This week Chris Chamberlain stirred up a spicy stew of comments with his post about controversy surrounding the decision by chef Matt Bolus to partner with China-based meat conglomerate Smithfield for the Gospel Brunch last weekend at Music City Food & Wine Festival — and beyond that, the larger issue of chef endorsement deals in general.
Here's something extremely uncool that Chris reports he saw at the fest:
I personally witnessed somebody trying to shove a liquor bottle into Andrew Zimmern's hand last weekend and take a picture, despite the fact that Zimmern doesn't drink and has talked frankly about his past issues with drug and alcohol addiction.
Appalling. Somebody was literally trying to force an inappropriate endorsement on a chef. But what about the deals chef choose to make? When it comes to business partnerships, how close to an idealogical line is a chef expected to hew? And is this something that anybody in any profession should think about?
Or is this not really a big issue, just part of the inevitable compromise and messiness of life?
And what else is on your mind? Tell the Weekly Open Thread all about it.
