The F Word

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The F Word
Genre	Food magazine/Cooking show
Starring	Gordon Ramsay Giles Coren (Series 1–2) Janet Street Porter (Series 2–4)
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of series	4
No. of episodes	39 (Series 1–4)
Production
Running time	44 Minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	Channel 4
Original run	27 October 2005 – present
External links
Official website

The F Word (also called Gordon Ramsay's F Word ^[1]) is a British food magazine and cooking show featuring chef Gordon Ramsay. The programme covers a wide range of topics, from recipes to food preparation and celebrity food fads. The programme is made by Optomen Television and aired weekly on Channel 4.

The theme tune is a 2000 single of the same name by the UK band Babybird.

The first series was filmed at Ladbroke Grove, West London. The second series' restaurant was Deep, located in the Imperial Wharf, south-west London, near the Thames. A third series has aired on Channel 4 and the fourth series began on 13 May 2008, and aired on Tuesdays at 9pm.

Contents 1 Programme segments 1.1 Series 1 1.2 Series 2 1.3 Series 3 1.4 Series 4 1.5 Series 5 2 International broadcasters 3 Controversy 3.1 Episode not released on DVD 3.2 Women in the kitchen 3.3 Animal slaughter 4 DVD releases 4.1 North America 4.2 United Kingdom 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Programme segments

Each episode is based around Ramsay preparing a three-course meal at the F Word restaurant for 50 guests. Diners in the restaurant include celebrities, who participate in conversations, challenges, and cook-offs with Ramsay. Other segments focus on food-related topics, such as alternative foods and healthy eating.^[2] Finally, there is a series-long feature on home-reared livestock or poultry that is ultimately served to F Word diners on the series finale.

[edit] Series 1

The first series was based around the "Get Women Back in the Kitchen" campaign where Ramsay visited several English households to help women who wanted to improve their culinary skills.^[3] The Times' restaurant critic Giles Coren and food writer Rachel Cooke acted as field correspondents who presented reports on unique food fads and healthy eating respectively. Two or three commis (picked from a thousand applicants) squared off in each episode to earn a position at one of Ramsay's restaurants. Ramsay raised turkeys in his garden, so that his children gained a better understanding of where their food came from. Chef and television presenter Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall regularly offered tips on raising free range turkeys. The turkeys were named after other celebrity chefs, for example, Ainsley, Antony and Nigella. The pudding (dessert) challenge regularly pitted Ramsay with a celebrity guest, with the winner having the honour of serving his or her pudding to the guests at the F-Word restaurant.

[edit] Series 2

The series theme emphasized the importance of Sunday lunch, with Ramsay teaching families how to prepare this meal on a regular basis. From the second series onward, the restaurant had 50 paid diners served by an amateur brigade. If guests found any of their food unsatisfactory, they could choose not to pay for that item.^[4] Janet Street-Porter became the series' regular field correspondent; Giles Coren only appeared in a one-off segment on the Pimp That Snack phenomenon. The celebrity pudding challenge was changed to a general cooking challenge, while Ramsay raised pigs in his garden, which he named Trinny and Susannah.^[5] Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall returned to offer advice on raising the pigs. Unlike Series 1, the second series of the show was usually transmitted after the 9pm watershed, meaning that Ramsay's infamous bad language was no longer bleeped out.

[edit] Series 3

This series ran a campaign stating that "Fast food doesn't have to mean junk food", with Ramsay showing people how to prepare a simple supper in under 30 minutes.^[6] The best weekly amateur brigade was rewarded with the prestige of cooking at Ramsay's restaurant at Claridge's in the series finale.^[7] Ramsay home-reared a pair of Charollais-Welsh lambs, named Charlotte and Gavin. ^[8] There was also a series-long search for a new "Fanny Cradock".^[9]

[edit] Series 4

This series' weekly amateur brigade featured a celebrity and their relatives.^[3] Janet Street-Porter took on the responsibility of rearing veal calves nicknamed Elton and David in a North Yorkshire farm.^[10] Food columnist Tom Parker Bowles appeared on two episodes. In his first appearance, he visited Sardinia to sample casu marzu, a local cheese containing maggots^[11]; on his second stint, he attempted to cook a whole pig .^[12]

[edit] Series 5

A fifth series is in development; it will be focusing on a search for "Britain's best local restaurant". ^[13]

