It seems to me that their line up of chefs has really gone down the hill. Is this just my opinion or do others think the same?
I miss Sara Moulton, Tyler Florence, Ming Tsai, and many others. Even those I didn’t like much like Emeril or Wolfang Puck had a lot more cooking chops than the current crop of half baked chefs.
It seems that all they have now is either these totally entry level cooks (the Neelys, et al) or these jocks-wannabes doing stunt shows (Guy Fieri, et al).
Where did the good ones go? Is there another Network that my cable doesn’t have and is siphoning them?
The Food Network is catering (heh) to the audience that will provide them with the most income. Look at the commercials that the Food Network shows; you can draw your own conclusions about how challenged their viewers want to be.
Mario Batali said something along these lines as well a while back (I think it was in an interview about the “Molto Mario” show), but I can’t find the quote right now. Essentially, he claimed not to have hard feelings about it, but the network was aiming at a different audience than what he wanted to provide material for.
You mean Guy Ferry? I’ve always wanted to punch that guy right in the lame beard, but the desire “kicked up a notch” when I found out he changed his last name for increased douche-effect.
Its the same thing that happened to the [del]Hitler[/del] History Channel, AMC, TLC, A&E, and other cable networks. The Suits decided that they wanted to make more money, so they changed the programming to match that of other channels. Thus proving what one SubGenius right when he said, “Television is the giant butter knife that spreads the poison of a smooth, homogenius peanut butter across the US.”
Florence is still there, doing Tyler’s Ultimate. I know the Neely’s own a few BBQ restaurants throughout Memphis that a lot of peopel rant and rave about, but I guess when you can’t do a show about just BBQ, they have to add some filler. I feel the same way about some of the other chefs though…
But in reality, I take Alton Brown’s approach that he mentioned (I think) in his book, “I’m Just Here for the Food.” He states that he doesn’t want to cook Bobby Flay’s food, he wants Bobby Flay to cook Bobby Flay’s food. He just wants to eat it. Many of the dishes they make, while are probably quite tasty, are never going to get made by a majority of people who watch Food Network because they’re too complicated or require too many specialized ingredients that mostly restaurant chefs are going to know about. Hence the reason I think they started to get more non-foodies involved. But blame Rachel Ray for starting the chain of events.
As for the rest, they all seem to have practiced and perfected that “gonna stick my fork in this and roll my eyes back in an orgasmic swoon” schtick when they present their completed dish to the camera.
Of course, that’s the main problem with cooking shows: we have no idea how the food actually tastes, so we’re left to their acting and emoting. Or, in the case of one large-headed Food Network Star, gratuitous displays of boobage.
Oh, but she does! Every. Single. Time. She says, “…eeveeohoh, that’s *extra *virgin *olive *oil…” wink. Her “abbreviation” adds no less than five syllables to the name.
I haven’t watched the food channel in quite some time, except for Good Eats, which never disappoints. Turned it on in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep and AGAIN Rachael Ray, yet ANOTHER show, this one her “vacation”. To some fabulous seaside California town, wonderful shopping, wonderful weather, fabulous food in several fabulous restaurants.
I’d like to see that ninny visit beautiful Fulton, NY in January. “Right near beautiful Lake Ontario, Fulton NY gets snow at least six months a year. A popular tourist destination: the giant mountain of snow in the K-Mart parking lot,( courtesy of the DPW), that doesn’t melt until August! We’ll visit the Dollar General for some fabulous shopping; chat with the natives standing in line at the unemployment office; and stop at KFC for a snack…so bundle up in your grubby parkas and join me on …RayRay’s Vacation!”.
You just sent a shiver up my spine. That reminds me that, even though I like her more, I want to kick my TV when I hear Giada over-enunciate Italian words, yes, yes, we know you`re descended from real Italians now knock it off!!
I do too (now that I know that)
On the Canadian Food Network theres a show called Cook Like a Chef which is pretty good. Different chef each week, real chefs focusing on techniques and ingredients. I dont know if the American channel has this too but it`s very good.
As for me, I’m sick of it turning into the Challenge Network. I want to watch people cook, not compete. I do love Iron Chef, but the endless succession of wedding cakes and chocolate sculptures and timed competitions and blah blah blah is just boring as hell.
I like to watch someone cook who makes me feel I could do it myself, even if I’m too lazy to do so. If they can teach me something about food in the meantime (thanks, Alton) that’s great too. But what do I get out of watching someone sweat over their sugar sculpture? The thing is, I don’t get why anyone watches this crap.
I also hated the live-audience cooking/talk shows (Emeril Live, Paula’s Party) so I’m honestly not sure which is worse.
Too, too true. Every specialized TV network eventually becomes the same network. The shark was jumped when ESPN showed their first TV movie.
A long time ago you could turn on the Food Network and be pretty sure that you’d see someone making food. My favorite early Food Network show was Taste with David Rosengarten. It was the most educational cooking show I’ve ever seen, more even than Good Eats. David would talk about a particular food, and show all the ways it would be made wrong.
One very memorable show was about scrambled eggs. He showed three examples of terrible, typical scrambled eggs - “extended” with milk or other fillers, overcooked dry and tasteless, etc. Then he showed three amazing ways to make scrambled eggs - the French double-boiler, mixing in cream cheese and my favorite - cooking them very, very slowly so they turn orange and are almost like cheese.
The production value of the show was non-existent. It was a stove and a counter top in a empty, white studio. Food made in the Featureless Void. But it was compelling television.
Everyone’s made really good points. Another thing that annoys me some about the Food Network is the sameness of the recipes they show. Lots of standard American stuff, some Mexican and Italian, very rarely a little Chinese, and nothing else. Never any recipes from any other cuisines.
Nobody has mentioned the true horror (whore) of the Food Network–Sandra Lee. As long as Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee is on the air, basically nothing the FN does has a single bit of credibility to it. That woman is a menace. Literally, the “food” she makes is not only disgusting, unhealthy, and expensive, often times, I’m convinced she’s trying to kill her “guests.” She knows nothing about the science of cooking, she has no style or technical knowledge, and she is, I’m quite sure, insane. To give you an idea of how bad this woman is, the recipes are edited before they are posted on the FN website. That means that you can see a recipe for mashed potatoes that involves frozen potatoes, a cup of cream, and a package of dry alfredo sauce on your television (her holiday special) and by the time it makes it on the website, it’s completely different (for the better, ie becomes something edible).
God, I hate that bitch. To make matters worse, she now has her own fucking magazine. This magazine has many helpful hints, including a fewfor people who suffer from arthritis. My favorite is to buy vegetables prechopped at the store. What did people with arthritis do before she came along? I believe (Fake) Gordon Ramsay said it best…
So, what is this new audience that Food Network now caters to? People who dream of food but cannot cook to save their lives?
As someone said, I liked the Food Network because it showed people cooking. When I was going to prepare dinner, I turned on the TV and had someone cooking along giving me ideas for tomorrow’s dinner. Now, I am lucky if I am late with dinner and catch Tyler on a rerun of Ultimate.
Is Tyler still doing new shows?
Bobby Flay I am starting to hate less. I don’t know if it is just the new lack of contrasting cooks or that he is genuinely toning it down. Still, it looks like he has 3 recipes that he keeps remixing.
Other than that it is all competition or travel shows. I have a Travel Channel already (which is doing a lot of food shows, btw).
