• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, July 16, 2025

Gordon Ramsay is the earl of sandwiches in a new, upcoming cookbook that will be the first to be published under a new partnership between the Fox TV chef and HarperCollins.

Under the deal announced Tuesday, the book will be published by a new cookbook imprint called Bite Books by Studio Ramsay Global.

The new publishing entity is a joint venture of Studio Ramsay Global -- co-owned by Ramsay and Fox Entertainment -- and Harper Influence, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Fox Entertainment and HarperCollins share the same ownership.

Titled Idiot Sandwich: 100+ Recipes To Elevate Your Sandwich Game, the book is scheduled to be released September 30.

In the great detective thrillers that I love written by James Lee Burke, thugs are sometimes described by one of the books’ more colorful characters as so stupid that they couldn’t make a sandwich without a manual.

But the title of Ramsay’s sandwich book does not apparently refer to “idiots” who are sandwich-challenged.

Instead, the term “idiot sandwich” originated in a comedy sketch called “Hell’s Cafeteria” that Ramsay performed in 2015 with Julie Chen on the old "Late Late Show with James Corden" on CBS.

The sketch called for Ramsay, playing the part of an exasperated, combustible mentor of young chefs, to place pieces of bread on both of Chen’s cheeks and ask, “What are you?” To which she answered “An idiot sandwich!”

The phrase “Idiot Sandwich” eventually became the title of a digital reality-competition series in which contestants try to outdo each other in the making of sandwiches. 

An Idiot Sandwich image is also used on the cover of the new book with Ramsay himself taking up the center of the sandwich (above photo).

It was the great Keanu Reeves who once said, “Life is good when you have a good sandwich.” 

In Idiot Sandwich:100+ Recipes To Elevate Your Sandwich Game, instructions are provided for the construction of a great variety of good sandwiches including a Mississippi Slugburger, the Chip Butty, Sicilian Steak, a soulful Sushi Sandwich and a Wellington Sando, says Fox. If you do not know what any of these are, buy the book. 

“The launch of Bite Books marks a key strategic step in Fox Entertainment’s expansion of Bite, the multi-category, next-gen food brand designed to serve food fans everywhere with the culinary content they crave,” said a Fox press release.

Ramsay just might be the Fox network’s biggest star with four prime-time shows still in production -- “Hell’s Kitchen,” “Kitcen Nightmares,” “Gordon Ramsay’s Secret Service” and “Next Level Chef.”