Monica Galetti says she hopes Heston Blumenthal's comments about female chefs were taken out of context

Last week, chef owner of The Fat Duck group Heston Blumenthal became the latest to spark controversy with comments about female chefs by saying that fewer women reach high-ranking positions because they get to an age when ‘their body clock starts ticking’ and that they may be less able to carry cumbersome kitchen equipment than their male counterparts. 

To be precise, the chef, who previously said women needed to be ‘tough as old boots’ to fare in professional kitchens, told The Economic Times that  although he’s always employed female chefs,  that “it’s evolution, and it is one thing to have a 9-5 job and quite another to be a chef with kids,” making the physical strain of lifting ‘heavy pots and pans’ difficult.

To this, he added that equality in the kitchen is much better than it was fifteen years ago, and that women are now standing up for themselves in the kitchen. 

“The women are also fighting sexism,” he said, adding: “Quite frankly, men have asked for this; they’ve brought it on themselves. The shock of women standing up for themselves is strong and men get really insecure.”

In an interview with Irish News, chef and owner of Mere restaurant, Monica Galetti, who recently explained how she teaches her female chefs to stick up for themselves, said that she reacted in horror when she first heard the comments.

“You read something that says, ‘The body clock starts to tick’ and you’re like, ‘Really? That’s all women do?’ My first reaction was, ‘What the f***, Heston?’”

However, upon reflexion, she said, she conceded that the comments may have been taken out of context. 

Not only this, she said, but that in her experience of having been pregnant in the kitchen and known the struggle of returning to kitchens after giving birth, Heston “has a point.” 

“I thought about it and said, ‘Actually I’ve had comments taken out of context. Maybe, benefit of the doubt, that’s what’s happened here’.

“But the body clock thing - there is a point when women want to have children. It’s not safe for you to be in a kitchen 7-8 months pregnant, trying to lift those pans.

“To be a pregnant woman in the kitchen – I know, I’ve been there – the whole restaurant has to be checked to make sure that there is a toilet that she can get to, that there are more breaks for you, rest breaks. Just for someone who is pregnant.

“That is tough in an environment where you’re butchering, you’re cooking with huge stockpots; there’s bound to be spillages on the floor, it’s a dangerous environment to be when you are pregnant.

The important topic, she said, perhaps more worth discussing than the comments about women's physical abilities:“I think the issue here is what happens after you become a mother and you try and adapt your new life as a parent, and as a working mother, in the industry. That’s when it gets tough.

“Can you afford the childcare; there’s a bigger issue here. Do you have family to support you so you can go back in the industry? Is your workplace willing to support you? These are the issues.

“Lifting a pan? That’s not a problem. In my kitchen if you want, the girls will help a guy lifting a pan. I just hope for Heston that was taken out of context and it wasn’t written well.”