Humble Pie by Gordon Ramsay (Autobiography)

[Janet]

 

Humble Pie by Gordon Ramsay

 

The ‘Blurb’

Everyone thinks they know the real Gordon Ramsay: rude, loud, pathologically driven, stubborn as hell. But this is his real story…

 

For the first time Gordon tells the full inside story of how he became the world’s most famous and infamous chef: his difficult childhood, his brother’s heroin addiction, his failed first career as a footballer, his fanatical pursuit of gastronomic perfection and his TV persona - all the things that have made him the celebrated culinary talent and media powerhouse that he is today.

 

“He’s the genuine b****cks… and this is the tale of his personal class struggle.”

(Observer review)

 

I don’t often read biographies or autobiographies but I do like Gordon Ramsay (well, certain things about him, anyway) - a friend lent me this book as she knows I like him.

 

The writing style is very basic - it’s obviously all from Gordon himself and not ghost-written because the writing is fairly bad in places, but that is okay because you get the sense that he’s genuine.

 

There were a few places where I had to read things through a few times to make sense of them! I’m not sure whether it’s a typo, but the phrase “Chris picked up him from the airport…” had me cringing! LOL

 

Did he change his name from Ramsey to Ramsay, I wonder? In the book there are lots of newspaper cuttings about his time as a footballer and all of them have the surname spelt with an ‘e’.

 

As you’d expect, there is a fair amount of colourful language in it, but it’s not over the top.

 

I think Gordon is a great chef (not that I’ve eaten at any of his restaurants - that’s something I’d love to do though) and I love his TV programmes Kitchen Nightmares and especially The F Word and really admire his passion.

 

I still think, despite his denials, that he is a chauvinist. When he talks about the fact he’s never changed a nappy in his life you can tell he’s proud of that. But let’s face it, it’s not a job that anyone chooses to do! I can’t help wondering whether he and Tana have a nanny (there is no mention of it) because surely she must have had a night off from the children once in a while, surely?! I guess that they can afford babysitters and you get the impression that Tanya’s not the sort of person who has to leave the baby with her husband while she pops out to buy more milk!

 

I didn’t actually know much about Gordon’s life, other than the stuff you see in the headlines, so it was nice to read about the man behind the public personality!

 

The paperback is 316 pages long and is published by Harper Collins. The ISBN number is 978- 0007229680.

 

6/10

 

(Read August 2007)

[Freewheeling Andy]

I read this a couple of weeks ago. I'll see if I can find my comments.

 

I also ate at his lovely Boxwood Cafe yesterday - where, oddly, although the food was good, it wasn't nearly as good as the last time I was there. It had slightly less excitement about it.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Here we go. What I wrote in my book blog thingy

 

Humble Pie was quite enlightening about kitchen stuff and had good narrative - very good for celeb biog, but there were quite a few annoying things. A lot of the book is self-defense against claims made in the press in the past. And there's a bit too much focus on individual events that were on TV programs but aren't actually important - they feel tagged on by some ghostwriter or editor who thought that celeb-biog purchasers only really cared about what some TV idiot said to another TV idiot.

 

The editors are also to blame for the two biggest annoyances. Clearly someone was leading Ramsay through the writing, at best: so there were loads of rhetorical questions included in the writing "What are the things that annoys me most in the kitchen? Dirty fingernails, and pointless rhetorical questions, I think." And there's gratuitous use of swearing - which again celeb-biog readers may expect to, you know, make it f***ing authentic. But really, once something is written down you don't need to use superfluous expletives. They were just distracting

[scottishbookworm]

he was a footballer for Glasgow Rangers but an injury shortened his career so he took up the career of cookery instead.

 

I've not read this book but I knew that he was an ex footballer because my mate was a huge fan of his when he played for glasgow rangers.

[LittleLijah]

I read this book when it first came out and I felt that it didn't go into much detail. As a fan of Gordon Ramsey to me the book skimmed over most topics and didn't give you an insight into the man himself.

[malefic]

Apologies for digging this thread back up but I have only just got round to reading Humble Pie after watching on TV and deciding that instead of my reconceptions of the guy being an arrogant bully he knows what he is doing and strives for perfection.

 

The book, as has been said, kind of skimmed over the whole Ramsay rise to fame so we get to know something about him, his family and his restaurants there was always something held back.

 

Saying that I read the book in two evenings as it was a tale I couldn't put down and I started to understand his quirks that we see on TV.

 

I have now started the second book, Playing With Fire, so hoping that may fill in some of the gaps that seemed to be in the first one.

 

Again, apologies about digging this one up!

[Janet]

Again, apologies about digging this one up!

No need to apologise - that's what the threads are here for - old or not.

 

It's always nice to read the views of others.

[Anika]

Wow! I didn't know he knew the meaning of the word 'humble'. I used to watch his shows and start 'shaking in my boots' as if he were yelling at me!

 

But, then I saw him on an episode of Kitchen Nightmares when one of the female cooks was crying. Though she was doing a good job, she was upset about losing it, if the restaurant closed. He just turned into a puddle of mush!! I knew he had a heart in there somewhere. I'm definitely going to read this.

Edited November 23, 2009 by Anika
punctuation