Tuesday, August 23, 2016

When foodies lose it


I have to laugh at the excessive sturm und drang unleashed by an Italian chef.

A well-known Italian chef and television presenter has described vegans as a “sect”, declaring “I would kill them all.”

The comments by Gianfranco Vissani were made on an Italian television programme.

The high-profile chef, who often appears on television in Italy and has written numerous books, said: “Vegans? They’re like the members of a sect. They’re like Jehovah’s Witnesses. I’d kill them all.”

. . .

There was a swift reaction to the remarks on social media, even though they seemed to be made largely in jest.  “Vissani has been possessed by mad cow disease! Put him into isolation!” said one woman on Twitter.

“We can discuss whether or not they should be killed, but on the fact that they have become a sect, there’s no doubt, it seems to me,” another Twitter user wrote. A third wrote: “Even famous cooks make stupid jokes.”

. . .

Mr Vissani is by no means the first celebrity chef to be rude about vegans and vegetarians.

Anthony Bourdain, the American chef who wrote Kitchen Confidential and A Cook’s Tour before forging a career as a TV celebrity, wrote in one of his books:

“Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter-faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn.

“To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living.

“Oh, I'll accommodate them, I'll rummage around for something to feed them, for a 'vegetarian plate', if called on to do so. Fourteen dollars for a few slices of grilled eggplant and zucchini suits my food cost fine.”

There's more at the link.

What can one say?
  • Clearly, there's more to this than meats the eye.
  • Vegetarians would as leaf not hear that sort of thing.
  • I don't know about vegetarians being a sect.  After all, if they cut their food with a knife before eating it, isn't that dis-sect-tion?
  • I suppose Italian chefs think that vegetarians are im-pastas.

I would say that Signore Vissani's remarks have set the cat amongst the pigeons, but I don't know if there are vegetarian equivalents to pigeons . . .




Peter

6 comments:

C. S. P. Schofield said...

The vegetarian equivalent to pigeons is vegetarians; birdbrains with a high probability of being an annoyance....


I am reminded of a fantasy setting in which the Trolls were vegetarians ... but classified Elves as vegetables.

TheOtherSean said...

If only we saw more such passion about, you know, actual terrorists and dangerous cults.

Peter B said...

Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality may be the definitive publication on the issue. It was originally published in the Journal of Polymorphous Perversity. It's available in a collection entitled Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality, <a href= "https://www.amazon.com/Sadism-Vegetarian-Personality-Glenn-Ellenbogen-ebook/dp/B00CYM1VXC/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1471963251&sr=1-2&keywords=oral+sadism+and+the+vegetarian+personality> which is available in a Kindle book and is available under Kindle Unlimited for Amazon Prime members.</a>

Anonymous said...

The easy morality is attractive to the ethically lazy. Heck, if you can get to heaven by consuming the right products why not choke down some arugula and be smug about it?

Anonymous said...

I work with a vegan. She doesn't talk about it, she doesn't demand that we provide vegan options on treat days, and I didn't know until someone offered her something and said "You're a vegetarian, right? This does have egg in it." She explained that she doesn't eat any animal products, and that was that.

She's also the ONLY vegan I've crossed paths with who wasn't preaching, demanding special foods (cooked in freshly scrubbed pots and pans so there would be no contamination) and/or pitching a fit about "eating animal products is murder!!"

LittleRed1

Will said...

There is one of those vegan types over at
http://blog.joehuffman.org/2016/08/20/quote-of-the-day-kyle-smith/

that is harping at everyone who posts there. Bitches about anecdotal accounts, and yet responds with the same thing. Just a wall of text to overwhelm everyone. I merely pointed out that raising kids as vegans has a history of problems associated with it. If I wanted to debate his favorite subject, I would be looking at vegan blogs/forums. Not interested in wasting time with him. I was curious about how he would react to my point, and wasn't surprised at it. Are they all like him?