What Happened to Food TV?

I have spent the last two days home very sick with a stomach flu. I find it hard to believe that it has been so long since I spent two straight days entirely confined to the couch watching TV, but I guess it has. Eighteen odd hours of sofa living and TV watching leave me with one question. What happened to the Food Network?

I used to be able to sit home and watch a couple of hours of some very talented chefs sharing insights on how to greatly increase the quality of my culinary life. I can’t tell you how much I learned from Emeril, Mario, Ming, and Sarah Mouton in a couple of simple hours in front of the TV. Back then, it was a bummer if Bobby came on and turned the focus on cuteness rather than cuisine. Yesterday and today the shows were uniformly embarrassing, the only saving grace being Mario whipping up a cardoon dish one day and a ravioli dish the other.

All of a sudden there is some woman named Rachel Ray who, as best I can tell, is reinventing ways to make casseroles easy by adding soup to frozen vegetables. Isn’t that exactly where the whole world went wrong in the fifties? Wasn’t America’s belief in these quick, timesaving steps exactly what led us to a world where a tomato is a crunchy fruit from Florida that’s always available in the same size and shade of what can only be called off red?

Then there is some really hot woman named DeLaurentis sharing her vast insights on ways to chop garlic and add vinegar to salad dressings, and some Paula lady overcooking vegetables from some nameless supermarket and calling it home cooking.

 

My hope has been that, with Americans realizing their food has been so manipulated to fit packaging that there are hardly any nutrients left in it, and that we are getting fatter from not cooking for ourselves, Food TV would help. The Food channel was a place that pointed out there was still one butcher left in most areas and that introducing yourself and making friends with him would amazingly improve the quality of all of your dishes involving meat.

Food TV started with group of very talented chefs showing us that it was not too hard to make the wonderful dishes of the better restaurants of America at home, we just needed to learn some simple techniques and improve the produce we were getting. Mario would tell us of the wonders of guanciale and explain that pancetta or even good quality bacon could play the role. All of a sudden we were looking past the Oscar Meyer packages and noticing that some places actually had bacon in their fridges. These places were doing better business on better product, and a simple solution was rolling in. The stage was set for Whole Foods and all the others to sweep in because now at least those of us that would listen were looking for more authentic product.

Now there is some very nice-seeming, cheery woman touting the genius of canned beets. Can anything be more antithetical to moving away from the dilemma of the American diet then encouraging the use of canned beets?

Some would say, “it is a step in the right direction that people are cooking at home at all.” I have to disagree. If what you are learning is to simply combine prepackaged ingredients to mimic a chicken tetrazzini by Stouffer’s, with nothing more then a recipe that is “a snap to do in under 30 minutes,” you still have to clean, and what you are making is not uniquely better then its prepackaged counterpart.

Simple diets that show us “by slightly modifying our lives away from processed carbs and flour our quality of health will improve” fail because, in reality, we stray from their simplicity for the more simple alternative when time runs short, we are too lazy, or worst of all a “Domino’s craving” strikes (I swear I have been told these exist). For people to want to cook at home it doesn’t need to be easy it needs be good. We need to realize that life gets better when what we are cooking at home with a modicum of effort and time is exceedingly better than what we can get at the local chain restaurant, or from the freezers in the middle of the store. When we see that, for the cost of two adults and two children to sit down to an all-you-can-eat pasta and salad at the Olive Garden, you can make a better version yourself and even pay up for better ingredients at the market. Best of all, the dish won’t be a glop of glue flown in from Ohio and “authentically” reheated in your town.

What this channel used to offer was a glimpse into the method of thinking of good chefs. By watching them work and listening to their thought processes you were learning to think like the chefs rather then mimic them. When you worked in your own kitchen, what you had picked up was a technique rather then a recipe. Not only has all this been lost, they have gone backwards; they now have food talking-heads with no comprehension of process looking for an easy way out of the chore of cooking.

I can’t wait till next time I am sick, maybe by then I will watch some pundit arguing from behind some set made to look like a news show that “cooking in pans is for dilettantes,” “real Americans cook in microwaves,” and “all the fat-cat foodocrats have to put their ears to the pulse of the heartland and give the people what they want,” all while some crawl goes along the bottom about how 75 more cases of mad cow have been discovered in chickens at the Tyson packaging plant.

