What happened to the Food Network?

Cafe Society
21

You used the C word. Chef. That’s the problem.

The only classically trained chefs who are still doing stand-up, in the kitchen cooking on the network are Tyler Florence and Giada DeLaurentiis. The reason why they still have their shows is very simple: both are eye candy as well as good at what they do.

Anne Burrell, who is one of Mario Batali’s sous chefs (and appears with him on Iron Chef) had a trial show during the Saturday/Sunday morning standup cooking blocks, but it appears to have gotten a brief and singular run. Anne, while fabulous at what she does, isn’t Giada. And she’s too focused on technique and flavor profiles (like Sara Moulton before her) to have the personable thing that wins people over with Paula Deen and Ina Garten, who are also not on the network for their looks. (Though I honestly find both more attractive than Giada, who has a completely outsized head IMO.)

But just as the American palate goes in restaurants, so it goes in what they want to see on their TVs. Rachael Ray makes very basic, flat-flavor profiled, simplistic food filled with more oil than could ever possibly be necessary for any reason whatsoever – just like the chain restaurants which litter our cities, TGI Fridays, Olive Garden, Chili’s, etc. She does it fast, which caters to all the people who claim (and like to claim) that they’re just too damned busy, even when said “busy” is of their own making.

Sandra Lee doesn’t even make food. I believe her entire purpose on the network is to give an ego boost to the people watching whose prior “cooking” experience was frozen Stouffer’s entrees and maybe boil-in-a-bag rice or instant mashed “potatoes.” The only way a non-disabled person beyond adolescence would be incapable of doing more than Sandra Lee does in a kitchen is if they were *non-*functionally illiterate.

I really don’t mind Paula and Ina. At least they’re about food made from scratch, not 95% salt plus some other crap from seasoning envelopes. At least when Paula adds a ton of butter, it’s to bring flavor to the party (as Alton would say) and when Ina uses olive oil, it’s because it’s the proper oil for the purpose, not just because she thinks that the healthy properties of olive oil are an excuse to dump a cup of it into everything she cooks.

But the rest is an exercise in giving America what it wants: crappy food that is no better than they could buy. Home cooking of whole, nutritious food no longer has any value, and Food Network’s priorities reflect that.

22

Ming Tsai has a show on PBS, by the way. If you want another great cooking show from that network, record “America’s Test Kitchen” - it’s by the staff that produces the magazine “Cook’s Illustrated.” No sponsors, head-to-head testing of cookware and grocery-bought foods, plus recipes cooked in front of you with lots of detail about what went into their testing for that recipe and why certain steps are taken.

23

Fuck Food Network, or at least its modern incarnation.

I really really can’t stand the “contest” and “challenge” shows that are currently clogging it up. I understand it must be much cheaper to bring some cameras to a cake decorating contest, or BBQ contest, than to shoot an actual professional chef in a professional studio, but it’s gotten ridiculous. How is watching amateur chefs FAIL at making things going to teach or entertain me? If I really want to watch someone drop a huge cake on the floor for humor value, I’ll go to YouTube.

On the positive side, I don’t hate Guy Fieri all that badly. At least he’s a professional chef, and once you get past his douchebag image his cooking show is pretty good. I’ll take fifteen hours of Guy before I watch one more episode of Sandra Lee microwaving frozen vegetables or putting icing on Twinkies, and she’s been on Food Network forever.

24

I like Ina Garten, and if she didn’t have that nervous giggle I would love her. But she just can’t help it.

25

Well, if you take the value judgement out of it, it’s simply giving Americans what they want. It’s now a compliment to say something “tastes as good as the restaurant’s!” and people use restaurant tofu and restaurant Alfredo sauce and restaurant Monte Cristo’s as the gold standard they can, with a lot of work and a little know how, achieve in the home kitchen. Like it or not, this is a generation which prefers stove top mac and cheese to the oven baked casserole style, just like Elton on Good Eats.

You can make it into a good/bad us/them plebs/proles thing if you want, but IMHO, “good food” changes over time, and the top classically trained* chefs of today make food that would have been considered inedible 50 or 500 years ago.

*and I have to wonder what you mean by that in this context; Alton went to culinary school, as have most of the hosts, I believe

26

One of the problems with standup cooking shows is that the host needs to be a) a proficient chef, and b) personable without being obnoxious. Most chefs, who are otherwise very competent at what they do, just don’t have the personality to pull off 30 to 60 minutes of compelling TV. So most of these shows tend to be dull, and when they follow each other one after the other on the TV lineup, they run into each other and it’s easy to lose track.

One of the reasons why I think Good Eats works so well is because Alton Brown’s background actually is television. He didn’t start out as a chef; that came later because he thought cooking shows were boring and he thought he could do better. So he uses gimmicks to make his point, but they work. Many a meal at Chez Doors has been improved because of something I learned by watching that show, and I’ve taught my cousin, who is a chef himself, a few pointers. And, frankly, most of the dishes on Good Eats are dishes that I would want to make and eat. They’re not overly complicated and, for those recipes that require exotic ingredients, Brown will tell you where to find them.

Robin

27

Does anyone remember a PBS cooking show from the 80s or early 90s that featured 2 chefs per episode creating one dish each in their actual working kitchens?

