Who is left with a culinary degree from a actual institute ?

[MiseEnPlace]

Yep, dull knifes are dangerous.

Sure, anyone could have an accident with anything in the kitchen. You should see the burns I have from being to close to the oven door. ICA often have a few incidents.

There aren't a lot of cooking shows that talk about safety in the kitchen.

[ibcheft]

Well my whole point to this question isn't if you are qualified to have a cooking show, or if your qualified to teach cooking. My point is who is left to teach the viewers who need more or want to cook more than the semi homemade, or the 30 min meal to cook for the whole family for a week, all I really wanted is to be able to prepare a fancy smancy dish for my wife, and I am sorry if that has upset some of the people here. But I can cook semi homemade, I can do it in less than 30 minutes, I have cooked for a large family ( I have 10 bros and sis, last count with all of theirs it was a 147), I like the fancy stuff that is why I Started watching in the first place. The chefs are the ones who got it started and brought the interest of cooking back to the people. Would I want to cook as a line cook, or a head chef in a top line restaurant NO, that would take the fun out of cooking. I cook full time for our household not by choice but by want. And lately the food network has taken all my inspiration and either fired them or let them go. Am I upset about that, YOU bet your sweet, I am. I would have not minded it if they had kept a couple shows for us that need or want more than what we are getting. The only one now that offers anything close to instructional is Alton, but I need to learn how to not only cook but also how to plate, and those types of programs they have gone far and few in between. Bobby Flay has gone mostly to grilling, well dang I have more grills than he does, and would cook side by side next to him any day at the grill. That is why I was asking do we have any trained chefs left to teach us that want more ?

[tuthead]

I believe they have shuffled a lot of their old re-runs onto Fine Living. I have never watched the channel before (although that will change when they start airing Iron Chef next week), but the schedule looks like it has a lot of the older FN shows.

[MiseEnPlace]

It is sad the lost of chefs on the network, but I think the biggest problem now is the food-entertainment. Outside of Good Eats at 8 pm the Monday - Friday primetime line up is nothing but competition and reality shows.

Cooking shows, of all types, seem to relegated to weekday and weekend mornings in favor of these entertainment style programs. I feel like cooking has become secondary.

The only reason I watch ICA is Alton, otherwise I wouldn't care for that either.

[Food Network Fan]

I don't even bother switching it on late Friday or Saturday night anymore.

[Sukie]

OK stupid question, but remember, I am new. What is ICA? I know FN and (just discovered...) FLN.
Be kind.....

[MiseEnPlace]

Sorry, Iron Chef America ;-)

[bluejeanz]

Well my whole point to this question isn't if you are qualified to have a cooking show, or if your qualified to teach cooking. My point is who is left to teach the viewers who need more or want to cook more than the semi homemade, or the 30 min meal to cook for the whole family for a week, all I really wanted is to be able to prepare a fancy smancy dish for my wife, and I am sorry if that has upset some of the people here.

I'm just speaking for myself but I don't see where you've upset anyone here at all. (Must be that male/female perception thing, LOL.) In all honestly, your original post posed a question as to how many hosts on the FN actually have a culinary degree and we were trying to answer you. You said nothing in either of your first two posts about the reason for your question being that you wanted to improve your skills and branch out into more technical dishes.


Even though some of the original chefs on the FN are long gone or whose shows have been reduced to infrequent reruns, they've left behind thousands of recipes on the FN recipe database. You could do a search of any food item or recipe topic and get hundreds of recipes. It sounds as though you want to actually be shown how to cook the dish but, from what I can gather from some of your other posts, you sound more than qualified to successfully whip up any dish you wanted.


If you're unhappy with what the FN has to offer, PBS has some excellent programming on Saturdays. You might also be interested in taking some local cooking classes. Here in the Cleveland area, we have a handful of smaller cooking schools for just this sort of problem that you're experiencing. One of which is the Loretta Paganini Cooking Academy. They have one-day classes as well as some that last several days. The direction the FN is going these days, unless some miracle happens and they actually listen to what their viewers want, you may have to find your passion elsewhere.

[Food Network Fan]

I think it's more interesting to watch the chef's because they often have dishes they prepare in their restaurants. It's not so much that I think they are better than the nonchefs I just enjoy watching the chefs more. What Sandra Lee does is on a lot of the boxes and packages you can find in the store if people would take the time to read them, but for the people who don't or learn better from "show me" she would be a teacher.

[BerryBaby]

I agree. I've advanced to wanting to watch more of the Michael's, Ina's and Emeril style of preparing food. The other shows like RR, SL and RM are good for the first time cook.

Maybe FN should rate the shows Beginner (Rachael, Sandra, Robin), Intermediate (Paula, Bobby) Expert (Michael, Ina, Emeril). They could put a little icon in the corner like the G, PG-13 sort of thing.

Shows like Alton would have a category all its own...suitable for all ranges of cooks.