TV Cooking Contests
I confess--I am nutty for cooking competitions on television! It is escapism at its best.
While researching this article, I found an excellent history of television cooking contests in an Oct. 24, 2014, The Atlantic article.
Turns out that the Japanese Iron Chef that was televised in translation on the Food Network beginning in 1999 started it all. In its second year, it beat out Emeril Live, which had been the most popular show on the network. Then came Iron Chef America and The Next Food Network Star in 2005.
I felt that the witty commentary of Alton Brown made the show, which Is why I loved his Cutthroat Kitchen. The show is no longer aired, which is understandable because it would be hard to top all the ridiculous things the contestants were forced to endure.
Guy Fieri is also diabolical to chefs in Guy's Grocery Games but only in a foody kind of way--no cooking on a kiddy stove or wearing lobster claws when cooking. Guy asks for a gourmet meal cooked only from the frozen and canned aisles. Hey, that is easy, my mom did it all the time!
The most popular of the contests is Chopped in which contestants fix three meals that must include mystery basket ingredients. My husband Harry, who will tolerate these shows for brief amounts of time, mixes his metaphors and tells me that I am an Iron Chef who could easily win Chopped.
No way! I know I would get a basket that had a goat head or organ meats, that fruit that stinks, along with gummy worms, and then be asked to fix an appetizer in 30 minutes!
I also like the baking contests such as the Spring [Fall, Winter, etc.] Baking Contest, Cupcake Wars, and Cake Wars. There are also Christmas and Halloween contests that include pumpkin, etc. carving and sugar artistry--the dynamics among members of each team can be interesting, although it is probably staged!
The Atlantic article pointed out that the Food Network viewing audience has increased because of the cooking show competitions-- when other channels are losing viewership. Therefore, the network adds more food contest shows. I notice that they are searching for the magic host, a person like Ted Allen or Alton Brown or Guy Fieri. For some of the newer programs, they need to search a little bit more!
Again quoting The Atlantic and Tasha Oren, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, who studied the Food Network, “Most people who watch TV about cooking don’t cook,” she says. “They watch for the sport of it, for the fun of it.”
I do cook but she is right--I like the game and guessing who will win.
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