Evolving Thoughts on Food Media and Life

I wrote an entry on this blog in 2009 where I treated a few food celebrities rather harshly. Maybe one of the most satisfying while paradoxically uncomfortable experiences in life is to realize personal growth, and for this reason I believe that I particularly owe both Andrew Zimmern and Adam Richman an apology.

I still stand by my belief that Zimmern's overseas work on Bizarre Foods, the shows that made him a celebrity, are a little bit silly. But I think that in my needless cynicism I missed the humility with which he undertook the task, never taking himself too seriously. Of course, the work we have seen from him lately has, to use a dreadful food celebrity cliché, kicked it up a notch. I braced myself when Bizarre Foods America visited New Orleans, but found myself smiling inside as Zimmern rode around with Kermit Ruffins. This was nothing compared to the show's thoughtful and sensitive rendering of West Virginia, a place whose culture has been hackneyed more than perhaps any other in the nation. Buckwild anyone? Many kudos to Zimmern who may have done the impossible - capture the essence of West Virginia while neither sanitizing nor essentializing. 

It was Guy Fieri who actually opened my eyes to newfound appreciation for Adam Richman. If you compare the formula for Man vs. Food to Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, you will quickly see parallels. Both shows visit comfort food restaurants that most Americans would enjoy. This is where the similarities end. I don't know Guy Fieri, but the screen presence he delivers is flat and disingenuous. Is everything he eats at these places really "off the chain?" Nor does he seem to be liked very well by his peers if the reaction to his Times Square restaurant is any indication. Perhaps he is the victim of jealousy. I hadn't watched Man vs. Food for a while, and so it really hit me that Richman, like Zimmern, enters into the show with a great deal of personal humility, genuine interest, and overall good will. What a contrast it is to "Triple D." 

The viewpoints I shared on competitive cooking shows, however, have in some regard intensified over the last four years. I must confess that my wife and I are fans of Chopped, but not without reservations about the overall formula and what it says about the culture in which we live. A mystery basket, a ticking clock, even the judging of whose dish is best -- these are all fun. Yet the increasingly ludicrous tear-jerker stories of the contestants have grown so very tiresome. "I'm doing this for a charity who helps orphans with no legs" or "I'm doing this for my grandmammy who died last year," or "my daughter needs a special wheelchair." What is this, The Hunger Games? Dreadful.  Yes, $10,000 bananas is better than a sharp stick in the eye, but it won't change your life. Hell, it won't even buy a new Hyundai. Please, focus on the basket contents and try not to cry when the master-hipster of ceremonies, Ted Allen, invokes his best funeral director voice and tells you "I'm sorry, you've been chopped."

Yet the worst transgression of food television seems to be the furthering of everything that has gone wrong with the art of cooking by airing The Next Food Network Star. In its eighth season, this is the program that spawned Guy Fieri. Does the world really need another food celebrity? I can't help but wonder if Julia Child would have made it today. 

Gag Me with a Twelve Pound Cheeseburger!

Few sayings ring truer than the chorus of Bruce Springsteen's "57 channels (and nothin' on)." As if to demonstrate television's inability to grasp the concept that more is often less, we've recently witnessed an explosion of programs that fuse cooking with reality television, including a slew of contrived chef talent search shows like Fox's "Hell's Kitchen," Food Network's "Chopped," and Bravo's "Top Chef." Unlike the popular (and often quite good) "Iron Chef America," the only meaningful ingredient in these programs is manufactured drama. You can almost hear the bumper now: "Somebody's gonna cry tonight, and it ain't from the onions!"

These kitchen cum "American Idol" shows are now having to make room for an growing list of food-travel programs. Not that this is anything new. "Forty Dollars a Day" helped launch the prattling chipmunk empire of Rachael Ray, and the irascible and versatile Anthony Bourdain has brought feasting on the obscure to television for almost a decade. But now if you are not content with Bourdain's exotic locales, you can always stay tuned to the Travel Channel and catch Andrew Zimmern ingesting deep-fried tarantulas or perhaps pickled emu beaks, all while cooing, "...ooh. Wow. I mean, it's so... so... like what you would not expect." His program is a little like watching "Fear Factor" without the put-on screaming.

"Man vs Food" host Adam Richman pauses before abusing his intestines on camera.

Yet few shows deliver more colon wrenching excess than the Travel Channel's newest hit, "Man vs Food." It's what you might expect if you combined a hairier version of Zimmern with Johnny Knoxville from MTV's "Jackass." The show's host, Adam Richman, visits everyday fare hotspots around the country and then sets about doing something ludicrous like attempting to eat fifteen dozen oysters in an hour or a dish of curry so hot that even the restaurant's chef wears goggles during its preparation. Anyone who has paid attention to the billboards while driving along Interstate 40 through Amarillo probably understands the creative genius that inspired this show. You guessed it, one of Richman's earliest stops was at the Big Texan Steak Ranch where he takes "the restaurant's legendary 72-ounce steak challenge." According to the show's website, it remains the most popular episode.

Like "Jackass," Richman has inspired adoring imitators. Who can argue that these budding media stars aren't on to something?

I mentioned "Man vs Food" to a few of my students in class today, and several gave it a hearty endorsement. This left me confident of the Travel Channel's ability to sell advertising space for domestic beer and AXE body spray. But I can't help but feel that somewhere in a darkened apartment a self-conscious calorie counter sits on the couch weeping as he watches Richman gack down a nine pound pistrami sandwich and tries not to think about the grim stack of Lean Cuisines lurking in his freezer.

One wonders what culinary frontiers Richman will cross in future episodes. Perhaps he'll eat five pounds of spicy crawfish boil and then use the restroom without first washing his hands. Maybe it'll be an eating contest with Takeru Kobayashi, who we used to see obscenely stuffing Nathan's hot dogs down his gullet. No doubt it will be scintilating. Cable television would deliver no less.