting "superchef" section, apparently inserted by Juliette Rossant and/or her PR person to promote her own book and blog. Ironically, it was her own hubris that helped me make this decision: she added a link to her own blog, wherein she quotes food writer Michael Ruhlman griping about this very article and how it's being used a promotional vehicle:


 * What exactly are the criteria for being a celebrity chef? Here’s the wikipedia definition (it’s heavily reliant on the work of Juliette Rossant, citing her -- she even has her own wikipedia page; sadly I do not — as well as her book called Superchef [sic] and her blog of that name… interesting… I wonder why it doesn’t cite, say, the work of Page and Dornenberg who wrote Becoming a Chef, the first book that meaningfully addressed chefs as they moved into the realm of celebrity… hmmm, a bit of a marketing effort from the camp of Ms. Rossant?).

And I agree with Ruhlman. If Rossant wants to market her book, she'll have to pay for it herself, elsewhere. --Calton | Talk 04:25, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

My deletions of 3 recent additions
I just deleted 3 "chefs" added on June 20 by user: 150.101.234.218.In my edit summary I asked for references, saying I found nothing on google for them. Actually, what I found on google was: for "chef" "Yann Marchal", a 16 year old male in Adelaide, South Australia, an actor from the UK, someone involved in chemical industry (I think); for "chef" Elaine Carbone, a "Elana" at the Department of Psychology, Massachusetts--well I need not go on. The drift is obviuos, I think--a little game, joke, or hoax??JeanColumbia 11:09, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a collection of lists!
Please see What_Wikipedia_is_not -- an article has to be more than just a random (or even structured) collection of links to other wikipedia articles. That's what categories are for. I looked up Category:American Chefs and found the list to be almost the same as that section of this article. Sure, there are a few notable chefs who are not celebrity chefs, but very few, and the distinction is not worth all the effort of a redundant and divergent effort here. If you want to help list your favorite chefs, why not simply make sure each has an appropriate category tag in their article?

Having said that, this could be a great article if someone gave it a little effort. There are books on the subject. What is a celebrity chef and why do we have them? What does it mean in terms of entertainment, the food industry, and our appreciation of food? Where did they come from, what are they, and what does it all mean? The first prototypical celebrity chefs in America at least were famous hotel chefs in the late 1800s who gained fame for advocating various cuisines, and writing the first popular cookbooks. Before that there were a handful of famous chefs who worked in the courts of European kings. In the early golden years of TV there were some like James Beard and Julia Child, the Galloping Gourmet, etc. But the modern celebrity chef started in the 1980s with a change in pop culture and the nature of celebrity, perhaps brought about by the Food Network and the popularity of specialized cable television. Good-looking, marketable, likeable, or simply interesting people were promoted to stardom as a marketing campaign -- some were bona fide food writers and restaurant chefs, others were simply people with a good knack for explaining things or amusing people. That fundamentally changed the whole food industry, and now you have Emiril's face on lemon rinders and plastic-wrapped fresh tomatoes. It would be wonderful to see that history told on Wikipedia. You don't have to list them all, but to explain the phenomenon would be lovely. Wikidemo 05:36, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

UK & Ireland
It's not 1900, please stop grouping these countries together. 88.105.93.65 (talk) 00:40, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * In cuisine they are quite closely related and there is little difference between the cooking of Northern Ireland and the Republic.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 16:46, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

First celebrity chef?
I see no mention of Philip Harben, who pre-dated Fanny Cradock in the UK.216.164.61.34 (talk) 15:14, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

http://www.history.com/news/hungry-history/lights-camera-action-the-first-tv-chefs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Harben

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Which one's Floyd?
And why is he not here? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Floyd T 88.89.5.214 (talk) 21:53, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

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