We Need More TV Chefs To Teach Food Basics

Here at Blisstree, we’ve railed a time or two about how unhealthy much of the fare is on TV cooking shows and segments (1,200-calorie-per-serving eggs benedict, anyone?). Why don’t more TV chefs teach basic food preparation (using basic, nutritious food)?  Most of us will go to a restaurant if we want eggs Benedict, but we could stand to learn how to prepare kale, or fish, or combine grains and a few herbs in a pinch to make it tasty.

But very few TV chefs cater to that. Why not? The popularity of sites like Big Girls Small Kitchen (which focuses on simple, fresh meals for novice cooks) or the new cookbook Kitchen Counter Cooking School shows there is a need or desire out there for basic cooking instruction. In general, Americans today seem at a loss for how to cook simple, healthy meals. We can throw together this prepared food and that to make a pretty elaborate ‘homemade’ meal, but when it comes to veggies, many people tend to stick to the types they grew up with, prepared in the same bland ways they’re used to.

Do shows reject teaching basic cooking because nobody actually makes anything from television cooking shows anyway ? We’ve all had friends (or been that girl ourselves) who’ve been quite devoted viewers of the Food Network while rarely picking up a spatula. Watching TV chefs whip up meals has become entertainment, or perhaps a kind of aspirational activity, for a lot of people, but not really a means to actually learning to cook (the Food Network’s rising star must mean some people do actually cook recipes from these shows, but I haven’t once met any of them). But if people watch food shows for the personalities and the idea of cooking these meals anyway—if the food itself is secondary—then why should it matter much what is being cooked? Let’s get some very charismatic, good-looking chefs on TV—set them up in pretty places, give them a slew of quirky neighbors to invite over for dinner parties a la Ina—and have them teach basic veggie, meat and fish preparation.

Maybe we are beginning to see a shift. I feel like I’ve seen more magazine pages devoted to what to do with squash, or three ways to use turnips, things like that. Nicki Anderson, writing for the Naperville Sun newspaper about her recent visit to the Food Network’s NYC Wine and Food Festival, says she came away from the event with “the reminder that getting back to basics with cooking may be the best way to create a healthy, satisfying meal.”

“As I walked through the aisles of the festival, I discovered that a lot of the chefs also are getting back to basics with cooking. They are opting to buy their produce locally (less carbon imprint) and making incredible meals from various foods we can easily find at our local grocery store or farmstand.”

So maybe TV chefs are shifting. And maybe some have tried this, and it just hasn’t done well (I’m far from a TV cooking show aficionado).

But the majority of popular TV cooking shows, food segments, or magazine ‘30 Nights of Dinners’ articles are still dish- or meal-based. And this is a problem, I think. It makes cooking dinner for yourself and your family seem like something that requires lots of preparation (in terms of planning; even if the meal prep itself is simple), a list of specific ingredients and very precise following of instruction. But cooking fresh food doesn’t have to mean following specific recipes or being a master meal planner! People would probably be a lot less likely to run out for restaurant food if they simply knew how to throw together fresh meals with whatever vegetables, grains and spices they had on hand (or were on sale at the supermarket, or are available at the farmer’s market, that week).

Would you watch cooking shows that focused on basics?

Photo: Time