Reality TV, the Celebrity Chef, and the Popularization of the Culinary Industry

The biggest remote influence upon my chef life and career was the nurturing image of Julia Childs coming into my home every weekend via PBS. She was later joined by greats like Justin Wilson, The Frugal Gourmet, and Jacques Pepin. I spent an endless number of days just enjoying the show, and marveling at their work, not even thinking about joining the brigade of the talented culinarians.

These titans gave a glimpse of a life unfamiliar to my Chicago West side experience. While I am the recipient of skills passed down in a long line of ancestral excellence in the kitchen, most of what I saw on the flickering screen was different than our dinning room fare. Since that time, many many more have stepped up to share culinary education and entertainment shows. As with just about anything in this world, there are pros and cons to this development. We now have a whole host of television food celebrities, a wide range of shows, and representations in many forms in the reality show format.

The Food Network, ABC, BBC America, CNBC, and many other television networks have some type of food show. Chopped, The Chew, Restaurant Startup, Kitchen Nightmare, Hell's Kitchen... you get the idea. As a chef in the industry, I have plenty of mixed feelings about this subject. I am here to tell you that now all of this glitter is gold. I love that there is much more exposure to the subject, however, not all that is seen on television is good, not all personalities are culinarians. So as a viewer who may not have had a lot of food training, how can you rely on what you have seen as 'reality' or not? It can be tricky.

When I announced that I wanted to enter culinary school, the imagery that was conjured was that of a cook or fry cook. None of the adults in my life understood what I wanted to embark upon, even still, all these years later, I still find other professionals that look down their noses at me when I am introduced as chef. There is still a misunderstanding of what chef means and when I say that my work is applied chemistry, with elements of art and construction, on top of all the other aspects of any other business such as P&L, ROI, HR requirements, and contract knowledge, for example, then the picture is a bit clearer.

So many shows are not good information or good example of what food business is all about. Many bakery related shows take over a weeks worth of taping and make it a half-hour or one hour show giving viewers a false since of the time needed to create the masterpieces and very little about the cost of these projects, for example. I find that often the savory cooking shows expose many of their viewers to food stuffs that are expensive or hard to find in their grocery stores leaving them unable to make the meals at home. I am not advocating that this isn't valid cooking but I am saying that it may lead to the viewer having a lack of confidence that they could produce a wonderful meal at home.

It was recently revealed that 2015 was the first year on record that American's spent more money in restaurants then in the grocery stores. This is not great news both from a nutritional point of view and socially. When we divorce ourselves from the skills of cooking and the control of our nutritional needs, we begin to put the most important aspect of our health, food intake, in the hands of others and corporations. A HORRIBLE IDEA.

I will talk more on the subject later, but my time is short today....

Peace