Pet peeves about cooking shows

blades said:
The important point is that a cooking show should be viewed as suggestions or inspiration, not as hard and fast rules. You can and should cook your eggs the way you like them. Making something you enjoy eating is what it is all about. I rarely make exactly what a recipe says. I almost always delete or add things or increase or decrease ingredient amounts to address my personal preference. It is the most fun part of cooking in my view.
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I look at cooking shows for entertainment, inspiration and motivation. The motivation comes from seeing someone else cooking something good.

It's the same with home improvement shows. They motivate me to do that project I've been putting off.

CD
 
I’ll admit, when I watch cooking shows, I get annoyed with some of the messiness/sloppiness I see, meaning a chef is ladling soup into a bowl and it’s dripping onto the stove and countertop while they’re doing it, things like that.

I also do raise an eyebrow when I see someone pick up a raw chicken, flop it around, then put their chick-sticky fingers right in the container of salt, and then pick up the pepper grinder, etc.
 
I understand them. It's quite tedious to wash your fingers every time and I guess many tv chefs are choosen because they look and perform good. Yeah, the problem is the black pepper grinder as the bacteria is killed in seconds in pure salt and probably somebody needs to use the grinder.
 
Cooking shows used to be educational, creative, edifying (ohhh! There's a good word for a Wednesday! :hyper: :hyper: :laugh::laugh:) and enjoyable. I can still remember David Rosengarten explaining how to make "proper" corned beef, Sarah Moulton removing the tendon from chicken tenders, Rick Bayless explaining the difference between one chile and another and even everyone's favourite, Gordon Ramsay, explaining how to cook a proper steak. These days I turn on "the Food Channel" and its one stupid competition after another, as if a high class meal depended on how damn fast you can prepare it, or some "famous" chef comparing the world's worst Diners, the filthiest restaurants or the crummiest cafes in Europe.
When you're doing a cooking demonstration, obviously you have to do some shortcuts (no-one wants to watch you peeling potatoes or removing the sinews from a piece of beef) but the recipe process, from beginning to end, should at least be coherent. Often, it's not.
When I'm checking on a new recipe or something I've perhaps only prepared once or twice, I tend to stick to YouTube. Videos are faster, you can usually gauge whether the cook knows what he/she is doing, or not, and in 30 minutes, you can watch 3 or 4 options so you can make a choice.
 
My pet peeves are cooking shows on other networks in the format of those challenge shows on the Food network! It's almost as if we haven't seen enough of them there on THAT network, gotta go through that on other channels!! Geez!!!! :ninja:
 
karadekoolaid said:
These days I turn on "the Food Channel" and its one stupid competition after another, as if a high class meal depended on how damn fast you can prepare it, or some "famous" chef comparing the world's worst Diners, the filthiest restaurants or the crummiest cafes in Europe.
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UK food programmes (in general) are much better I think. They are are carefully made, slower paced and the presenters don't shout excitedly. Food Network UK shows more UK made programmes than the US Food Network.
 
karadekoolaid said:
Cooking shows used to be educational, creative, edifying (ohhh! There's a good word for a Wednesday! :hyper: :hyper: :laugh::laugh:) and enjoyable. I can still remember David Rosengarten explaining how to make "proper" corned beef, Sarah Moulton removing the tendon from chicken tenders, Rick Bayless explaining the difference between one chile and another and even everyone's favourite, Gordon Ramsay, explaining how to cook a proper steak. These days I turn on "the Food Channel" and its one stupid competition after another, as if a high class meal depended on how damn fast you can prepare it, or some "famous" chef comparing the world's worst Diners, the filthiest restaurants or the crummiest cafes in Europe.
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Gordon did a video from Texas once, and decided to teach everyone how to cook steak. He was in the country, outdoors, and used a gas burner and a stainless steel pan. :facepalm:

CD
 
caseydog said:
Gordon did a video from Texas once, and decided to teach everyone how to cook steak
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Not his finest hour, I'm sure.
He was doing a wierd show on TV last night, in KwaZulu country, cooking steak for the Chief Zulu. They seem to like their steak very well cooked, but he kept arguing about it.
Lucky he didn't end up as dinner for the hippos.
 
It's quite common that African people don't like uncooked meat and he felling for it, just raises my sympathy towards him
 
Pet peeve with cooking shows: when the cook has a bowl of ingredients and doesn't scoop it all into the dish - especially with meat; there'll be a bowl of cubed beef or something and it will all go in except one piece and I'll be yelling at the screen 'what about that bit!??'. In my house even with a can of baked beans, I scrape out Every. Single. Bean.

Did I rant about this before? I think I did. Keith Floyd. He did that a lot.
 
I think that it was last week, Alton Brown was one of the judges on Chopped. He was a total jerk, giving nasty answers to some of the contestants!!!! Oh. I'm so sick of him & his rude talking!!!! :ninja:
 
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