Yuk Nigella! This could be your worst recipe ever: Celebrity chef accused of making gruesome claims over pork dish (2024)

By Paul Revoir for MailOnline

Published: 19:49 EDT, 8 June 2012 | Updated: 03:20 EDT, 11 June 2012

The aim of the game, apparently, was to shock – and Nigella Lawson won hands down.

According to controversial American chef Anthony Bourdain, Miss Lawson was at a dinner where the male guests were attempting to outdo each other with stories of their most outlandish culinary exploits.

And it seems Miss Lawson, 52, was determined to give as good as she got.

In comments published on a U.S. website, Mr Bourdain said: ‘‘I was at dinner with Nigella and a bunch of guys, and we were all trying to out-macho each other, like “I’ve eaten a live cobra heart!”

‘Nigella has been rubbing her lips and says, “When I was in Spain, they aborted a pig for me and roasted the foetus. Soooo good”.’

The claims by Mr Bourdain, who is to star in a U.S. television show alongside Miss Lawson, have prompted furious criticism from animal rights campaigners.

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals charity has written to Miss Lawson warning her about her apparent ‘insensitivity to the suffering of animals’.

But yesterday Miss Lawson’s spokesman insisted Mr Bourdain’s claims were inaccurate and said Miss Lawson had simply been relaying a ‘culinary practice’ she had heard about, but never witnessed or taken part in.

The email from Peta’s managing director Ingrid Newkirk to Miss Lawson offered to pay for ‘a brain scan’ to determine if her alleged lack of empathy for animals was the result of a ‘physical defect’.

The message said: ‘Given that pigs are intelligent, fearful and sensitive individuals who can solve puzzles and who love and protect their young to the best of their abilities, I must ask if this recounting of your remarks by Anthony Bourdain – a man childishly desperate to seem “macho” by eating parts of ever-more species of animals – accurately reflects your feelings.’

The email went on to accuse Miss Lawson of viewing animals ‘as props for your self-indulgence’ and added that the suffering endured by animals in the meat industry was ‘supported by your desire to promote the cruellest and most unhealthy diet you possibly could’.

However, Miss Lawson’s spokesman refused to comment on the letter, saying it related to ‘inaccurate’ claims by Mr Bourdain, 55.

The spokesman added: ‘It is a practice she has told him about. She has not witnessed it and she has not undertaken any eating or partaking of it, nor does she condone it.’

He explained that Miss Lawson had been relaying a ‘culinary practice’ like ‘something you would read about’, rather than actually ‘partaking’ in the practice.

He stressed: ‘I would like to clarify that Nigella hasn’t eaten an aborted foetus.’

The comments Peta was reacting to are understood to have originally appeared in American magazine The Washingtonian in 2007.

Mr Bourdain also made similar claims about Miss Lawson in a previous interview, which was conducted by author Ian Rankin and published in The Observer in 2002.

At the time, Mr Bourdain said: ‘I’ve got a disturbing story for you. Before I met (Nigella) I didn’t like the idea of her – the provocative, nibbly thing and I don’t like the whole stand-up cook deal.

‘But I ended up at dinner with her and a handful of other people. We were talking shock food, trying to gross each other out and Nigella was really digging it.

'So I’m liking her already – then she tells us about when she was in south-west France where they aborted a pig for her and she ate this crispy foetus. And I thought: “Whoa, this is hardcore!” It made me a fan.’

This is not the first time that the TV chef has found herself under fire from animal campaigners.

During a live interview on the BBC’s The One Show in 2008, she admitted that she would like to kill a bear and wear it as a trophy.

Afterwards her spokesman said the comments were light-hearted and had been taken in the wrong context.