With CNN running out of untried ways to further capitalize on Bourdain’s legacy, they have tried a new tack with their travel shows.
Enter Eva Longoria in Searching For Mexico. Longoria is a very good looking woman. There is a lot to understand about Mexico and its diverse regions and cuisine. But her inability to remember basic Spanish words frustrates. Few have the empathy and cut-to-the-chase sociopolitical wisdom of Bourdain. It’s still a pretty good show, I guess. Anyone else watch it?
It doesn’t take much searching, it’s right there under California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Italy was just as easy to find, it’s the one that looks like a boot. I enjoyed seeing the foods highlighted in both shows but not the commentary. I’m glad Tucci and Longoria have such warm feelings for these countries but I’m not the kind of person who will listen to much of that.
I’ve watched a couple of episodes; it’s a lesser version of the show that CNN has been doing with Stanley Tucci, “Searching for Italy” (which I do find very enjoyable).
Surveys of American college students suggest 47% cannot find Waldo. At least if you believe ”This Hour Has 22 Minutes” (a Canadian comedy show).
Yeah, seeing the topic, I imagined someone holding up a map of North America and circling Mexico with a marker while saying “Here it is!”. The rest of the episode is dead air.
(I’ve never heard of this one but long ago used to watch The Rick and Lanie Bayless Show on PBS.)
It sounds like a show with a similar formula: attractive host/guide travels Mexico for tasty recipes.
Haven’t seen the show. Does she really not remember?
From the linked Wiki entry:
She did not speak Spanish growing up, and did not learn the language until 2009.
Yup, and in an episode I saw, she notes exactly that – she was born in the U.S., didn’t learn Spanish as a child, and thus, her Spanish isn’t particularly strong.
I think these are fine shows for some people. Stanley Tucci is usually over the top, Eva Longoria seems less so in the little I’ve seen. But even my wife who will watch any show about Italy, her ancestral homeland, got tired of the first show quickly.
Except Jinich knows enormous amounts about Mexican food and has written excellent cookbooks updating traditional recipes with knowledge of technique and other cuisines. (I recommend Jinich, Flay and Kennedy to friends interested in the subject).
Longoria is attractive and classy. But she does not have Jinich’s experience. She often cannot express herself in Spanish in the moment and substitutes the English word. This is not a dealbreaker, it might reflect her audience and the Mexicans are a kind and forgiving people, but she lacks Bourdain’s flair in summarizing things. On a cooking show, there are admittedly only so many ways to say “that is delicious”, but at least Bourdain or Fieri give it the old college try.
I happen to like Jinich & Tucci’s shows, and also Rick Bayless’ shows. They all three give a certain extra dimension to the cooking show experience by actually going and talking to people of those cultures, where they live, and finding out some of the backstory about the culture and cuisine.
Anthony Bourdain’s shows were similar, although there was something about Bourdain that I never quite enjoyed as much as the others. Maybe it’s that he sort of jumped around the world more, rather than staying in one culture for a season or something.
Admittedly, that style of show is very often less about how to cook it, as it is about the culture through food/cuisine- Pati Jinich’s La Frontera is pretty much a culture-through-food type show, and not a cooking show, while some of her other shows are more like Bayless’ in that they’re more cooking shows with a bit of culture, and Tucci’s is what i’d call a “cuisine show”, in that it shows Italian culture via cuisine, but doesn’t actually give recipes or cooking instructions.
I can’t speak for Eva Longoria’s show, but considering that it’s CNN, I’d be willing to bet it follows the Bourdain/Tucci mold very closely.