Children as Chefs. The Latest Wave?

[Daniel Rogov]

I'm all for children in the kitchen but when it comes to the latest phenomenon of supposedly gifted child cooks who are said to be leading the way in the culinary world it is dificult to be anything more than just plain nasty in my reactions. Regina Schrambling writes an irritated piece in Slate about the phenomenon. Worth reading at http://www.slate.com/id/2212816/pagenum/all

Best
Rogov

[Matilda L]

This line from the article pretty well says it for me.

On a larger scale, the trend emphasizes the worst of the food frenzy today: the celebration of celebrity and novelty over authenticity and seriousness

Someone once said something about child performers to the effect that the wonder of it is not that they are doing it well: it is that they are doing it at all. Children as chefs seems to be another manifestation of the same. Do child chefs have "Kitchen mothers" the same way child performers have "Stage mothers"?

[Ian Sutton]

I quite like the idea of an 11 year old Gordon Ramsey-a-like

Oh for F*** sake give it here. This is how you make a F***in' omelette.

At least it would kill off that genre quickly

[Shel T]

Yes the author got it just right and as appalling as this 'hero worship' is, what else can you expect when we've had a generation of PC parenthood where "loser" is a dirty word and every child gets an award for everything including extreme ineptitude, the mommies and daddies gloat and 'kvell' over their kiddy genii who are told from the womb how 'special' they are and how it's a slam dunk that they'll appear on the cover of People Magazine or be featured alongside Paris Hilton in TMZ. So it's no eye-opening bombshell that there's a horde of teens who can't cope with rejection or disappointment as they've never been told about 'reality'.
And so to this article pointing out the obvious that there's a whole lot of folks being subjected to this garbage and my prediction is it's gonna get worse.

[Charlie Dawg]

Sensationalism (though is nothing new) in press plus the atmosphere of my child must be number one. And voila, we have got a new …… fill in a blank, chef in this case.

But going back to article and the mention of RR, why shouldn’t be a 4 year old a sensation if she is. She has as much sense when it comes to cooking as 4 year old, so maybe there is a 4 year old who actually can cook.