"I Lost All Respect For Him In That Instant": People Are Sharing Terrible Advice From Famous Chefs

A lot of amateur cooks may take the word of famous and celebrity chefs as law, citing their experience and fame as reason enough to take their advice. But sometimes, even the best-known chefs can be just as clueless as the rest of us.

Recently, Reddit user u/yoyolearner1 asked, "What is something a famous chef has said that you disagree with?"

1. Martha Stewart recommends adding sour cream to mashed potatoes. My ex-mother-in-law had a tray of mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving at her house on a table in the kitchen for family-style serving. My son and I were allowed to be first in line, but my mother-in-law's sister came running in with a carton of sour cream and screeched 'STOP!' Then proceeded to dump the sour cream into the potatoes and mix it in like it was the magical ingredient. My son and I looked at each other and raised our shoulders like, okay? We put some on our plates and sat down. I took a big spoonful, thinking it was going to be creamy. Do you know when you have taken a big swig of a carton of milk and then realize it’s expired and spit it out? Well, need I say more?"

"She thinks Martha Stewart is a God! I put pepper in with a ton of butter and mixed it in and took a little tiny taste but no save. Darn, Thanksgiving without mashed potatoes? Two other family members said, 'What's wrong with the mashed potatoes?' Too bad the aunt didn’t hear. It was the first time the mashed potatoes weren’t completely gone by the end of dinner. Half the tray was still left. Hmm, wonder why?"

—Anonymous, 52, California

2. "Chefs like Gordon Ramsay say that putting salt in eggs during the whisking process makes them watery. I have always salted the eggs in the bowl and I have never had problems with my eggs."

3. "Alice Waters loves to talk about fresh ingredients, but not everyone can afford to go to the farmer's market every day. Store-bought ingredients can still make a great meal."

—Anonymous, 34, MA

4. "Bourdain (God rest his soul) said to never use a garlic press. Absolutely not, I don’t have time to chop tiny cloves of garlic all the time."

5. "I generally like Joshua Weissman but I hate that 'Ew, fast food, bleurgh I'm gonna throw up' shtick that he has. It's so pretentious and out of touch with his audience, like how every other recipe he has requires some obscure ingredient that you'll never use again. I've tried a few of his recipes, and it's really apparent how they're just thrown up on his website really quickly. There's always a few ingredients that he clearly eyeballs and is way off the mark or just a bunch of errors and typos."

6. "When they're showing you how to cook a recipe and they say, 'Doesn't really matter.' Yeah, it doesn't matter to you since you know how to adapt the recipe. But then you get people thinking that their slow-cooked chicken breast is dry because they suck and cooking just isn't for them."

—u/ UroplatusFantasticus

7. "I used to trust Gordon Ramsay, and then I watched his grilled cheese video. Do not trust this man! He says things like 'Mmm, delicious,' 'melty cheese' and it’s clearly misdirection."

View this video on YouTube

9. "Marco Pierre White said on a show that the best way to cook bacon is in the microwave. I lost all respect for him in that instant."

10. "Many Italian chefs say no cheese with seafood dishes. I disagree."

—u/ maluquina

"One of the judges on Chopped, I don’t remember who, insists on no cheese on seafood. Sometimes cheese on seafood is good."

—u/Fetchezlavache10

11. "Gordon Ramsay has a video on his YouTube channel where a 'mushroom expert' says to clean mushrooms with a soft brush and to never use water because it deteriorates the mushroom, which is bullshit."

12. "I disagree with Alton Brown's 'no unitaskers' rule. There are certainly some ridiculous ones out there, but there are also extremely useful unitaskers that absolutely deserve a place in my kitchen."

—u/molten_dragon

"There was an episode of Alton Brown's "Good Eats" where he dissed pastry bags as 'unitaskers' (according to Alton, a unitasker is a piece of kitchen equipment that has only one job and therefore isn't worth the space in your kitchen). For those who don't know, pastry bags are what professional bakers use to apply frosting to a cake, quickly fill cake layers and tarts, deposit cream puff/eclair/macaron batter onto a tray, etc. They are extremely handy in the kitchen, inexpensive, and don't take much space! 

Instead of a pastry bag, he suggests you use a zip-top bag with a hole cut out one of the corners. The problem is, zip-top bags are messy and difficult to use like this, not to mention they're prone to rip and burst like crazy (pastry bags are designed to withstand lots of pressure). You also can't use cake decorating tips in a zip-top bag. If you're going to do some serious baking, get some pastry bags!"

