Posted on: Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Chef caught up in a whopper of a fast-food flap
By Candy Sagon
Washington Post
His detractors call him a pimp, a sell-out and a hypocrite.
He, in turn, accuses them of being elitist, unrealistic prigs.
Who would have suspected that a chicken sandwich could generate all this heat?
The target of the vitriol is Rick Bayless, a Chicago chef who has long crusaded for small, local farms and authentic Southwestern cooking.
Bayless, who owns the elegant Topolobampo and its casual sister restaurant, Frontera Grill, both in Chicago, is the author of several well-respected Mexican cookbooks. He also runs a foundation that donates money to help small Midwestern farmers and is a founder of Chefs Collaborative, a national group that promotes "responsible agricultural growing techniques ... (and) locally grown, seasonally fresh foods."
But when Burger King aired commercials in October featuring Bayless promoting the fast-food giant's new Santa Fe Fire-Grilled Chicken Baguette Sandwich, it stunned and angered some in the food community. Bayless hadn't helped create the sandwich, either through his recipes or his line of Frontera salsas; he simply was endorsing what they felt was a white-bread version of Southwestern food.
"Rick is like an Eagle Scout in the industry. I thought he was the least likely to endorse fast food. It's sort of like seeing Bruce Springsteen endorsing a foreign car," said Andrew Dornenburg, co-author of "The New American Chef," a cookbook that features Bayless as one of the country's leading chefs.
In the commercials, an energetic Bayless lauds the chain's new low-fat sandwiches for their grilled red and green peppers, sauce made from roasted poblano chilies and fire-grilled flavor. The sandwich, which comes on a baguette, has 5 grams of fat and 350 calories, compared with a Whopper with almost 10 times as much fat and twice as many calories.
Food Network personality Rachael Ray, the perky host of "30-Minute Meals," also was featured in commercials touting the new sandwiches, but it was Bayless' appearance that sparked a reaction like a lit match tossed into gasoline.
Chefs, restaurant professionals and foodies seared him for weeks on food discussion sites such as egullet.com, chowhound.com and the Web log MetaFilter.com.
New York chef Anthony Bourdain, the acerbic author of "Kitchen Confidential" and "A Cook's Tour," tore into Bayless on egullet, calling him a "pimp for the Evil Empire."
"In one stroke, he's negated everything he's ever said, everything he ever claimed to stand for," wrote Bourdain.
In a later e-mail to the Washington Post Food section, Bourdain explained that he doesn't object per se to a chef endorsing a product.
"The idea that a chef has sold out if he decides to sell Rockports or a line of kitchen appliances seems unreasonable. We don't hold actors or even politicians to such standards," Bourdain wrote. But, "endorsing a product that encapsulates everything you've spoken against invites criticism and ridicule. Chef 'BK' (Burger King) Bayless has made his own sodden bed."
New York restaurant consultant Clark Wolf, who has advised chefs on endorsement deals, is more tempered in his reaction.
On one hand, he says, "it's good to focus on more healthful food, and the sandwich is better than most of the stuff at Burger King." But Bayless has created a credibility gap, Clark adds. "Emeril can endorse Crest toothpaste because Emeril never claims to know a lot about food. But Rick has been respected for many years as a food historian, a culinary anthropologist and a passionate purist. If he's going to shock us, it better be for a good reason and done well. And these commercials are cheesy. He's just being a shill."
Burger King reportedly had approached other chefs about endorsing the new sandwiches, including grilling expert and popular Food Network TV host Bobby Flay. He turned it down.
Many wondered if Bayless had done it for the money, a charge he angrily denies. Reports of him being offered $350,000 are "bull----," he hotly responded during a phone interview, although he declined to say exactly how much he was paid. He said it was "in the six figures."
In any case, he points out, all the money was donated to his Frontera Farmer Foundation to support small family farms around Chicago.
He says he's received "hundreds of support letters" and only two negative e-mails about the ad, yet the online criticism has obviously rankled him enough that he posted a letter defending his decision on his Web site, FronteraKitchens.com.
In "What's Up With That Burger King Ad?" Bayless explains that he decided to do the ads because "it's time for those of us in the healthy food/sustainable food movement to applaud any positive steps we see in the behemoth quick-service restaurant chains."
According to Bayless, 75 percent of Americans eat fast food at least once a week and 20 percent eat it three times a week or more. If the ads encourage "a few hundred thousand people to experience a tasty, less-processed sandwich — that's huge. What realistic justification could one have for not promoting that?" he writes.
In an interview, Bayless admitted that some of his friends and co-workers had warned him against doing the ads. "One friend called fast food the devil personified," he said. His staff worried that people wouldn't come to his restaurants.
Bayless, however, argues that it's elitist to ignore the millions of Americans who eat fast food. "I'm too much of an egalitarian to do that. I've been saying for years that fast food should make changes, so why not step out and say this is a good thing by signing on to do this ad?"
Advertising critic Bob Garfield, who has lambasted fast-food chains for years in his column for Advertising Age, agrees that it's a positive step for Burger King to introduce some more healthful food items. "The fast feeders are slowly beginning to face the obesity epidemic," he notes.
He's not surprised, however, that the presence of Bayless in the ads sparked such controversy. "I understand why no one objected to Rachael Ray. She's a babe, that's her credential. For Bayless, it's the antithesis of everything he has come to stand for."
Ray cheerfully admits that people don't see her as a serious chef, which is why her commercials for Burger King's Savory Mustard Chicken Sandwich drew so little comment.
Like Bayless, she was paid six figures for her endorsement, a fee she calls typical. "The commercials served a purpose. They showed that there are some healthy options. I don't think either Rick or I ... (was) doing it for the money," she adds.
Not everyone has bashed Bayless over the ads. Washington pastry chef Steve Klc posted a lengthy defense of Bayless on egullet, arguing that the Chicago chef is doing what he's always done — working to effect a positive change in Americans' eating habits.
"Can't smart, talented people succeed on several levels simultaneously?" he asks. "Why not publicly support a fast-food chain trying to improve the status quo?"
Perhaps if the sandwich tasted better, criticism wouldn't have been so harsh, suggests cookbook author Karen Page. "It's billed as Southwestern, but the tomato sauce tastes more Italian. Why didn't they use his salsa? That would have enhanced it."
Bayless himself says the biggest problem with the sandwich "is that some (Burger King) outlets are not baking the baguette enough to make it crusty."
He's happy with the flavor, however. "I think the flavor is a move in the right direction. The roasted peppers and onions make it taste more fresh and the chicken is less processed. It has more of the texture of real chicken. It's more honest."
