Dave Faries here, looking forward to checking out some of the events at Pebble Beach Food & Wine, which is back following a you-know-what-related hiatus.
The celebration of dining and drinking began today with a golf tournament—fun if the participants brought large umbrellas—a few celebrity chef meet-and-greets and an opening night reception. Our understanding of the phrase “celebrity chef” has been expanded by the Food Network and Cooking Channel. The late, great Anthony Bourdain even credited Food Network, which arrived on screens in the early 1990s, with transforming the culinary landscape. Largely because of the network and its programming, he noted, “Who’s cooking has become an important component for the first time in history.”
Kathleen Collins, author of the brilliantly titled Watching What We Eat: The Evolution of Television Cooking Shows, recognized the influence of the Food Network a decade after it took hold (her book was published in 2009). “The Food Network both tapped into and created a market for Americans’ interest in food,” she wrote. Before the arrival of the two networks, cooking shows had largely been instructive, teaching viewers about ingredients and techniques. Food Network and Cooking Channel caught on to the value of entertainment. Or as Collins put it, “We strive to learn and grow, but we want to be entertained.”
Several of the who’s who from television will make appearances over the weekend. Andrew Zimmern of the Bizarre Foods franchise is doing a cool thing, cooking alongside students from Rancho Cielo’s culinary program. Beau MacMillan and Jonathon Sawyer, who pop up occasionally on shows like The Best Thing I Ever Ate, are also on hand.
But it’s the representatives from Chopped that illustrate how the networks themselves have changed—and whether or not that is for the better is a matter of opinion and of purpose. Geoffrey Zakarian, Maneet Chauhan and Marc Murphy are regular judges for the cooking competition show.
Chopped might be considered by some as edu-tainment, the tipping point as the networks tumble away from education and further toward simple entertainment. Increasingly, new shows focus on competition—without offering anything instructive. Although sometimes items in the Chopped mystery basket are silly, more often we can pick up something from how the competing chefs put together a hasty menu or how they chose to treat ingredients.
Bobby Flay once hosted a program called Throwdown, which likewise paired the informative—he and his team would break down a recipe and try to improve on it—and the competitive. Now it’s the aimless Beat Bobby Flay. This brings up another troubling point. As Collins points out, the network’s programs reproduce and interbreed. Guy Fieri, the restaurant manager who won The Next Food Network Star in 2006, has now appeared in some 30 different shows—promoted more for his hair and personality than from any culinary knowledge (his New York restaurant received one of the most brutal reviews ever from the New York Times; and don’t get me started on Rachael vs. Guy).
As Bourdain observed of the networks so many years ago, “They’re clearly aiming lower and lower.”
This would seem to make the television celebrity chefs appearing at Pebble Beach Food & Wine some of the rare sages among the lowest common culinary denominators. Their talent as chefs and restaurateurs brought them celebrity. Yet it’s not right to fault the networks for perceived flaws. They continue to find success. Other networks—The History Channel, The Learning Channel—have largely turned from their purpose to find a larger audience.
As Collins pointed out, “We crave inspiration and adventure, but don’t always want to leave home to satisfy those needs.” And the “we” she refers to is not always as interested in knowledge as in fun.
Which is why I find the new iteration of Pebble Beach Food & Wine so fascinating in advance. Among the celebrities and purveyors of fine dining and wining are a pizza chef, a few barbecue pitmasters, a chef known for his burgers and another for her nachos and fajitas. The Food Network indeed helped expand our culinary embrace.
Thankfully the folks behind Pebble Beach Food & Wine draw a Rachael vs. Guy line.