When I was a kid in the 80’s, I’d watch cooking shows on PBS every weekend with my Mom. Those shows were great; instructive, relaxing, comforting.
These days, they all seem to have lightning quick edits with the camera only focusing on a view for a split second. Am I watching a cooking show or a Michael Bay film?
I really don’t need to see a close up of the cook pouring a liquid into a measuring spoon and dumping that into a bowl. A wide shot can convey that pretty damn well.
Likewise, on what wide shots they do use, KEEP THE DAMN CAMERA STILL!
I think we need to understand that cooking shows are not really about cooking anymore. I don’t watch them much, but I take note occasionally, and this fact is clear.
I LOVED Yan Can Cook! He made it look SO easy (every recipe was basically the same). I’ve never had much success in cooking Chinese food, though, it always lacked something. There’s a reason there are so many Chinese takeout restaurants.
We watched The Frugal Gourmet on PBS weekends back in the day. My then fiance took one look and said, ‘that geezer looks like a pervert’. I hotly defended the nice man! Who knew Mr. Clueless’ radar was correct?? I still have most of his cookbooks, good reading and some comfy recipes.
Not to mention the ZOOOOOOM in ZOOOOOOM out with every shot.
And it’s not just cooking shows Sparky. Everybody does it now. Home Improvement shows, Storage Auction, Tatoo thisnthat. You can’t get a look at what they’re showing and isn’t that the whole point of these programs? To see stuff? I’m with you man. Back up, throw away that freakin’ zoom lens and get a tripod!
Yeah, that’s about the only one I could stand. I don’t always agree with Alton, and sometimes he’s wrong about things (I remember finding three errors in his beer episode), but his instruction is engaging, useful, practical, usually well-researched, and, best of all, helps you understand what exactly is going on with your food when you cook it, so you can build on those ideas.
I also like Emeril for general recipe and technique ideas. His show (or maybe shows–seems like he has more than one, right?) wasn’t so much a straight recipe-type show, but I’d watch it to get inspired and then I’d go off on my own doing my own version of what he made. His “BAM!!!” schtick maybe annoying to some, but I think he could pull it off with his personality. He just seems so damn likable and gregarious, I just find the “BAM” thing cute, if not a bit of an overwrought schtick. Now, if Bobby Flay was trying to foist “BAM” on me, I would punch the TV screen.
Yep and they’re also doing it on those “FBI who done it?” shows. They’ll do crazy shit like give you a super close up of someone’s mouth or eyeball. Seriously, when you’ve got a 55" HDTV, you really don’t want to see that shit. It’s gross.
Also, what I don’t like about these Food Network shows is the pretentious hipster bull shit they pull. Like I’m supposed to go down to my local grocery store and pick up a batch of fresh black truffles no problem.
Yeah, his show is pretty awesome. Y’all are right: I can’t think of any PBS cooking show that is not at least watchable. The British cooking shows were pretty cool, too. “Floyd On Food” was one of my favorites. Same with the Nigella show in the late 90s/early 00s (Nigella Bites, I think it was. I never caught her show here, though. Was she on Food Network or something?
My mother used to watch him religiously, and I watched him occasionally. We both agreed that he got less interesting when he sobered up.
I occasionally watch cooking videos on YouTube. Some are good, and some are pathetic. The pathetic ones, IMO, are the ones who proclaim how OMG AWESOME this dish is. Please, just show and tell. Bragging about how great the dish is won’t make it more appealing. And, for the love of Og, why do people insist on doing facial close ups when they have a forest of nose hairs? In most cases, a cooking show doesn’t even need a facial close up.