Speaking of Iron Chef, there’s been a black guy on it, he’s usually in the opening credits.
There’s also Chef Ashbell.
And there’s also B. Smith, though she might be more properly referred to as a “lifestyle maven” a la Martha Stewart.
B’s show, B. Smith with Style, airs on weekends in most places. She also has published a couple of cookbooks.
I thought B had a restaurant in NYC
And there’s Paul Sturkey, who is the cooking expert on the DIY channel. He owns Sturkey’s Restaurant in Cincinnati. Every time my husband sees him demo a recipe, he wants me to make it too!
Wellllll…as a black person, i’d have to get on the “they don’t like to show us doing stuff other than shaking our asses, bling blinging, killing off our own, cussing/neck rolling and making up a slew of words for Webster’s Dictionary” route.
Its hard enough to see Black people on TV doing “serious” stuff. I know that when I see me on a station other than BET, I stop to see what they’re doing. So if there was a Black chef on TV, I sure as hell would stop, watch and maybe cook!
Plus, most of our Moms would hurt us real bad if she saw us giving away all her secrets on TV…
Wellllll…as a black person, i’d have to get on the “they don’t like to show us doing stuff other than shaking our asses, bling blinging, killing off our own, cussing/neck rolling and making up a slew of words for Webster’s Dictionary” route.
Its hard enough to see Black people on TV doing “serious” stuff. I know that when I see me on a station other than BET, I stop to see what they’re doing. So if there was a Black chef on TV, I sure as hell would stop, watch and maybe cook!
Plus, most of our Moms would hurt us real bad if she saw us giving away all her secrets on TV…
You might want to check yourself, Vivian, and heed the words of your sig.
There are two female black chefs on the Food TV show “Melting Pot” who cook up a delightful repast several days of week. Because I only tend to catch the show in passing, I have no idea what their names are.
But in terms of Food TV types, all but two of the chefs with shows on the network are chef/owners of their own restaurants. (Sara Moulton, who never owned a restaurant but was head chef of Gourmet magazine and Tyler Florence who is simply a hottie are the exceptions.) I’d suggest that the disparity is because there are very few black chef/owners in the Emeril/Wolfgang/Flay echelon, though there are several up and comers and I won’t be at all surprised when this trend begins to change in the next few years.
There seems to be a mentality, at least in the States, that black-centric shows have to be sitcoms. Damn shame if you ask me.
Ainsley Harriott’s show isn’t black-centric. Is it normal in the USA to think of a show with a black presenter as being intended primarily for a black audience?
Sorry, I meant the cast, not the audience.
TLW…how have I not heeded the words of my sig?
As I understand it, I have to free myself of the negitive stereotypes and images of myself and people who look like me. And in order to do that, we have to show ourselves in a broader spectrum, meaning other than shaking our asses, killing each other and making up vocabulary. We need to show that we’re not all about that. There’s nothing wrong with eating/cooking Grits, greens and pigs feet. But there’s a good number of us who also cook great pasta dishes, indo-chinese dishes, jerk chicken, jellof rice and banku.
There’s so much more I would like to say, but I don’t even think I can properly express the whole underlying feeling of seeing a Black cook on TV or on the tennis courts, or in supreme courts. It gives black children a good sense of “well, if s/he can do it, so can i”
I probably just confused you even more.
In the history of US television, successful dramas with predominately black casts are few and far between. I think the last attempt was Under One Roof, 8 years ago. Not even having James Earl Jones in the lead could keep it on. Instead, we get comedies. Huxtables, Winslows, and crap like Homeboys in Outer Space. This is what I was referring to.