Cooking Show Improvements

By Daniel Taverne

Have you ever watched any of those cooking shows where the hosts are so good they don’t have to use utensils to stir their cooking food? Impressed and inspired, I’ve watched many times as they expertly maneuvered their frying pans like culinary Samurais. For some reason though, when ever I try impressing my wife with this skill, I end up having to wipe up the stove, the floor, and (sometimes) even the ceiling. In addition, many times I watched as they confused me with ingredients I never heard of, or couldn’t identify if I wanted to.

It’s for these and other reasons that I believe cooking shows are not meant for the average person. My intention here, therefore, is to let them know where those shows are going wrong, and point out improvements I would make if I had a cooking show of my own.

One thing current cooking shows don’t do, but should, is discuss important food related issues. Sure, most cooking shows will clear up issues like; what type of frying pan, potato masher or knife to use, but seldom to they discuss real issues; issues that we all ponder on a regular basis.

Why, for instance, do people say, “Make me a meat loaf.” But they never say, “Make me a loaf of meat.” Is there some arbitrary rule governing loaf word usage? If there is, nobody knows what it is since, when referring to bread, its` not a bread loaf, it’s a loaf of bread.

Other issues I would discuss are bowls, tubs and sticks. Why do we say, “Tub of butter” when it actually comes in a bowl. Shouldn’t we actually say “bowl of butter”? Speaking of butter, isn’t a stick of butter really just a small butter loaf?

In my cooking show, I would also explore the ins-and-outs of well known food names that make absolutely no sense. The importance of this topic can’t be minimized because too many young people these days are growing up actually believing there are chickens with fingers, and buffalo with wings.

Something else that bothers me is how current cooking shows seem to be mere opportunities for their hosts to show off. That’s right, and they do this while cleverly taunting me with exotic dishes that I never heard of, and by using cooking tools that I can’t find at Wal Mart.

One such tool is what looks like a fancy munchkin baseball bat (all the cooking show hosts have them) and proudly twist pepper from them as if they were twisting something really special. Would I use these on my cooking show? No way! Instead, I would proudly pick up my old fashioned pepper shaker and shake it just like my momma shakes it.

If I had my own cooking show, I would teach how to cook everyday foods that people I know actually eat, and I’d cook them with tools everyone can identify. For example, I’d have shows highlighting the finer points of scrambling eggs with a fork, hot dog boiling in a pot, making and buttering toast with a spoon, as well as proper techniques for popping open a can or bottle of beer with either a finger or a dish towel.

Another idea I have stems from my inability to figure out what their ingredient measurements are for any particular dish. Not only do most of today’s cooking shows omit the measurements, but they also speed through the list of ingredients faster than I can write them down. I am left, therefore, guessing which makes for some interesting finished dishes. For instance, once I had baked a cake that started out normal size, but I put so much baking powder in it that after an hour, it looked like someone stuffed a pillow in my oven.

To prevent problems like this, I would put a new spin on traditional dishes and require only one measurement of each ingredient. With my spaghetti sauce, for instance, I’d begin by informing the audience that ½ cup is the magic measurement, in which case I’d use ½ cup of oregano, parsley, garlic, bay leaves, sugar, pepper and salt. That’s right, ½ cup of each. So what if it tastes a little salty, at least my viewers would be able to keep up with me. Doesn’t this idea sound wonderful?

One last issue current cooking shows don’t cover, that I would cover are all the possible reasons why some people refuse to close resealable food containers that are placed in the refrigerator. For one, I’d touch on ignorant people not knowing the reasons why left over mac-n-cheese aren’t just scraped onto the top rack next to the milk, and I’d discuss lazy people who find it too time consuming and difficult to make that little swiping motion with their fingers. I would even discuss the possibility that a vengeful person could get even with others by making sure the bologna slices either shrivel up like little wafers of bologna jerky, or making sure the bologna taste just like the tuna fish that’s in the bowl beside it.

Finally, as I’ve discussed, today’s cooking shows , although informative, leave much to be desired for the average person. Not only do some of them talk over our heads, but they also taunt us with their beaming confidence. Maybe someday someone like me will come along and put them in there place by producing a cooking show that we all can embrace, one that will show us only those things we need to know, in a language we can understand, and with tools that can actually be found at Wal Mart.