this review is rubbish. are americans really that hopeless?

its pathetic really complainign that the average person doesn't keep a spare can of tomatoes in the cupboard?!?! if you actually cooked once or twice a week you probably WOULD have sharp knives, and a reasably well stocked pantry...

oh whatever... just eat your macdonalds for dinner and stop complaining.

fish and chips and tea and then real big meals type teas is what I know about food in England. I can do all that real fast with frozen fish and chips and store bought great lemon ice cookies like at ham and goodys in tennessee. what great cookies.www.hamandgoodys.com I mean i will never clean a bird that was brought to me even if he owns the estate and that is that.

I don't think the author complained about having to used canned goods. The examples they did give are much more complex.

Sharp knives are important when dicing/cutting/etc, but so is speed and technique, which some of us simply don't have.

The article is certainly rubbish when you pick issues that weren't mentioned.

The average person doesnt have a scale in his Kitchen?
Families are not prepared to try out something new?

The problem with america is that everyone thinks in terms of TV meal - which I have never touched in my life and have no intention of trying and that the main cooking utensil seems to be the microwave.

Quails, quaileggs, fresh Artichokes or mushrooms can be found anywhere if you look for it.
Cilantro or herbs as well.

But as long as burgers and french fries or pizzas are what families are fed with there is no point in showing how easy things like gulasch or risotto can be made.

I go home every day at lunch from work and quickly cook a good healthy and fresh lunch (today it was a seafood pasta with fresh clams and shrimps) and return to work after lunch. Cooking in 30 minutes is an every day task.

And hey! I'm a guy and not gay :)

Cheers
Charles

Also, I think a lot of people expect to be able to cook a 30 minute meal while simultaneously talking on the phone, helping their kids with their homework, feeding the baby, paying bills, watching TV and washing last night's dishes. They claim they're "multitasking", then complain that they can't make a meal in 30 minutes. The secret to cooking in 30 minutes (or less) is that you have to focus on it and just get it done. If you're in a situation where you have to be interrupted by your kids every 2 minutes, then you're not going to be able to prep and cook as quickly.

I haven't read Ramsey's book, but I've made a lot of meals in 30 minutes, and without depending on a lot of convenience foods. But if I'm chopping an onion, I'm chopping an onion. Not simultaneously trying to do three other things. Once you focus, you will find that tasks like chopping and prepping go a lot faster.

Karen

echoclerk:

this review is rubbish. are americans really that hopeless?

its pathetic really complainign that the average person doesn't keep a spare can of tomatoes in the cupboard?!?! if you actually cooked once or twice a week you probably WOULD have sharp knives, and a reasably well stocked pantry...

oh whatever... just eat your macdonalds for dinner and stop complaining.

I think there are two other (interrelated) factors at play here that the author doesn't address. Availability and cost. Despite its proximity to the bread basket of America (California's central valley) my current home Los Angeles is a meat and produce wasteland. So I've come to realize that being 4 hours from an agribusiness Mecca pales in comparison to being 30 minutes from small local operations. I grew up in Oregon where truly local meats and (and seasonal) produce are the rule. London's relationship with agriculture is a lot more like that of Portland than Los Angeles, and it's reflected in the availibility of better quality (and cheaper) ingredients.

Even Americans who love to cook expect to have every fruit and vegetable available to them every day of the year. I remember being little (this was just in the 80's mind you) and being excited for peaches and cherries to show up in our stores (and for strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries to show up in our garden).

The fact is, as a result of our infrastructure, bad habits, and poor agricultural practices the cheapest way to eat in America is also the least healthy.

That was a lot longer than I intended.

Quails, quaileggs, fresh Artichokes or mushrooms can be found anywhere if you look for it.

mushrooms, yes, if you are content with plain button mushrooms and no other varieties. quails, quail eggs, and fresh artichokes absolutely not. if you think so, then you haven't been to many places in america outside northeast and west coast cities.

Safeway and Haggen, both large supermarket chains, both carry at least 4-5 different kinds of mushrooms at all times (shiitake, portobello, etc). Fresh artichokes are nothing unusual. I admit I haven't seen quail or quail eggs, though.