[edit] International broadcasters

The show has been broadcast around the world, including on Dong-a TV in South Korea where it was renamed "Cook-King".^[14] and on BBC America in the US. The show initially premiered in Canada on BBC Canada and is simultaneously being broadcast on Food Network Canada (Premiered on 4 October 2008).^[15]

[edit] Controversy

[edit] Episode not released on DVD

The DVD release of Season 2 is not complete, as the second episode was held back for "Clearance reasons." It is necessary to receive clearance from those celebrities who appear on the show, but in this case, clearance was not granted. The episode in question featured the celebrity singer Cliff Richard. ^[16] The details of this encounter can be found in brief in Gordon Ramsey's book "Humble Pie" where he talks about the blind taste test that Cliff Richard took, in which his own brand of wine was included in the blind taste test. Cliff Richard, upon tasting all of the wines, including his own, described them as terrible. When he found out that his wine was part of the test, he was visibly annoyed and upset. Thus, this episode is not available on DVD. ^[17] The episode was still being shown on BBC America as late as 2009. ^[18]

[edit] Women in the kitchen

A major component of series 1 was Ramsay's "Get Women Back in the Kitchen" campaign. In a self-administered survey he found that three-quarters of women couldn't cook, with some 78% never cooking a regular evening dinner. Women found cooking to be a chore, whereas men found it to be an enjoyable activity. Ramsay claimed that women "know how to mix cocktails but can't cook to save their lives." ^[19]

Ramsay's findings were met with mixed reactions. While some of his contemporaries, like Nigella Lawson, previously stated similar opinions, other celebrity chefs, like Clarissa Dickson Wright, felt Ramsay's proposition was "rubbish and about ten years out of date".^[20] Wright felt that these comments undermined the increased enrollment of women at culinary schools across the United Kingdom. His intentions have been misunderstood by some who believe that he thinks women belong in the kitchen or should be doing the cooking for their husbands, whereas his real desire is to help women who want to be able to cook but lack the confidence or motivation.

[edit] Animal slaughter

• The penultimate episode of the first series featured the slaughter of six turkeys that were raised in Ramsay's garden. The scene had been preceded with a content warning. 27 viewers complained about the slaughter, leading to an investigation by Ofcom. Conversely, the media watchdog and Channel 4 also received 18 letters of support to counter the complaints. In 2004, Ramsay had also been criticized by the broadcast watchdog for swearing on-air. This incident was mocked in a manner of speaking on the US version of Hell's Kitchen. During the third fourth-season episode, demonstrating a challenge to the contestants, Ramsay held a live chicken in his hands (the contestants also held their own live chickens) with a machete knife ready to chop off the chicken's head. However, he landed the knife in front of the chicken (never even touching it with the knife when it came down), with the following remark of "Not these chickens, you doughnuts".
• In the second series, viewers also saw the slaughter of his two pigs, which were raised throughout the series. They were taken to an abattoir and their brains stunned with an electric shock before being slaughtered.^[21] A few months earlier, another Channel 4 series, Jamie's Great Italian Escape (featuring Jamie Oliver) also received similar complaints after it featured the slaughter of a lamb.
• Similarly the lambs he kept were slaughtered at the end of series three. Warnings were given to viewers before the start of the programme explaining the graphic nature of the footage, there was no censoring of the death or evisceration of the animal.
• In series four, Ramsay received criticism for "sky fishing" for puffins, having their necks broken and eating the fresh, raw heart of two birds, a local tradition in Iceland[1] Ofcom received 42 complaints, but no rules were deemed broken.

[edit] DVD releases

[edit] North America

On 27 February 2009, BFS Entertainment will release the first season of The F Word on DVD in Region 1. Season 2 will be released on 17 March 2009.^[22]

DVD Name	Episode Num	Release Date
The F Word- Series 1: Uncensored	9	17 February 2009
The F Word- Series 2: Uncensored	9	17 March 2009

[edit] United Kingdom

IMC Vision has released all 4 series of The F Word on DVD in Region 2.

DVD Name	Episode Num	Release Date
The F Word- Series 1 & 2	18	22 October 2007
The F Word- Series 3	9	10 March 2008
The F Word- Series 4	9	27 October 2008

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The F-Word at Channel4.com
• The Daily Record: "How do you eat a plate of gannet? A. Er, like a gannet."
• Macleans.ca: "You go, Gordon Ramsay"
• BBC - "Complaints as Ramsay kills turkey
• The F Word at the Internet Movie Database