# I miss old style cooking shows **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 27, 2013, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-style-cooking-shows/656834 "2013-04-27T12:54:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2013, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-style-cooking-shows/656834/21 "2013-04-27T17:38:56Z")
I liked Jacques Pepin’s shows. The ones he did by himself were good for the cooking, the ones with his daughter had a little less technique but made up for it in charm. I’m going to try to learn how to make a Paris-Brest cake this summer. I also like _America’s Test Kitchen_; the focus is on the food more than the personalities. (Possibly because the host doesn’t have one.) Ming Tsai had a show, don’t know if it was local to Boston or not. His restaurant is not too far away. I’ve been meaning to try it just to see if the stuff that looks so good on television is any good in real life. ---
**Author:** ![sparky\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@sparky\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sparky_1)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2013, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-style-cooking-shows/656834/22 "2013-04-27T18:25:16Z")
The only cooking shows I can tolerate these days are on YouTube: Foodwishes with Chef Jon (very good) and BBQ Pit Boys (food porn). I’m at family’s right now wasting time and put Food Network (I ditched cable a few years ago). The food shows really suck! ---
**Author:** ![sidhechaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sidhechaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sidhechaos)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2013, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-style-cooking-shows/656834/23 "2013-04-30T00:10:20Z")
I grew up in a very stoic traditional family and never explored food out of traditional american, spaghetti was about as exotic as it got. Jeff smith/frugal gourmet opened up a whole new world for me. I’d never evem eaten pizza before, and then I tried chinese food and holy hell nothing held me back. ( the west side of indianapolis startee becoming little mexico and thanks to lovely little grandmother down the street I regularly got pans of homemade goodies with all the fixings after I sent some of the local redneck punks packing when I caught them beating on her much younger grandson and trying to take his bike. I hate bullies. so she sent me food and I sent back roses from my garden her name was rosita, and her grandson turned out to really like hekping me garden and my tutoring his english and him helping me with spanish, I miss good neighbors. I miss enchiladas. damn now I’m hungry. ---
**Author:** ![Lukeinva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lukeinva/32/17872_2.png) [@Lukeinva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lukeinva)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2013, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-style-cooking-shows/656834/24 "2013-04-30T01:07:27Z")
The food channel is like a game show now. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2013, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-style-cooking-shows/656834/25 "2013-04-30T01:11:39Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > My mother used to watch him religiously, and I watched him occasionally. We both agreed that he got less interesting when he sobered up. Part of it was, indeed, that he sobered up. Part was also that his wife suffered a stroke, and he decided to change his style of cooking, away from the fat-intensive traditional French style he had done, towards going very low-fat. I got to meet him ~15 years ago; I was working for Quaker Oats at the time, and he did healthy-cooking demonstrations at our booth at the AARP national convention. He was extremely gracious, and treated every person who wanted to speak to him with great kindness. ---
**Author:** ![OtisCampbellWasRight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d78d45/32.png) [@OtisCampbellWasRight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtisCampbellWasRight)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-style-cooking-shows/656834/26 "2013-05-01T15:06:37Z")
Julia Child, Graham Kerr and Jeff “the frug” Smith were all ground-breaking TV cooking show hosts, and all of them were very influencial on my love of food and wine. But people got bored of the same old “chop and drop” cooking shows, especially at places like the Food Network that had 24 hours of such programming. So they started (like so many others) with the reality shows; which are much MUCH cheaper to produce. PBS has different budget/viewership structures, so they stayed with the traditional C&D format for cooking shows. I also miss Justin (Joo-STAN) Wilson and Keith Floyd, who were both hilarious in their times. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-style-cooking-shows/656834/27 "2013-05-01T18:11:26Z")
> [@kiz](#): > > Blame Food Network. > > I’m serious about that. > > The cooking shows which still air on PBS mostly adhere to the old school style. There are a few old-style shows on the Food Network’s sister channel, the Cooking Network. For example, [Chinese Food Made Easy](http://www.cookingchanneltv.com/shows/chinese-food-made-easy.html), with host Ching-He Huang. ---
**Author:** ![Mooch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mooch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mooch)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2013, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-style-cooking-shows/656834/28 "2013-05-03T16:39:54Z")
PBS also shows John Besh who has a more traditional style show. His dishes look aweseome. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2013, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-style-cooking-shows/656834/29 "2013-05-03T17:08:05Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I don’t always agree with Alton, and sometimes he’s wrong about things (I remember finding three errors in his beer episode), What were they? The only one I remember is when he turned the temp up past 153 without first removing the adjunct grains. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2013, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-style-cooking-shows/656834/30 "2013-05-03T18:33:00Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > There are a few old-style shows on the Food Network’s sister channel, the Cooking Network. For example, [Chinese Food Made Easy](http://www.cookingchanneltv.com/shows/chinese-food-made-easy.html), with host Ching-He Huang. She’s also easy on the eyes, and the show’s actually interesting, even if you’re not watching it for the recipes. I’m guessing that Alton (or whoever wrote the episode) thought for some reason they needed a mashout, so they heated it up with the grains still in to kill the enzymes. However if you’re using extract with some crushed specialty grains, you don’t need a mashout because there’s no enzymatic activity going on, so this was a mistake. Still wouldn’t make the resulting beer undrinkable; just maybe slightly more astringent or something- isn’t the threat polyphenols from the husks? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-old-style-cooking-shows/656834.md?page=1)