A bizarre cooking video featuring Paul McCartney has viewers “on edge” as they watch him handle a knife.
The Beatles member is seen giving instructions on how to make the perfect mashed potatoes in a ten-minute tutorial. Released in 1998, the strange video had McCartney lift a recipe from Linda McCartney’s vegetarian cookbook and demonstrate its ease in a now beloved video. The cookbook, Linda McCartney on Tour: Over 200 Meat-Free Dishes from Around the World, was advertised by McCartney in this video just eight months after his wife’s death. It’s a touching, albeit peculiar, feature from McCartney, who had viewers thrilled and terrified with his knife skills.
Footage of McCartney making the mashed potatoes was shared to the r/Beatles subreddit, where fans worried over the “maniac” style McCartney has when it comes to kitchen utensils. One user wrote: “Sweet Jesus! That knife technique!” Another added: “He cuts that onion like a God damned maniac.”
A third joked: “It’s a miracle he has all his fingers.” The video itself is McCartney at his most charming, with the Wings frontman admitting he was completely out of his depth when it came to working in the kitchen. He opens the mashed potatoes tutorial with: “Right, well now, this is a first, I’ve never done this before, but, how exciting is this on the internet?”
Extremely exciting, is the answer, though not for the right reasons. McCartney’s slicing and dicing came under criticism from some members of the public who were concerned for the safety of Macca’s hands. Even McCartney seemed aware of his lacklustre skills in the kitchen, slicing into the onion and nearly severing a finger off.
His instructions are: “This is only a demonstration, alright, so we’re not worried about that. So here’s the little trick, this is the little trick which Linda taught me, it’s a brilliant trick and it goes something like this.
“You take your onion, and then you cut lines across it like that, straight across it like that, trying not to cut your finger off. All these chefs go a little bit faster than I do; this is the slow method.” Despite the delight in watching this recipe, some comments left on the YouTube upload have noted the tragic circumstances of the recipe’s origins.
One viewer shared: “The first album Paul released after Linda’s death was her album, Wide Prairie, for which she wrote most or all of the songs, and performed them all. So Paul promotes any album he puts out, and this net video was a half hour of Paul promoting Linda’s album. He showed music videos of her songs, answered fan questions, and, of course, cooked something.”
Another added: “I remember the first time I saw this clip and I thought it was so funny and completely random. Then, many years later, I heard that this was one of the first public appearances that Paul made after Linda had died.
“Linda was known for her cooking, and so he felt this was a good way to honour her memory- to be cooking something. It was really his first step towards the slow path to healing.” McCartney would make his first public appearance, albeit in disguise, to promote The Fireman album, Rushes. You can watch McCartney make mash below.
