Food and Cooking Genres

Food and Cooking Genres

Food Network is my favorite channel. When nothing else is on, I will turn the television to whatever is cooking (or being shown). Why? Because I love food, I love cooking. Cooking reminds me of my mom, and of family. I am not unusual by any means in this regard. So what is it about this genre that makes it special? What does the Food Network bring to the table?

1. Identifiable Hosts

Each show has an audience in mind. Want some southern hospitality? Paula Dean demonstrates the classic southern belle who uses food to welcome you into her home, to accompany her family. She is outspoken to say the least. The Neeely's display similar traits of welcoming you to eat with their family. They also attempt to show the love that can come from cooking with their husband/wife combination and frequent displays of affection. More of a science-orientated viewer? Alton Brown's show Good Eats uses scientific explanations and slapstick humor to draw the audience in. If you are looking to bring more of an international flavor to your life there are numerous hosts that bring a taste of the world into your kitchen. Even more importantly in our time crunched society, there is every working mom's lifesaver, Rachel Ray. All of these hosts bring personal taste to their shows, but all demonstrate a love of food, that translates into easy to follow steps to create your own.

2. Settings

The settings for these shows of course is centered around the kitchen, and occasional into their own family's kitchen. Unlike most kitchens I have seen, they are always immaculately cleaned for of every appliance you can think of not to mention every ingredient imaginable. However, some go into grocery stores, markets, and butchers, to show viewers how and where to purchase ingredients.

3. Entertaining

Cooking is never dull when you are doing the work, but watching it can be. Especially due to lack of smell-o-vision technology. Luckily, hosts seems to have a pretty unique sense of humor that they use to keep audiences engaged. Another technique to keep the viewer engaged is adding a bit of a personal narrative such as the history of the dish or what it stirs in the host's memory.

4. Ease

While each host may warn of the varying difficulties involved in each dish, they go slowly. Each step is carefully detailed, allowing almost anyone who can follow directions to be able to cook. Recipes and videos are displayed on the website, allowing you to go back and make sure you know what you are doing. The main goal is to take the fear out of cooking, and bring the fun home made food can be.

5. Time

Each show, except for Rachel Ray's, is usually time-edited. It is rarely shot in real time as the cooking would take too long and dull the audience to sleep. This also allows for perfection, every time.

Critical Analyis

With the rise of obesity due to the over-consumption of fast-food and reliance on pre-made, processed foods, why are these shows that demonstrate home-cooking ideas and techniques so popular? Michael Pollen points out the obvious answer, time. The average American spends 27 minutes cooking a day. That is the same amount of time most of these shows run. But even some of the recipes shown on the shows can easily lead to obesity. (see Paula Dean) Thankfully, some food hosts address the issue head on. Jamie Oliver, for one, has started a crusade against processed foods, primarily in school lunch programs. Another critique could be the element of the all-mighty dollar. Few have the luxury to have access to appliances and ingredients. However, hosts provide alternatives quite often. Alton Brown shows how to make some tools at home, with common and cheap items. Some negative assumptions these all these shows display is the idea of community and family. Recipes are almost never meant for individual consumption, leading one to assume that everyone should have others to enjoy their food with. In addition, there is also the need to keep in mind that most of these hosts are also spokespeople for various food related advertisements. Many have their own line of pots and pans, and food stuffs.

Teaching Activity: The activity I would have my students do would involve them making their own cooking show based on satirizing one of the shows we discussed. (Paula Dean, the Neely’s, Alton Brown, and Rachel Ray). This assignment would involve aspects of research and filming. First, the students would break into groups, and decide on which show they’d like to satirize. Satire is very intelligent and therefore difficult humor to achieve. This means that the students will have to be able to firmly grasp what the show is attempting to do, and how it does it. The students would have to decide on a recipe. They can use one from the site, or bring one from home.  They would then watch clips from the various shows and take notes based on the characteristics of the show (thoughts on the host, setting, comedic elements, ease and time). Working together, each group would then discuss these elements and use their knowledge to create a satirized storyboard of the recipe they want to do, along with a script. They would then videotape their shows. They would then be posted to a class wiki, and students would be required to comment on other group’s work detailing what works and what could improve the clip.