Food culture has grown so much that TV cooking shows are no longer tucked away just filling schedules – there are dedicated cooking and food channels. And, it isn’t just shows that teach us how to cook: celebrity chefs are everywhere; food is linked with art; travelogues are based around food; public information shows and documentaries address food topics; and there are even food-themed reality TV shows. But with all this, are we any better off? Are we better cooks? Do we eat better? Here are some reasons why we shouldn’t be watching TV cooking shows.
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1. Hosts Never Wear Aprons
Amazingly, the majority of TV chefs can throw flour around, whirl dough on their fingers and stir frantically bubbling pots and pans full of tasty food without ever spilling the food over their (usually pristine) clothes and without wearing an apron! How on earth is this possible?? The average kitchen is covered in random splatters after the cooking of a great meal and it can often splash up over clothes, yet TV chefs remain unmarred by food in TV cooking shows. Annoyingly unrealistic.
This pristine appearance might make sense if they had some magical kitchen elves cleaning up in real-time, but alas, no such luck. The reality for us mere mortals is that aprons are essential when whisking a storm of flour or searing juicy steaks. They catch splatters and spills that are part of the real cooking experience. Without our trusty aprons, we'd be changing outfits more than a runway model during fashion week. So, unless these chefs have a secret anti-gravity field around them, it's an utterly unattainable standard for viewers at home.
2. They Use Gadgets
Very few people actually use kitchen appliances such as food processors. All over the world people buy specialized gadgets to make their cooking lives better on the advice of TV chefs and what happens? They get used once, maybe twice, and then they get consigned to the back of a cupboard. Few people have time to continuously clean their food processor for different stages of a meal and often home chefs just use a knife to chop the veg and mix everything in a bowl. A great idea but just not practical in the real world.
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3. They Have the Facilities
Often chefs in TV cookery shows explain how simple a meal is to make when using a huge amount of burner rings and every inch of their vast kitchen. However, in the real world, we mere mortals have either a small or reasonable sized kitchen and just a few burner rings on our stove, so a meal of epic proportions may just not be on the menu. (p.s. if you want to see a cook whip up something brilliant in a tiny space, check out this video – Rachel Khoo has the tiniest kitchen imaginable!)
4. Cooking is a Masterclass
Chefs in cooking shows on television will tell you that deboning a chicken or deboning a fish is easy as pie, but in real life have you ever tried it? It is hard! Yes, it is a great skill to have, but in the world today there are butchers and stores that can give us our chicken and fish without having to use something called a boning knife, so why waste valuable time wrangling with a chicken when you come home from work?
5. Geared for Entertaining
Does anyone actually entertain their friends and have regular dinner parties where they present different newly-realized recipes? Really? Most people seem to be exhausted after coming home from work and so the idea of preparing a meal for more than one or two people after a long day is beyond the realms of being a real life domestic goddess. In TV cooking shows, the chefs lovingly prepares a delicious meal and presents it to their laughing, happy guests to great acclaim and they all enjoy a candlelit feast complete with dessert, coffee and probably an after dinner mint. It’s a far cry from sitting at the dinner table with your partner and a hastily prepared meal after a day’s work.
6. Inferiority Complex Inducing
Watching TV cooking shows may be entertaining but they can lead to feelings of inadequacy in the kitchen. As the TV chef cheerfully chops an onion without so much as a cut on the finger or a tear in their eye, it is easy to think that these skills can be picked up with little fuss. The reality is that it is difficult to chop an onion without tears flowing and the slices not being quite as meticulous on the TV, and this can often get people down. TV chefs have honed their skills over many years, so don’t worry if the odd onion defies you; years in cookery school and the magic of television are not on your side.
7. Inaccessible Ingredients
Have you noticed how in the cooking shows on TV, the chefs always have a vast range of fresh herbs and spices at their disposal? And, they tell us these are needed to give us the flavor and panache we need. This sounds like a great idea, so we go out and buy them all (if we can find them) as advised, and as they perish in a short space of time, they are doomed to meet their demise in the trash as we don’t know what goes with what.
8. Lack of Measuring
TV chefs are so good at putting dishes together without measuring anything; simply estimating what they need. You try that when it comes to bread or pastry and you may find that it doesn’t turn out quite as you planned. When they say “Just add a tablespoon of paprika” and then throw what looks like an entire cup in using their hands, things start to feel a bit tricky.
My biggest bug bear about TV cooking shows these days is that (generally) they don’t actually tell you what you need. There’s no ingredients list, no recap of the recipe – all designed so you have to buy the book or app that’s tied in to the series, or visit the website. I think the only reason to watch cooking on TV is for fun, interest and to get ideas and probably not to learn how to cook. What do you think?
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