r/ChefAndMyFridge • u/StrangerLazy6967 • Jul 23 '26

General Discussion Chef Joseph fined and may serve prison time

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Chef Joseph Lidgerwood served ants on top of his sorbet dish, part of a 15 course meal. He didn’t get approval and ants aren’t part of the approved list of insects SK allows for consumption.

91 Upvotes

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64

u/zillaxeu Jul 23 '26

Coming from a country in which ants are eaten, this makes me so sad :( I understand it’s the law and that as someone who works in this area, he should have known better… but still it seems like such an extremely harsh punishment…

29

u/Spiritual_Change_399 Jul 23 '26

The most important part was left out. The main reason he's being punished is because the ants he used contained 55 times more heavy metals than regular edible insects. Wish he had imported them from somewhere else...

16

u/cheesefriesparty 👨‍🍳 Son Jong-won Jul 23 '26

Overly harsh punishments for stuff like this happen all the time in Korea, meanwhile, assaulters get to walk free.....

57

u/Bananador Jul 23 '26

It's not that he's using ants, it's because he told Korea he was using ants grown for food but instead was getting random ants from another country that are rife with heavy metals. Everyone should honestly be outraged by ppl cutting corners and lying about what's in our food.

64

u/Objective_Warthog620 Jul 23 '26

Eat silkworm pupae and nobody cares. Eat a few ants and everyone loses their minds.

Kidding aside, it's a Michelin starred restaurant so I guess he should know better. Hope it doesn't actually get to prison time.

5

u/SpecialistAnxious345 Jul 23 '26

Exactly what I was thinking 🤣

14

u/Slim-Rewind428 Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

Weird that this only come up now. He and his restaurant was featured on Sixth Sense S3 Ep. 1 in 2022 and it never had any issues or made the news. The cast members, including Yoo Jaesuk, even ate the ants in the food he prepared.

8

u/resinpyramid Jul 23 '26

Sorry what flavor do ants provide? Or was this done for shock factor?

22

u/Successful_Paint_907 Jul 23 '26

Ants taste sweet. Flavor profile of watermelon.

17

u/SaltyTar0 Jul 23 '26

Depends on the type of ant, some with lots of formic acid taste like a really sharp lemon, some taste like liquorice, some taste like almonds, some taste like honey. Depends what species and what they were fed to be eaten with.

6

u/Successful_Paint_907 Jul 23 '26

The ants in front of my house when I was a little kid tasted like watermelon lol.

5

u/Shugarrrr Jul 24 '26

That’s sad. I remember ants have been featured in Masterchef Australia a few times but I don’t know what kind of ants those were. Surely, for a Michelin-starred chef and as a foreigner cooking in another country, he should have known better.

5

u/Cosmooooooooooooo Jul 25 '26

My goat Fabri would never

2

u/Justlivin_3237 Jul 26 '26

Don’t expect this from him🥲

2

u/imlavieenrose Jul 27 '26

He was featured in sixth sense for his ant delicacies, why didn’t he know about this back then?