—natedey

13. "Anytime a famous chef like Gordon Ramsay tells you to put oil in your pasta water to 'keep the pasta from sticking.' I have been a professional chef for 10 years and attended culinary school. Adding oil to your pasta water does nothing and is wasteful. Water REPELS oil, meaning the water that the pasta is absorbing is also repelling the oil. So it won't affect if the pasta sticks at all. Simply stir your pasta as soon as it hits the water, and separate it, boom won't stick."

—Anonymous, 30, Utah

14. "'We cook down the onions to remove the water content, to remove the acidity, to bring out the natural sweetness' That's not how chemistry works, Marco. Heat doesn't change P.H."

15. "As an Asian person, I find Jamie Oliver's egg fried rice tutorial was absolutely horrid, so much is wrong with that recipe. Probably the most horrible thing was when he added tap water to the fried rice. The shit was so wet it looked like a face mask."

—u/ Emotional_Writer

16. "Julia Child insisting that green vegetables (particularly broccoli, brussels sprouts, and green beans) have to be boiled instead of steamed to preserve the color. I steam broccoli all the time and it comes out perfectly green and lovely."

17. "Literally anything that Jamie Oliver says about any food from the Eastern Hemisphere. What an idiot."

—u/johnnybird95

18. "Julia Child said, 'If you do not have a good wine to use, it is far better to omit it, for a poor one can spoil a simple dish and utterly debase a noble one.' Which means that a bunch of chefs have now taken to telling people that if you're not cooking with a well-made, expensive wine, you're ruining your dish. This, of course, is bullshit. I had been wasting money on expensive wine to cook with for years before I figured out that cheap wine works just as well, if not better. I've cooked with cheap and expensive wines over the years, and I can honestly say that it's never made a difference in the quality of my dishes."

20. "Gordon Ramsay's whole method of cooking scrambled eggs, putting them in a pot and moving them on and off the heat as they cook. Pure crap! They look like curdled baby puke or something!"

"Instead, coat a non-stick pan with either melted butter (my preference) or PAM, put it on medium-low heat, and let it get hot. While that's happening, beat the egg(s) and season with salt and pepper. Put the beaten, seasoned eggs in the pan, and they cook almost instantly and come out perfect. It's such a simple thing that he overcomplicates and screws up all at once!"

—leslie318

21. "Making Jamaican jerk rice. Jamie Oliver caused an uproar throughout the Afro-Carribean Community with that disaster."

—46, Northern California

22. "I will never get over Antoni from Queer Eye putting Greek yogurt in guacamole."

23. "Rachael Ray making Mexican food period, but when she put out the video on how to make pozole, OMG! It was used by anyone who ever ate pozole to ridicule the video and her way of making it. She needs to spend a day with a Mexican grandma to show her how to cook Mexican food."

—Anonymous, 49, New Mexico

24. "Ina Garten always makes a point of saying we should only use 'GOOD' olive oil and 'FRESH' herbs. So if we can’t always afford these and need to substitute them with dried herbs or medium-grade olive oil, we shouldn't even bother making her dishes? Even those of us on a tight budget still like to make nice meals for our family."

25. "Paul Hollywood insists that you have to put your salt and your yeast in different areas of the bowl of flour so the salt doesn't deactivate/kill the yeast. Bogus. Many recipes add salt and yeast at the same time, whisked into the flour and they work out beautifully. Perhaps if you're proofing your yeast in water and mix salt into that slurry you'd see the fermentation affected, but not when mixing your dry ingredients together."

—Anonymous, 52, Wisconsin

26. "Scott Conant absolutely rails people on Chopped for using raw red onions in any dish, even a salad. He touts his hatred of them as culinary law. Food preferences are subjective, and your opinion is not a fact, sir."

—Anonymous, 38, WA

27. "On a number of occasions Gordon Ramsay has claimed that when wrapping food in foil, there is a 'right' and a 'wrong' side, and has shouted at people for it. It has nothing to do with reflecting heat or whatever people claim. The only reason one side of the foil is shiny and the other is dull is because at the end of the aluminum foil rolling process for the final roll, they put two sheets together to reduce ripping, so the side touching the rollers gets shiny and the side touching the other aluminum sheet gets dull."

—u/Wikiramblings

Have you ever gotten cooking advice from a so-called expert that was actually terrible? Let me know in the comments!