I LOVED that show! My husband and I used to heckle it. Oh, how I miss it.
I, too, am over Alton Brown. And I dislike Rachael Ray. She cooks like I do and gets paid for it! but her voice puts fuzz on my eardrums.
It was the Cajun Chef and I liked the show.
I now like Alton Browns , Good Eats, the best.
I must say that I’m fairly surprised by all the hate for Rachael Ray I haven’t yet seen in this thread. I mean, sure, she was eminently doable at one time (okay, she still is), but the woman is almost the most annoying cooking celebrity working today (remember: I did say almost).
The thread title is “favorite cooking show,” not “most hated,” so it stands to reason a least-liked show isn’t going to get mentioned much, like Guy Fieri’s shows. I know a lot of people don’t like him, so I’m not surprised I’m the only one to mention him.
Galloping Gourmet back in the late 60’s, and Justin Wilson’s Louisiana Cookin’.
ditto, ditto, double ditto
I credit Justin Wilson with igniting my love for cooking back in the 70s, so his show will always be my sentimental favorite.
Also like Mexico, One Plate At A Time with Rick Bayless
When I have the opportunity, I’ll also make a point of watching:
Paula Deen
Tyler Florence
Two Fat Ladies
Diners, Drive-ins & Dives
Have also been enjoying Chopped Champions over the past few weeks
Two Fat Ladies was a very entertaining show. Pity it ended so soon.
I enjoy Good Eats when Alton is actually making/describing the dish he’s working on. What I can’t stand are the “skits”. Some of his shows could be condensed to 10 minutes if you took out all the extraneous stuff he does.
Not a cooking show exactly but I really enjoy Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations”. I have learned a lot about international cuisine that I would never have learned about otherwise.
My favorite cooking show is Chopped. I’ve done those types of competitions and I enjoy seeing what they come up with and imagining what I would have done differently.
Thing is, Good Eats isn’t so much a cooking show as it is a class. And just like any science class, the teacher needs to explain the whys and whats of the day’s subject. The dish being made isn’t usually the point of the show, it’s simply the practical experiment showing the theory/ies he was talking about earlier. The skits, at least, are more interesting than him standing in front of a Powerpoint slide.
At least, that’s how I remember the show. I vastly prefer the episodes where the focus is more abstract and theoretical than the ones showing how to make a specific dish.
Simon and Minty of Posh Nosh!
The Great Chefs is my favorite all time
The Galloping Gourmet was always good to me.
Sara Moulton’s cooking show was very good too.
I miss the original Iron Chef. I loved the dubbing.
Today, Nigella Lawson FTW. New episodes begin next Saturday at 9:00a.m.
I came here to say exactly this. Kerr was fun and Wilson was just an original old cajun fart that ALWAYS used red wine for everything (and lots of it). To this day I tend to swing red and just not give a shit. I guar-ON- tee!
America’s Test Kitchen, Lidia Bastianich, Good Eats, and Ina Garten in order.
Simply Sara, of course.
Bwah.
As I watched every single one of Sara’s videos.
Good Eats and whatever Nigella show is on, for me.
I remember back when Iron Chef was being broadcast on a Japanese station in Los Angeles with no dubbing OR subtitles. I used to throw Sunday night parties for my friends to watch it with me and try and figure out what they were doing. So much fun!
Yes! I’ve only seen one episode, but oh my god. Awesome.
Add me to the Alton Brown tally–I like how he’ll tell you exactly what to expect every step of the way. I’m a beginner cook, so I tend to worry a lot (like, “is it supposed to do that? What’s with these lumps? What the hell, why isn’t it thickening??”), and Alton Brown does a very good job of going slow and simple, so I don’t have to worry. And, of course, I like the science.
I also tend to watch Giada DiLaurentiis’s shows, if just because she’s so cute. Her food is awesome, too–in fact, I made her feta and sundried tomato turkey meatloaf for dinner tonight. Yum!
I agree with whoever mentioned Anthony Bourdain, too. He’s a prick, but every time I watch his show, I find myself salivating endlessly.
If I really want to know the best possible way to make something, why it works, and be able to trust that even when it’s not to my taste, it’s still excellent, these are the ONLY shows that are completely trustworthy.
Good Eats is runner up for two reasons:
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I too often find my taste and Alton’s are too far apart. He does some really weird and unnecessary strangeness to otherwise perfectly good recipes. I’m trying to remember his worst… what was it… he added something really perverse - and he does that too often, throws something really weird in just to make it his own. But his information is excellent, as far as the science of cooking. And I think that understanding the science of cooking can turn anyone into a decent cook and gives you the tools to be able to experiment successfully.
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He’s a thief. He pissed me off when he presented “his” clever way to avoid tough pie crust, which is to sub out some water with alcohol. He did it for apple pie, so specified Apple Jack as the alcohol, but the idea came from one of the writers at Cook’s Illustrated not very long ago. Granted that cooks can’t really be entirely original because of the very nature of cooking, that particular idea was so clever I really thought it was pretty low of Alton to treat it like it was his idea.
They did eight or nine episodes total. They are all on YouTube and are so worth watching multiple times.
I think I will go “embarrass” some vegetables now… :p:p:p