The Food Network & Competition

I sort of made a promise to myself when I started this blog that I’d stay away from food-tv discussions as much as possible. But I just have to throw my .00002 cents in on this one.When I lived in Germany from 1999-2004, I heard vague rumors of an entirely food-based television network in the US called the “Food Network”. The concept excited me to no end. When I got home I was thrilled! There it was; all-day, every-day… Cooking! Sara Moulton, Mario Batali, Ina Garten, Alton Brown, Giada Di Laurentiis, Martha Stewart… all doing what I remembered from PBS’s: Great Chef’s, Justin Wilson, Martin Yan, Jacque Pepin and Julia Child from when I was a kid. Except they were doing it with style, big sets, and glossy graphics. Then the shows became less and less about cooking, and more and more about competition and personalities.

Enter the show: The Iron Chef! Seemingly overnight, it turned food preparation into a competition. The Japanese figured out a equation that was custom tailored for Americans… television, male competition, mellow-drama, and mountains of food. Now the Food Network has the following shows in it’s line up…

Food Network Challenge
Glutton for Punishment with Bob Blumer
Dinner: Impossible
Ham on the Street (less than the others)
Iron Chef
Iron Chef America
The Next Iron Chef
The Next Food Network Star
Ultimate Recipe Showdown
Throwdown with Bobby Flay

All of which are food competition shows. Now, don’t get me wrong. I think Iron Chef was a riot; a laugh-a-minute. I was captivated by the strange foods, weird hosts, odd seriousness of faux-drama and bad overdub. What I do hate is the outbreak of food competition shows that the Iron Chef at least helped foster. Every second show is two rednecks competing to see who makes the best bar-b-q, or two housewives talking about the stress of the competition as they shove their grandmother’s cookie recipe into an oven at a Pillsbury bake-off, or the look in some donut maker’s eyes when Bobby Flay shows up and ruins his day in the spotlight by challenging him to some ridiculous donut “Throw Down”. How laughable!!!

Anyway, I guess I don’t have a real point to all of this. I just find it sad that I can no longer see any actual cooking on the Food Network that isn’t bound for some judges table. I think it says so much about our nature.