The voiceover was a British (I think) woman.

There were companion cookbooks for sale. I’d love to see one of them.

28

In our house, Food Network Canada is known as “The Restaurant Makeover Channel” because that’s what’s on every damn time we turn on that channel. I can’t even remember the last time they aired a real cooking show during prime time… and even when it’s not Restaurant Makeover, it’s Food Network Challenge, Unwrapped, Iron Chef, blah blah blah. :frowning:

The worst part is that they’ve replaced most of their reliable, knowledgeable chefs with some downright unwatchable “personalities”. They all mug at the camera like funny faces and screechy giggles are going to make up for the fact that their show has nothing to teach anyone about actual cooking… it actually makes me miss Emeril, because as much as he aped around the kitchen, he had something to offer beyond a few silly catchphrases.

Thankfully, the people in charge of Canadian programming seem to have managed to hang onto a few decent chefs… Michael Smith and Anna Olsen are enjoyable to watch and usually have something interesting to offer.

29

No, but I do remember Floyd On Food and The Frugal Gourmet on PBS. Too bad about Jeff Smith’s [alleged] peccadilloes. I liked his show. Keith Floyd was a nut. (Incidentally, he failed a several restaurants but now has one in Phuket, Thailand.) What I liked about his show was that unlike every other cooking show he didn’t have a ‘this is how you make it’ dish and a pre-made ‘this is how it looks when it’s done’ dish. Instead, he would show the preparation, and then cut to a clip of a silent film and ‘through the magic of television’ come back to the actual finished item. And he used The Stranglers’s Peaches (sans lyrics) as his closing theme music. How cool is that?

30

I watched Guy’s show last night (DVRed), and the dish he made was Chili. Besides what looked to be a rather lame chili recipe, his technique sucked. Throw a ton of rough chopped peppers and onions in a pot. Then, just when they’ve given up as much of their liquid as they possibly can, throw all the meat in on top of the watery mess. This was referred to as “browning” the beef. His explanation of how to roast, or char, peppers was so convoluted that I wouldn’t have know what the heck he was talking about had I not already known how to do it.

My guess is that he was holding down one of about a zillion country club kitchen spots when he applied to the Food Network. While there isn’t anything really wrong with that, I just don’t think he is a particularly creative chef (apart from his hair & clothing choices). The dishes I’ve seen him make that he claims to have thought up with whatever bro-du-jour he’s featuring that night all look like crap.

ETA: I think Sandra F’ing Lee has only been on the air for about 5 years.

31

Chefs of Europe, or something like that. It was still on as of a couple years ago.

32

Funny you brought that up. I’ve been going through some of my old copies of his Frugal Gourmet books & remembering just how dang good they were. I just learned that he died a few years back.

33

I don’t bother with his cooking show (Good Eats is the only actual cooking show I’ll watch), but Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives is a fun show, in large part because of him. Strictly speaking it should be on the Travel Channel than the Food Network, but either way it works.

34

I’ve noticed this too. Apparently Americans are only interested in traveling to places where they can stuff their faces or eat yak testicles. Anthony Bourdain still rules, though. He once compared Guy Fieri to Poochie from The Simpsons.

The same thing happened to the History Channel. It seems their target audience is religious people and conspiracy nuts. When I went home for the holidays my parents had History Int’l and the Military Channel, both of which were entertaining and closer to what the original History Channel used to be. The original is damn near unwatchable now.

35

Bourdain’s an asshole. Can’t stand him. Fieri I love. His recipes are simple and delicious, and he finds all sorts of places we’ve started to look for when traveling. Paula Dean must die. I can’t stand her voice.

36

How did her massive butter consumption not kill her years ago? I find her annoying but I’ll give her a pass for providing me one of my favourite Beef Stew recipes, more specifically my wife’s fave. It’s rescued me from the dog house a few times now :wink:

37

Well…yeah. That’s part of his charm.

You have to admit the Poochie comparison was dead on.

38

You have to agree though, that unlike a lot of other channels, Food Network is still about food. After all, it’s not the “cooking” network, it’s the Food Network. I’m pretty sure Good Eats is the only “traditional” cooking show left in primetime.

39

I especially enjoy any of the food sculpture challenges – I love it when a poorly-constructed sculpture collapses, and everyone reacts with disbelief.

And I adore Alton Brown, but I can’t stand Food Network’s version of Iron Chef.

40

On a biography of the Food Network, they basically said the reason they started doing more competition shows was to bring in a larger male audience. And it worked well enough to the point that you see the current saturation of cooking shows. I don’t mind them too much, but now it seems that there’s TOO much of the same. Iron Chef America, Food Network Challenge, Ultimate Recipe Showdown, Chopped. Sigh…

He actually won the Next Food Network Star to be on the Food Network. Prior to that he was co-owner of Johnny Garlic’s and maybe a few other restaurants. Like him or hate him, he does bring some personality to the network.

And don’t get me started on Sandra Lee. That whole show is just plain creepy in the way that EVERYTHING must match her food, from the curtains to the plates to all the random crap surrounding her every episode. Who the hell color-coordinates their kitchen for a meal?