Cooking and cocaine

by Daniele Cernilli 11/06/17
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Cooking and cocaine

From Britain comes the news that several celebrated chefs have admitted that cocaine is consumed in the kitchens of some star restaurants. And in Italy? 

The fact that wine is consumed while cooking and sometimes even chefs have a glass too many has for a long time been part of kitchen folklore and literature. But the fact that cocaine is habitually consumed in abundant quantity in the kitchens of some renowned star restaurants only recently came to light. This due to an interview the stellar and star chef Gordon Ramsey gave to Radio Times that was then picked up by The Guardian in Britain and in Italy by Luisiana Gaita for the Fatto Quotidiano newspaper. The news, however, was not exactly new because the same thing had more or less revealed previously by Anthony Bourdain and Marco Pierre-White, the latter in his autobiography “White Slave”. It would thus appear that the pressure and tension in some star restaurant are such that some feel they need a little ‘boost’ from a little ‘blow’.

While in Britain renowned chefs have had the courage to admit this, in Italy there has only been silence. I wonder whether this is because the problem does not exist or whether the consensus is that the less said the better. Needless to say, there are plenty of rumors about this or that chef. A young sous-chef who worked for several months at a famous restaurant recently confessed to me that he quit because when the chef ‘tooted’ too much he became violent and even beat him. He did not, however, name names and so I cannot cite specific names or instances, which certainly would have been denied anyway.

For sure, the consumption of cocaine could explain certain excesses in rage and brawls that sometimes break out in the kitchens of star and other restaurants. To engage in useless gossip would only serve to sling mud on the many chefs who are great professionals and so it would be best to focus on those few, I’m sure, who risk destroying the image of the whole category. That said, I think we should open a discussion on such a delicate subject.

I would like to open a Pandora’s Box, if possible, to ascertain whether there indeed exists a problem of doping and drug abuse in the restaurant sector and what consequences this has had and eventually still has on interpersonal relations in some important Italian ones. In other words, I would like to know whether certain outbreaks of violent behavior were the result of work-related stress or something else. Violence can never be justified nor accepted and it is important to know how it can be eventually prevented.

Let’s see if anyone has the courage to come clean the way Gordon Ramsey has.





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