TV Cooking vs. Real Cooking

[Food Network Fan]

TV Cooking vs. Real Cooking

By Mark Bittman

Associated Press “The grand thing about cooking is you can eat your mistakes,” said Julia Child, seen here in a television studio in 1970. Earlier programs about cooking tended to be more realistic than today’s shows.
For years, I have said much the same as this when I’m asked what I think of cooking shows on TV. Yes: They make people aware that different, often better types of food exist.
But at a cost: When you watch most celebrity chefs go to work on TV it is a) baffling and intimidating, and b) a charade. Baffling and intimidating because nearly every ingredient is usually prepared in advance, and what isn’t is selected so that the chef can show off his (almost never “her”) knife skills, which are bound to intimidate nearly all of us who can never aspire (and why would we, really?) to chopping an onion with our eyes closed; his ability to make food fly in the air while cooking it; and/or his skill at presentation, which has absolutely nothing to do with taste.
A charade because it’s all taped, and therefore not only doesn’t take place in real time but doesn’t even give a sense of what “real time” might be. And I’m not talking about braising time or the like but the actual work involved.

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[Food Network Fan]

I think some people expect too much from TV shows. The whole reality show idea is making people think that everything they see on TV should be just like real life. That is impossible. Even on actual reality shows.