Celebrity chef
[1] Today, chefs often become celebrities by presenting cookery advice and demonstrations, usually through the media of television and radio, or in printed publications.
He was the personal chef to Pope Pius V, and is credited with writing the first cookbook, Opera Dell'arte del Cucinare in 1577.
His exceptional cooking skills were combined with an excellent eye to marketing and self-publicity to ensure that he molded the public's perception of him.
At the Reform Club, he instituted many innovations, including cooking with gas, refrigerators cooled by cold water, and ovens with adjustable temperatures.
She originally became popular following the publication of her first cookbook in 1949, The Practical Cook, and after gaining a cult following with cookery demonstrations in theatres around the country.
[citation needed] Described as America's first celebrity chef,[13] Julia Child first appeared on American television in 1963 on the Boston-based WGBH-TV.
At the time of her death, she was credited by the media as having "demystified the art of cuisine for the home cook and inspired many of today's celebrity chefs".
[15] In recent years, gaining a Michelin star has increased chefs' profiles sufficiently for them to be featured on television and become a household name.
[20][23] MasterClass has a number of celebrity chefs including Thomas Keller, Massimo Bottura, Alice Waters, Roy Choi, and Gordon Ramsay.
For example, despite the fact that Asian cuisine had been available in the UK since before the Victorian era, only due to the influence of chefs such as Ken Hom and Madhur Jaffrey in the early 1980s did the public become aware that these anglicised meals were not the authentic article.
[24] Tying into his first television series in 1984,[25] the book Ken Hom's Chinese Cookery sold 1.2 million copies in the UK alone.
[25] The writing of cookbooks has also been a regular product of the celebrity chefs, from both those who have gained Michelin stars, and homestyle cooks who have had books produced as a tie-in for television shows.
[30] In the UK, Marco Pierre White drew criticism after teaming up with Bernard Matthews Farms in March 2010 to create a range of ready meals that were dropped after a year of production.
[31] A 2012 paper published in the BMJ found that recipes in top-selling books by television chefs (Nigella Lawson, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Jamie Oliver, and Lorraine Pascale) were less healthy than supermarket ready meals.
