Status: 16.01.2024, 14:29 PM
By: Nico Reiter
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Top chef Franz Keller speaks out against veganism but for animal welfare © Sven Simon/Imago
Although he is skeptical about veganism, he is committed to animal welfare. His farm serves as a positive example against factory farming.
Wispertal – Franz Keller, who received several Michelin stars as a young chef in the 1970s and 80s, retired to star cuisine in 1993. Since then, he has been running his own farm. In an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, he explains why he has said goodbye to the gastronomy scene and what his views are on veganism and animal husbandry.
For Keller, modern food trends are incomprehensible
Keller describes modern cuisine as a circus and criticizes its artificiality: "Why am I supposed to blindly shove a gelatine plate under my tongue and then guess that it's cauliflower? We live in a world where it's almost all about looks and not about taste."
Despite his retirement, Keller continues to work as a chef, catering to companies and celebrations. However, the guests of these events have also changed. "Today, everyone has some kind of special request or intolerance," Keller reports, "In the past, you went to a restaurant because you wanted to eat what the chef had come up with, not what you thought about yourself that would be good for you."
Keller is also critical of veganism: "horrible and stupid"
In January, the annual Veganuary campaign takes place, where people try to eat vegan for a month. Keller is critical of the trend: "Eating vegan is terrible and stupid." While he sees the vegetarian diet as a compromise, in his opinion, veganism is not intended for our organism.
"We became what we are because we started to eat cooked and hot things," Keller says of human evolution, "We only became what we are today, namely head people, through food. But if we continue like this, then we have to be careful not to end up in the tree next to the monkey."
Koch founds farm against factory farming
On his falconry farm, the cook himself keeps animals. Nevertheless, he is clearly against factory farming: "The system is completely sick, which is why we want to do everything differently here at the Falkenhof." He is of the opinion that a pig that is slaughtered at six months of age cannot have good meat quality. "A pig must have seen snow at least twice," the chef argues for species-appropriate keeping of the animals.
Keller believes that pigs often don't have enough space to give them a good life. That's what he wants to offer them - but at a high price: "A kilo of pork costs 4.10 euros in the supermarket, I'd rather take 70 euros a kilo for fillet." In return, he guarantees that the pigs are kept in a species-appropriate manner and that the meat has a good taste.
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