But this is Portland. I guess I've always just assumed our chain groceries are typical for the US. If I want something really weird, we also have the gourmet stores, ethnic groceries, and, yes, even a few real butchers.

Just a few days ago I saw fresh artichokes and a wide variety of mushrooms at Harris-Teeter, which is a pretty widespread grocery store here in NC. I think they also have stores elsewhere in the southeast. No quail/quail eggs though.

From what I've observed, they just shovel in whatever's handy and run off to sit around and shovel in some snack items later.

A chef whose name escapes me at the moment once declared that Americans eat like babies. All they want is grease, salt and sugar. Well, they're getting it now, and dying of obesity because of it.

Cooking takes effort and practice. I don't care if a recipe takes 30 min or 2 hrs ~ you won't get proficient at it until you do it at least a couple of times.

I love Gordon Ramsay's books, recipes and his TV shows. And I also own a few pieces of his ramekin bakeware. He's no nonsense and to the point.

As for Fast Food, I live in the US and bought the British edition before this Americanized version came out. I'm a practiced cook, but not formally educated in cooking. It's a great cookbook.

Geez, can no one use their brains in this country anymore? I didn't have the luxury of American weights and measures to follow in my edition, I had to use metric, but I managed without hassle. Most measuring cups and spoons are printed in both standard and metric. Additionally, you can also use the Web to convert measures too before you start ~ who says you can't write & make notes in your own copy of a cookbook!

I've cooked several of his dishes for my family of five and didn't break the bank doing it, nor did it take me any longer to cook them than any other "regular" recipe I've done. It did take preparation and carefully reading over of the recipes a few times. I also didn't bother with ingredients I couldn't source locally. There are only a couple that had things I couldn't find anyway. So what? There are plenty of others to enjoy.

For example, for our Super Bowl party, my 11 yr old daughter and I cooked everything from Ramsay's tomato kebabs as appetizers, to his Chili Beef (for sandwiches) and finished off the night with making Baked Ricotta with Carmelized Peaches for dessert ~ made in Ramsay's ramekins, of course.

I have 2 other cookbooks of his and I've easily made inexpensive family meals from all of them.

People who complain about cooking... that it's not fast enough or too hard are just not interested in cooking in the first place.

It's OK to not like cooking or cookbooks or chef inspired recipes, but then don't expect to make a good meal happen.

PS An excellent knife for slicing fruits and vegetables is a quality ceramic Japanese knife. Invest in good utensils and it will make cooking easier and you may actually enjoy it.

having grown up in nc, i can say there are only harris teeters in reasonably large towns/cities. first time i ever ran into one was attending ncssm in durham. in my hometown, the best you'll get is an iga, piggly-wiggly, or food lion, none of which would have carried artichokes that weren't jarred, and if they did they'd be priced like they'd been flown in from an obscure french town that morning. i lived three hours from raleigh and one and a half to two from wilmington, where i suppose they were probably more readily available, but who was going to drive that far? i was never exposed to artichokes as something people ate with any regularity until i moved to california after college. as for mushrooms, other than the standard plentiful buttons, our introduction to items like portabellas were the steakhouses that eventually in the late 90s sprouted up around the local military base.

i had access to quality fresh veggies, straight out of my grandmother's garden, and i always considered my childhood ('90s) food "good eatin' ", but varied it was not. and gourmet, if gourmet is defined as artichokes and quail eggs and shiitake mushrooms, it most certainly was not.

in 2003, twenty one percent of the us population was defined as living in rural areas, and i'd posit that their exposure is similar to mine. that's a big chunk of americans.

now i live in silicon valley and i'm going crazy in the hispanic and asian markets buying amazing produce, but i'd never presume that all of the country has that kind of opportunity.

Yeah, yeah. And all Brits have bad teeth and the french smell bad and muslims all want to blow up the world for no reason. Way to generalize, echoclerk.

A can of tomatoes isn't that strange to have kicking around. They don't even SELL creme fraiche here. I've been looking for months, and I live in a major metropolitan area less than 6 hours from new york city. If anywhere would have it, we would. That was the complaint.

Go be anti-american somewhere else.