Category: Food and Drink

My empathy for the Chef who spiked a Vegan

As a former Chef myself, I always find it funny reading stories about Chefs who “exact revenge” on someone.

Especially when that someone is an annoying, self-entitled pain in the arse.

This story came from the RT website which you can view by clicking here.

It tells the tale of Laura Goodman; Chef at the Carlini Restaurant in Shropshire, and how she “spiked” a Vegan with a non-vegan product, and then bragged about it in a series of Facebook posts, one of which was:

“pious, judgemental Vegan has gone to bed still believing she is a Vegan”

According to Goodman, she had spent hours coming up with a Vegan menu with the alleged victim of the “spiking”, after which the same person then ordered a non-vegan meal for herself.

Extremely unnecessary if true isn’t it?

She was simply looking after the other people in her party who were obviously all hard-core Vegans, and who:

“MUST be given only the finest Vegan delicacies, and there CANNOT POSSIBLY be any non-vegan items anywhere near the food at all! I must make you aware of the fact that we are VEGAN and we are saving the World one meal at a time! We MUST be accommodated more than the average customer for the same price that everyone else pays because: WE ARE VEGANS!!!!!!”

“Oh, and I’ll have cheese on mine.”

“But cheese isn’t Vegan?”

“That’s ok, a little bit is fine.”

I know, I know. That was quite a bit of conjecture on my part, but I guarantee that’s pretty much how it would have went.

The amount of times I’ve sat down with clients who have “Dietary issues” who, instead of politely asking for their needs to be accommodated, suddenly grow a huge chip on their shoulder and start DEMANDING things that aren’t even on the Dietary menu that I have provided for them.

“But I don’t WANT that, I want THIS instead! I’m allergic to Gluten and can’t possibly have THIS menu!”

“But those are the Gluten Free options Sir/Madam” I respond (generally through gritted teeth)

To which the client will suddenly remember that they are also allergic to most of the other items on the menu, so I will absolutely HAVE to make the dish they have specified and that is NOT on the menu.

And which normally always contains an item that they earlier claimed to be “allergic” to. (For more insight into my detestation of “allergen” sufferers, see my Post: Gluten free – my arse!)

So, back to Chef Goodman. What did she actually do wrong?

According to another of her Facebook posts she claims to have “spiked a Vegan tonight…”

Her partner and Co-owner has claimed that Goodman simply “mis-spoke” and “had used a poor choice of words”.

Personally I think she was completely annoyed at the customers for messing her about and decided to vent her fury by claiming to have “spiked” them with non-vegan or vegetarian products. I think she was just trying to wind-up some Vegans on Facebook in order to “get back” at the ones who had caused her the stress at work.

Did she really spike them?

Probably not. Chefs are angry, cantankerous and easily offended, however 99% of us wouldn’t actually spike a Vegan.

We’d think about it for sure, but not actually do it.

It remains to be seen if Chef Goodman is part of the 1% however.

I think the moral of this story should be this:

Don’t make claims about “spiking” people, particularly Vegans, when you’re a Chef and own a business. It’s bad for your reputation and that of Chefs everywhere.

Also, don’t annoy a Chef. We understand you have certain dietary needs and we’ll try our best to aid in your pursuit to “save the World one plate at a time”, but stop acting like you’re the most important person ever to grace the globe with your presence.

Nobody cares about your “needs” as much as you do.

 

Well, I’m off now to eat a big, juicy cheeseburger in front of the window of the local Vegan Bistro. I know it’s childish but it’s just too hard to stop myself winding up people who don’t have the energy to chase after me…

 

RANT OVER

 

 

 

 

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Gluten free – my arse

Without sounding too much like somebody’s Great Uncle….

When I was a lad, practically nobody had food allergens.

Sure, you’d have the one diabetic kid at school who was allowed jelly and ice cream every single day (“god, it’s so unfair”….) but apart from that, nobody had any issues.

Fast forward 30 years and all of a sudden everyone is on the verge of anaphylactic shock if they so much as look at a slice of bread.

What the hell happened?!

It seems that everyone and their bloody dog is “allergic” to something these days. You’ll notice I used quotation marks on the word allergic, and for good reason.

I don’t believe about 95% of the people who claim to be allergic to gluten.

There, I’ve said it.

 

I used to be a Chef. During this period of my life I witnessed first-hand the gradual rise in fake allergens. What used to be a simple act of a Server bringing a check into the Kitchen and hurrying out in case they got shouted at for simply doing their job, (“more checks?! I’m not here to cook you know!”) turned into the Server nervously hanging around the Pass to explain that the Customer has an allergy of sorts. This rose from once a night-ish to approximately 10 times and upwards a night in what seemed like a dramatically short period of time.

What really got my attention to the fact that it’s mostly fake is this exchange that would happen between myself and the Server, probably nine times out ten-

Server- “Chef this Customer says they are allergic to Gluten.”

Me- “But they’ve ordered Tagliatelle! Do they know it contains Gluten?”

Server- “I’ll go and check.”

2 minutes later….

Server- “They said it’s fine as long as they don’t have too much”

To which I would respond by refusing to cook the order at all until they a) chose something else without gluten, or b) admitted that they weren’t allergic to it in the first place and apologised for being an annoying, fad-following, hipster-wannabe, special little cupcake who demands attention by trying to be quirky, different and needy.

(Oh what a joy I was to work with!)

People with Coeliac disease can’t eat Gluten.

People with Gluten allergies can’t eat Gluten.

People who can eat “a little bit” or “not too much” are neither of these things. They CHOOSE not to eat Gluten.

They are people who, for one reason or another, just want to be different or difficult and who insist on being given special treatment like the entitled little brats that they are. If you don’t want to eat Gluten then please say so; don’t lie and say you’re Gluten intolerant or allergic to Gluten.

Image result for entitlement funny pics

 

I blame the ridiculous amount of fad-ish diets that were all the rage in the late nineties and early 2000’s, and, the self-centred, entitled generation that are the children of the followers of such idiotic trends as the Atkins diet.

So, in summing up.

Tell the truth.

Nobody cares if you don’t want to eat Gluten, but they do care if you lie about the reason.

Being Coeliac must be a nightmare, and people claiming to have issues are watering down the reality of sufferers.

You’re not allergic to Gluten.

You’re not special.

You’re just an entitled, self important knobhead.

You’re just like the other 95% of the population.

Get over it.

RANT OVER