Humble Pie - Gordon Ramsay

...when I saw the book Humble Pie for sale, I did think that it was something that I would be interested to read.

The front cover
The words Humble Pie look wrong to me. They are printed over the top of a picture of Gordon Ramsay in a fairly smug pose. Maybe the juxtaposition between the words and pictures are specifically to entice the doubting buyer to read the book in an attempt to make sense of the title.

The ...
...about myself, I still see a little boy who is desperate to escape and desperate to please..." It is a quote by Gordon Ramsay, about his childhood and how his life has changed and moved on. There is a picture of a young, roughly four year old, Gordon wearing a tie and a cardigan. He is wrinkle free and dare I say it he looks vaguely angelic.

The Book
This autobiography is divided into chapters, and is dedicated to Gordon's ... more

I started another review about Gordon Ramsay with the words "love him or loathe him…" To be honest I was fairly indifferent to him. I like much of the food that he produces, I think he can be fairly honest, but also think he comes across as arrogant and one of the foulest mouthed chefs I have ever seen on TV. However my main indifference to the man comes from the fact that I am not a celebrity obsessed person. I think that some celebrities hide behind their TV persona, some put on a complete act, but behind it they are all human beings. That said, when I saw the book Humble Pie for sale, I did think that it was something that I would be interested to read.

The front cover
The words Humble Pie look wrong to me. They are printed over the top of a picture of Gordon Ramsay in a fairly smug pose. Maybe the juxtaposition between the words and pictures are specifically to entice the doubting buyer to read the book in an attempt to make sense of the title.

The Back Cover
The back cover reads "When I think about myself, I still see a little boy who is desperate to escape and desperate to please..." It is a quote by Gordon Ramsay, about his childhood and how his life has changed and moved on. There is a picture of a young, roughly four year old, Gordon wearing a tie and a cardigan. He is wrinkle free and dare I say it he looks vaguely angelic.

The Book
This autobiography is divided into chapters, and is dedicated to Gordon's Mum. The foreword starts by Gordon explaining that he has lived in many places, always escaping from the trail of devastation that his Father seemed to leave behind him, and that he was from a poor background. I found that Gordon was pensive in this chapter, that it was well written, engaging and made me want to read on.

Chapter one is titled Dad. Without giving too much away it is safe to say that Gordon's relationship with his Father was not a great one. His Father was a drinker, full of self importance and a deserter when things went wrong. It is almost as though this chapter is a brain dump on Gordon's behalf, and as his feelings about his Dad get more intense so the bad language begins. Funnily enough, when I see him on television I start to block out the swearing, but when I see it there in black and white it becomes very stark and raw. You hear about the poverty in Gordon's life and you see the effect that the parenting had on the boy. You can feel the bitterness and resentment that Gordon had towards his Father.

The second chapter is Football. This was, and I believe still is, Gordon's other love apart from cooking. He had the makings of a good football player, and his thoughts and feelings about being a football player are detailed in this chapter. Again the influence of his Father in his life comes shining through in his absolute determination to succeed and be praised. I found myself starting to feel some empathy for the child that was so desperate to prove himself and vie for his Fathers affection. The end of his football career due to injury is well documented and it was at about this time that Gordon started to get into cooking.

The book then goes on to explain how Ramsay got started as a chef and is littered with memories and insights into conversations that he had. I felt that a lot of this chapter was an outpouring of Gordon's thoughts and was more like a stream of consciousness. Again his swearing increases with his emotions and the injustices, as he sees them, of his life.

Gordon goes on to explain how he worked in France, and I found this really quite interesting. He has obviously put a lot of determined thought and effort into his career and has chosen to work in a variety of restaurants in order to learn his profession. Gordon also worked on a yacht.

The chapters where Gordon started to gain fame, notoriety and success as a chef also signal a change in his writing style. The arrogance and stubbornness of the man start to really show through in his writing. I suppose that it must be hard to talk about your own successes without sounding slightly pompous, but I found myself almost cringing while I read some of the things he had written. The best example of this is when Ramsay is writing about a BBC Good Food Show, and some of the well known celebrity chefs. He writes "I went out on stage and gave the most amazing demonstration. I just thought: f**k off, will you. Let me do the real cooking."

I was, however, interested to read about the turnover of his restaurants and he seemed to be fairly honest in the figures he gives for profit. He is also able to point out some of his faults although I got the feeling that he didn't truly believe they were all of his making.

Perhaps the hardest chapter to read was that about his brother, Ronnie. Anyone who reads about Gordon Ramsay in the papers will probably be aware that Ronnie is a drug addict. The chapter titled Ronnie was more like the deluge of feelings after a counselling session. Indeed you learn that Ramsay did have to go to counselling sessions when his brother was in rehab. I got the impression that Ramsay had a lot of love for his brother, but that in order to retain some self preservation he has distanced himself from Ronnie.

There is a small chapter about the women in Gordon's life, his Mum, sisters, daughters and his wife. He makes it very clear that he wants his children to lead as normal a life as is possible. Indeed his Mum takes his children to Butlins to experience a "normal holiday" each year.

The book has a detailed and cross referenced Index that covers some 12 pages.

There are three sections of the book, towards the front, the middle, and the back where there are glossy colour photographs depicting some of the events that have happened in Gordon's life. The first set of photos range from pictures of his Mother and Father, copies of early press reports about his football playing, through to the start of his cookery career. The middle photo section shows Gordon with Albert Roux, Marco Pierre White, some family shots, through to pictures of Hell's Kitchen. The final set of photos shows Ramsay after doing the London Marathon, some shots from the F Word television programme, some from Soccer Aid, and finally his family. The pictures are all in colour and all have captions, and I think they add to the book. There is a vague chronology to the pictures, so it is interesting to chart Ramsay's life through the pictures as much as through the words.

My Thoughts
To be honest, my thoughts about Gordon Ramsay and the quality of this book changed from page to page. I swung from thinking that he was completely arrogant and aloof, to thinking that he had made the most of a tough childhood and background. Sometimes I thought he showed a real awareness of his faults. At other times he seemed so involved in self pity and how tough his life had been that he was almost justifying his arrogant actions. Some of the book is well written, reflective and easy to read. At other times it is almost as though you can just hear his thoughts and it becomes a jumble of emotions and ideas.

As I said, I find that I can almost ignore his swearing when I watch him on the television; I think that is because I tend to be more interested in the visual side of the programme, watching what is happening, not listening so well. When I see, in black and white, the absolute torrent of swear words that he is able to fit into a sentence I find it quite hard to read.

I am glad that I read the book; I have a little more empathy for the man, a little more understanding of the amount of effort that goes into making a quality restaurant or a quality chef. I have a little more idea of what life must be like with a drug addict for a sibling. It was an interesting read, and although the writing style changes, I felt that much of that was linked to his feelings and emotions and in a way that made the accounts he gives more believable.

If you want a book about Gordon Ramsay's personal life, about his wife and children and life as a famous chef, then this is probably not for you. This autobiography is more heavily weighted towards Ramsay's career and the road that he has had to travel in order to make it as a chef. If you can not tolerate swearing then this is definitely not the book for you. With the exception of the first few pages there is no escape from it. I have to say that I am a little surprised there is no warning about the amount of bad language, and have hidden the book from my ever knowing eldest son, as his phonic knowledge is quite sufficient for him to have picked up a lot from this book.

Other Details
299 Pages
Hardback ISBN 0 00 722967 4
Harper Collins Publishers
The RRP is £18.99, although you can easily shop around for a bargain and Waterstones price is £11.38, Tesco online are selling the book for £8.47
 

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