May 7, 2020

Competitive Cooking Shows, and Why I Can’t Stands ‘Em

If you haven’t been able to tell yet, I’m drawn to all things food, cooking and restaurants. I skip straight to the food section in newspapers. I’ll read articles in food magazines and websites even if I’m not going to learn anything from them. I read cookbooks cover-to-cover. I’ll even go out of my way to pour over the menu on an airplane, knowing full well I’m not going to eat any of that shit.

So, it should come as no surprise that when we examine my watching habits, I watch a lot of food programming. There are some shows I like; Ugly Delicious, Chef’s Table, Street Food, Taco Chronicles, these shows are great (and all available on Netflix). Of course, I also enjoy Mind of a Chef, as this blog even riffs on that name. Old episodes of Julia Child shows are both educational and a goddamn riot. And if I can find them on YouTube, there’s nothing like an afternoon of Wok With Yan, Yan Can Cook, The Urban Peasant or Pasquale’s Kitchen. That’s nostalgia on a bun for me.

What I like a whole hell of a lot less is pretty much everything on Food Network and normal TV that has to do with cooking. It’s either celebrations of excess, making champions of people serving plates of food that look like war crimes, or it’s *deep breath* competitive cooking.

I’ll admit off the bat, if we’re on vacation, in a hotel room, lying in bed before we start the day, then I’m hate-watching shit exactly like that. Food Network drivel like Chopped, Top Chef, Masterchef, what have you. Some of these shows are better than others, but the whole concept of it drives me nuts.

Cooking is an act of caring and kindness, in my opinion. You cook delicious food, putting your heart and soul into it, investing your time to show kindness to yourself or your loved ones via a nourishing craft. Watching people run around, trying to cook high-quality food under the gun then present it to snooty judges who would never lower themselves to take part in the same competition just grinds my gears.

“Let’s see who’s the chef among chefs!” says the announcer, “you’ve got nineteen and a half minutes to create a signature dish using the following ingredients: pork shoulder! Fish stock! Brie cheese! Tin foil! A turquoise crayon! And half a packet of jammy dodgers!” The clock appears on the screen. “Chefs, grab your chef’s knives and start cheffing!”

They run around for a few minutes, dropping shit and having interviews where they talk about the curve ball and the flavour profiles they like, before time runs out and one of them realizes they left vinaigrette they made out of the cookies and the crayon off the plate.

Next comes the presentation. A panel of distinguished judges, usually consisting of a chef that hasn’t cooked in 25 years, a food writer that only eats kale sprinkled with comet dust and a minor celebrity who up until this afternoon only thought about food in terms of what they could sneak home from the craft services table.

The judges pour over the plates with all the seriousness they can muster, saying things like: “Well, you didn’t transform the cheese.” Or, “The cheese was almost unrecognizable. You should have let it shine for what it is.” Constantly contradicting themselves and of course, never divulging what they would have done in such ludicrous circumstances. Why would they? They’re the judges. They don’t have shit to prove.

I wonder what happens to all that semi-edible garbage at the end. Restaurants create waste, sure. The average restaurant is not exactly eco-friendly. But we all try to use our scraps, and eliminate waste where we can. What happens to all the food from competitions? It’s not going to feed the hungry, that I guarantee. I’d wager that if the grips or camera people don’t grab it, into the bin it goes. A waste of food and airwaves.

I think high level competition can be a good thing. I’ve worked at restaurants that have competed in Gold Medal Plates or the Great Kitchen Party or whatever it’s called now. Certainly, competing against other professionals in your city, your peers, can be exciting. But it’s not how I like to cook. I don’t want to cook like I have something to prove. I don’t. It doesn’t matter to me if I’m better than restaurant x or not as cool as restaurant y. What matters to me is that you ate my food and then felt a little bit better about your day afterwards. That’s the best prize a cook can hope for. A heartfelt thank-you. A nod or a wave from an appreciative patron on the way out the door. A note or an email after service. A round of drinks for the hard-working kitchen staff. That literally is sometimes “why we do it.”

I guess what I’m trying to say is, cook for love, not for glory. That’s the path to great food and it sums up why I find so much food tv so infuriating.