the secret world of Cook it Raw-we open the door!

'Who are, who are, who are we..C'mon dudes, chant it in time for crissakes!'

We had a good old belly laugh here at Bandwagon with the re-publication of Tony Bourdains article on Cook it Raw in this weeks Melbourne Epicure.

If ever an article jumped the shark it was this one.

Restaurants are about consistency and the chance to be creative for creativities sake is almost impossible-said Bourdain.

We nearly fell over backwards laughing so hard!

Those poor chefs! I hope none of them hack off their ears like Van Gogh or top themselves due to creative angst?!

Luckily there is a sanctuary of sorts in the form of Cook it raw.

Quite a brilliant marketing idea really. Get a whole bunch of invite-only uber-chefs together, form a club or push of sorts, set them out in the wild to forage and hunt and then come back to the kitchens and come up with something so highbrow that most people looking for a hot dinner won’t understand.

That makes sense. Not.

Are these chefs cooking for themselves or their customers or worse, the recognition of their peers? Oh and we should say ‘dudes’. That’s right; so far not one female chef in the whole world has been invited!

When we began to sniff around and make some enquiries about Cook it raw we ran into several shut doors. It seems the machinations of this clandestine sect are not for the publics’ eye. In fact the process of invitation is a well kept secret.

However a chance meeting in Lappeenranta, Finland, last year with a high ranking McDonalds executive and one of bandwagons more comely staff reporters in a local bar divulged some incredible intel.

From what we can gather and this is yet to be confirmed, McDonalds has not only instigated the Cook it raw initiative but has bankrolled the whole shebang! The theory was if they could get all these self-obsessed chefs away from their stoves to navel-gaze out in some field in Jutland or whatever then come back to their kitchen and cook this way out stuff-then their customers would leave and come back in droves to McDonalds.

A chillingly clever ploy and one that we’re keen to see play out. Have these uber-chefs been duped into believing their own publicity? Only time will tell.