Cooking Shows

Note: Today, I have two post! This is the first one of two – the “other” one is a photo essay called “Colours of Fall 2009“.

I am not sure if I watch more TV than I should. While I don’t mind if I miss a show or two (don’t have a PVR), I can easily spend over an hour a day in front of it. A lot of times, I just leave it on mostly for background noise. I am sure a radio can do the same but, once in a while, I do need the visual stimulus. Among the shows I like to watch are on the lines of comedy like CityTV The List and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or Canadian news. Sometimes, reality TV like The Amazing Race but never drama – if I want to watch drama, I just watch the American news. Do I watch food related shows? I will admit that I do but at the same time I have started to dislike one particular category: competition… Iron Chef America (not the original Japanese version, though), Top Chef, Chopped, different Food Network competitions, et al. You name it, 99% likelihood there is something I hate about it…

I know, I know, hate is a strong word but I can shake that feeling. While most of the show is fine, there are two portions of the shows (in some only one of these two portions, in others both) that really throws me off: unrealistic expectations and the judging. But, wait, isn’t those the components that make the show interesting? To a certain extent, yes, just that the point which they have gone (probably to “push” the show) makes me want to turn away instead… But, let me elaborate a bit further so you have a better idea of what I am trying to get into.

Let’s start with unrealistic expectations. Assume you are a chef or a cook in a restaurant. Reality is, a restaurant is a factory where the sole purpose is to crank dishes as closely as possible from the previous dish, the same dish as last week and probably last month. In such environment, there is no room for cooks who want to deviate from the tried-and-true formula – leave that to R&D or the head chef. Once they have done the recipe, it is now up to the cooks to replicate that in the regular kitchen. But, even then, head/executive chefs tends to be good – a specialist, if you don’t mind – on certain types of cuisines: Be it Cantonese, Schezuan, Thai, Japanese, French, etc. etc. etc., you are good at what you do. You are also familiar with your kitchen, your stove, your ingredients. Then you are taken out of the water and forced to cook 1) a dish with specific ingredients – some of them you would never work with (Top Chef, Chopped), 2) with people you might have never met before (Hell’s Kitchen), 3) in an environment you have no idea about (pretty much all shows). It is, in another words, a recipe for disaster.

Not trying to pick that particular show but I will use Top Chef as an example. In an episode aired not long, they are asked to “deconstruct” a dish. The participant who got eliminated from the competition on that episode was completely confused about the challenge. In his head, he was wondering, why would you want to “deconstruct” it, if the dish itself taste fine “as is”? What “bonus” does it provide by “breaking it down”? Likewise, in a challenge from the same show, they were asked to cook a dish using cactus, something that 3/4 of the participants did not know what to do with because simply is an ingredient they don’t work with. Can you imagine we have a Muslim in the show and is asked to cook pork?

And then there is the time limit. I know the purpose of the time limit is to level the ground. However, that means some dishes can’t be made. For example, if you were given mutton, the “best” recipe to work with would be a stew (or a long braise). Short of using a pressure cooker, there would be absolutely no way for you to make it tender enough. Likewise, you won’t see any barbeque for obvious reasons. As a result, does not really reflect the chef’s/cook’s cooking skills, not to mention what is served at their restaurants.

But, let’s assume you are comfortable with your cooking, with the environment and so. What is next then? Judging… In the original Iron Chef, the judges were usually celebrities and only one of them was a professional critic (out of a panel of 3 or 4, depending on the “season”). But, even then, they were funny enough in their own ways (not to mention, in some instances, knowledgeable on some dishes). The judging process in some of the American shows are, well, just a barrage of criticism. Taking Top Chef again as an example, in the same episode mentioned above, a participant fried some chips but due to kitchen conditions, only managed to produce that many. As a result, she delivered only two (small) pieces chips per dish in her deconstruction of fish and chips. The judges was harsh on her on that but, in her defence, she said something on the lines of “either provide a good visual representation of the food or several extra pieces of chips, some of them which would be below par”. I applaud her conviction but I don’t feel the judges were impressed by that.

But, let’s assume she was able to deliver with what they want to create without any hitch. Now, it is the judging panel themselves and their conception of food (i.e., likes and dislikes) and misunderstanding of the food. Let’s take this time Chopped as an example. In an episode, a chef prepares a dish and puts a red chili pepper as part of the end result. The cook is Latin American (if memory serves me right, Mexican) so, to a certain extent, that is something it would be expected from the dish. But, from the judges perspective (some restaurant owners/executive chefs, et al), that was something that shouldn’t be there. At that point, I was simply rolling my eyes. Did they even try to understand the chef’s background? Some of us would happily eat it (some fellow bloggers would attest I would, given our past experience at Alvin Garden!). To put another example, most Asians would be happy to eat Hainanese Chicken Rice but I have the feeling most of these judges will kill a cook who prepares it because the chicken might look borderline raw (it is not: the poaching process makes it look like it is. That’s why you should get really good chickens for this purpose and, if possible, not the mass produced ones).

I know some of you might say it has something to do with the market, i.e., people want these type of shows, after all, there has been several “seasons” already. If that is the case, I understand to a certain extent but it does nothing to amend the overall flaw: being extremely critical based on their own bias. I mean, let’s compare a similar “competition” show: Throwdown! with Bobby Flay. In this case, a local cook who specialize in a dish is “challenged” by Bobby Flay in their own turf. The judges are local people who have a good understanding of the dish and, as a result, the outcome of the challenge is, well, outcome does not matter, rather the fun itself of the “judging process”: This dish has this and that, it is interesting because of the twist, et al.

So what does this bring us? I wish they could make things more interesting by bringing average Joe/Jane to do the judging for mostly “entertainment” purposes. Hey, I won’t mind do some of the judging myself! Regardless, most people see past that and watch the show “as is” for entertainment purposes. If that is the case, I think most viewers deserve better…

And, to close this post, as a side note, I watch the following cooking related shows:

• Good Eats. Alton Brown, enough said.
• Dinner: Impossible. Yes, despite the fiasco regarding Robert Irvine‘s resume, this show actually shows some of things that actually occurs in a kitchen. But, in the end, is fun.
• Anna’ & Kristina’s Grocery Bag: A show created locally in Vancouver by two former newscasters, the Anna Wallner and Kristina Matisic of the title of this show (site, here), they try to cook through recipe books and then give their evaluation of the book. The cooking process shown is, most of the times, hilarious (including lots of *bleeps* due to things that occur while cooking the recipes).

Tagged under: Random