You know, I have watched every episode of every season of Top Chef. I love food and I love to cook which keeps me tuned in. I have always thought that Padma Lakshmi was miscast as the host. Don’t get me wrong, Lakshmi is not bad to look at, but she isn’t a very noticeable host, she just lacks a stage presence. She gets overshadowed by all regular judges and even some of the shy guest judges. Perhaps that is why she agreed to have sex with a hamburger on camera. At some point in every TV personality’s life you just got to shake things up a bit so people can imagine you in a different light:
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The best part? Hardee’s named this sandwich the “Thickburger.” Don’t forget that was the same restaurant (Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. are the same) that had a commercial featuring Paris Hilton doing it to a car. Also, rumor has it that she is going to add a burger to the mural featured here.
i was wondering about the sensitivity issues re: having someone of south indian hindu origin scarfing down beef like that. but the thing is that non-beef eating hindus aren’t going to be eating at carl’s jr./hardees, so they obviously didn’t care. the commercials work too, i know multiple people who have eaten at those places just because the commercials make you curious. but their burgers aren’t that much better than typical fast food IMO qualitatively; they just scale up the portions of meat.
There is a lot to this commercial. First, a south asian women representing what is essentially a southern red neck fast food hamburger chain. Second, Lakshmi is the name of a hindu goddess. Hindus, generally, do not eat meat and certainly do not eat beef. Third, this is a women who became a celebrity by being married to Rushdie (who himself became famous for the fatwa placed on him by the Iranian mullahs for writing Satanic Verses). Getting complicated isn’t it?
She and Idris Elba would make a great couple. That man is so hot.
51 · razib said
To a degree I suppose; but then some South Indians do eat beef without too much problem even within India and I remember friends/colleagues of my parents, coming from the same community that Padma Lakshmi does, who when they visited us abroad made it a point to have some beef before they returned to India. Beef eating is a lot less unheard than some orthodox Hindus think it is. Rather like whiksy-drinking Muslims and pork eating Jews; this sort of thing goes on a fair bit; just not too openly.
Don’t some Kerala Hindus traditionally eat beef, anyway? Are any of Padma Lakshmi’s roots in Malabar, i.e. Palakkad?
But I like the ‘rasam wrist’ explanation the best.
55 · cookiebrown said
Hmmm. Some of my Nair friends do, but almost none of my Iyer friends (Palakkad or otherwise) consume it. Pure generalizing on my part, I’m sure one of you will wiki-slap me in a few minutes, telling me I’m wrong.
22 · sarcastician said
Interestingly, Sir Salman’s current g/f, Pia Glenn, seems to be following an equally minimalist diet.
Ugh. Our popular culture is filth.
*Is this something that happens as you get older? As a Gen X teen, I listened to Prince and everything. I call this reaction the TCM (Turner Classic Movies) reaction. Where you get sick of the current popular culture and look back at a time that was more innocent, and thus, spend a lot of time watching movies on TCM or AMC (American Movie Classics). Of course, people back in the Golden Era of Hollywood thought they were too risque, too.
**I kind of understand the people who retreat from popular culture. I have little interest in it.
***With the exception of the TBS show My Boys, which I adore. New episodes on Tuesday! And, no, I am not a spam-bot for TCM, AMC, or TBS.
When she had her own cooking/travel show on TLC/Discovery (or something to that effect), she got to film a show on Spain. There she refused to eat the testicles of a bull that had just been defeated in a bull fight. What a hypocrite. I wonder if she’s a Brahmin now?
Every meat-eater (including I) is a hypocrite in one way or the other. Every time we choose to eat chicken meat and not dog meat, T-Bone steak and not tripe, we are shrouding ourselves in hypocrisy. Sometimes its value-based (no to veal but yes to 4-year old cows retired from not churning out high quantities of milk, yogurt, paneer and bloodless, divine and “pure” ghee for vegetarians) and sometimes it is habit-based (no to hunted meat such as venison and rabbit and yes to organically-raised Angus). Sometimes it is even based on Gwyneth Paltrow’s logic (no to meat raised in captivity or confinement and yes to meat from the free-roaming or free-flying wild).
I wonder if Padma ever tried to be a Victoria’s Secret model? Her body would be perfect for that, unless they airbrush her large boobs. Ujwalla Raut and another half desi (can’t remember her name) was a victoria’s secret model – Padma would have been awesome.
I don’t know about her caste conscious mind that some of you have brought up. If she really refers to herself when asked her ethnicity and says she’s Tamil Brahmin, I kindof find that weird. I don’t know any Mallus who are brahmin that would say something like that or for that matter Gujaratis, Bengalis, etc… but that’s just my experience.
Next she should have an ad eating thayir sadam the same way (which comes quite naturally to almost all the paapans)
Yeah but Tam Brahms are really into being, well, Tam Brahms. But traditionally she would lose her brahmin status by eating cow flesh. Does it still work that way?
If so, then technically she is only Tam now, not Brahm.
If so, then technically she is only Tam now, not Brahm.
Goodness she married a Muslim…I don’t think she’s very orthodox in her brahminness or Hinduness, which makes it more ridiculous if she goes on about her Tam Brahminess — but have no idea if she’s in anyway like that; I was just saying it if she is and she married a Muslim, eats beef, it just seems silly.
wow. do you have any idea how outdated you indians living abroad sound? india has just moved so, so far out of your reach it’s ridiculous. ease up a little on the ethnicity thing, people aren’t so anal about it anymore!
“Sometimes it is even based on Gwyneth Paltrow’s logic (no to meat raised in captivity or confinement and yes to meat from the free-roaming or free-flying wild).”
I don’t see any hypocrisy in there. Only an aim to not obtain food by cruel means or from animals that have led a tortured life in captivity. All animals are going to die one day, so if they are killed during hunting or at a certain age after roaming freely in a large farm, it is equivalent to a predator hunting them down. Which happens quite commonly in the jungle in nature. Factory farms are wayy different.
Get over yourself, you losers. You’re bitching about her doing a commercial; can we say pathetic?!