There was a time in my life when I used to love the Food Network. In fact, I liked it so much, that when I walked in the door after work, I turned on the TV, which was already programmed to the Food Network from the night before. I would leave it on all evening until I went to sleep. I wasn't always watching very carefully what was happening on the screen, and sometimes, I even had the sound on mute, but it was comforting to know that someone inside the little flickering box in my living room was cooking something delicious. Back then, I even liked watching Emeril Lagasse, though I have to admit that I was watching his old show, The Essence of Emeril, in which a young Emeril was somewhat awkwardly, but very earnestly, cooking something. Hell, even in the early days of Emeril Live, I thought "Bam!" was kind of cute.But these days, Emeril, among many others, are a real turn off, IMHO. The days of keeping the TV turned to the Food Network for hours on end have been long over. With the exception of a few of my personal favorites, I can hardly stand to watch the personalities fill up the screen with almost nothing but their personalities. For a long time, I couldn't quite place my finger on why I wasn't in love with the Food Network anymore. Sure, I was hurt when they decided to cancel the original Iron Chef. Sure, I am not fond of the "new breed" of celebrity chefs that have ousted my long-time favorites like Sara Moulton and Ming Tsai (and what on earth ever happened to Jamie Oliver, Tony Bourdain, and Two Fat Ladies?!?!) But I knew there was something deeper. I knew there was something broader about the "new" Food Network that bothered me.
In a recent feature piece in the New Yorker, Bill Buford talks about the Food Network. Buford describes a marathon session in which he forced himself to watch the Food Network for a duration (72 hours?!?!), and explains what he did and did not see. "I couldn't recall very many potatoes with dirt on them, or beets with ragged greens, or carrots with soil in their creases, or pieces of meat remotely reminiscent of the animals they were butchered from-hardly anything, it seemed, from the planet Earth." I think that perhaps his sentiments are what I have been feeling, but have been unable to express.
The Food Network is about food, but not really. Buford sums it up in his last paragraph: "Never in our history as a species have we been so ignorant about our food. And it is revealing about our culture that, in the face of such widespread ignorance about a human being's most essential function-the ability to feed itself-there is now a network broadcasting into ninety million American homes, entertaining people with shows about making coleslaw." Is the Food Network a reflection of the way we cook (or not cook) and eat, or are we changing our perceptions of "food" based on what we've seen on the Food Network? I don't know.
There is nothing wrong with making coleslaw. I love cole slaw. But it sure would be nice to know that you can make cole slaw from cabbage, which is a vegetable, that grow in the ground; rather than "making" cole slaw from a bag.
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