Comments

[Dora]

You are so RIGHT??? They have turned what used to be a wonderful network of professional chefs, showing each step of how to prepare either a meal or dessert without any mindless "ego" in the way - or prima donna attitude, turning the entire network into a FREAKING CIRCUS of PERSONALITIES!!!!!! We cannot watch many of the shows because we cannot STAND, TOLERATE to watch the host, the worst of all being Emeril (the epitomy of low class, big mouthed personnas, followed closely by Ms. Rachel Ray, who is the most annoying, irritating, classless of all their hosts - and let's not forget, she really cannot cook - then there is the hideous big mouth from the South with that Southern slop which nauseates you just watching her put it all together, let alone eating that garbage. If that's not enough, they have this ditsy blonde on a show called "semi-home made" - well, you schmucks, if we wanted prepackaged, toxic garbage from the supermarket shelves we would not need to watch a food show which should be teaching how to properly cook, good, healthy meals. No wonder Europe looks at us as Crass, Gauche, and having no taste at all!!! Thank god I grew up in a European family with nothing BUT FRESH, HOMEMADE MEALS EVERY SINGLE DAY - my mother never allowed any canned garbage in her kitchen. Everything was fresh and from scratch and it was delicious, and more importantly, healthy.

Christ, can't we ever get some Good Taste in this country. The society has quickly turned into a sewer and the "greedy money grubbers" who run these shows could care less about quality content - they just want to serve the trash of society as evidenced by their shows.

If these people on Food Network are Chefs, then there is nothing more to say - it is all evident!

As for the Italian "pasta girl" (Giada) it would be so nice if she would be more considerate of the fact that she is on a cooking show and not some "erotic" program - she should consider less cleavage, PLEASE, and wear more suitable tops for the show she is a host of. There is no other host on this idiotic network who has their breasts hanging out all through the show except for her.

Oh god, let me stop - it's just sad to see the change!!!!!!!

[augieland]

Wow, that's a lot of anger. Don't be angry at the food network's new direction be sad at the lose of its old one. Let me say as far as Emeril goes he is definitely a great chef, and a good man, just go to New Orleans to find out both. Agreed, his show appeals to the simplicity of cooking fine food and thusly started Food TV's newer, simple for idiots approach to programming. If he doesn't entertain you, don't watch, but go to their site and pull up one of his recipes and you will see he definitely knows what he is doing.
That being said, I don't watch the new live show, but I still learn a lot from the essence show. Southern cooking, though it may not appeal to you, is genuine and important. I don't know the show you are referring to but I sit every day with people sickened by my reports of Morimoto dinners and I clearly consider this some amazing food.
I've never had Rachel's food (does she have a restaurant?) so I can't say how she cooks. I can say I see nothing to gain from watching her.
I neither hate nor love her, I just see her as indicative of the Food channel's new approach that we can entertain at a base level rather than enrich the lives of our viewers with insight. Which is exactly the opposite of how it used to be. But TV's job is to entertain, I simply used to love that Food TV seemed to believe people would come up in knowledge. They have obviously decided to give up that hope and now they pander. And I won't be pandered to.

[BigT]

Im glad im not the only one who is saddaned and yes A little sickened by the circus that was once the food network..As A chef im both insulted and appaled @ what they are shoving down the throats of the American public;it has become A cast of cartoon characters with Evoo yummo sammies woman leading the charge!Isnt her 15 minutes up yet???We are lead to beleive that these people have A clue.Know who has A clue?Julia Childs Jauqes peppin Keith Flloyd Escofier mario Battali emmer-just kidding.. Graham Kerr and many other t.v chefs to numerous to mention .I have permanantly banned tfn from my tv watching and until they stop remodeling peoples kitchens and find some real chefs it will stay that way.

[steve]

This morning I actually Googled "what happened to the Food Network?" – and found this post. It's all about personal drama now, not cooking. The number of times I've flipped by there to find some duff getting upset over not competing well is mind bogglin'. Alton Brown is the only saving talent on that network.