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January 23rd, 2007 in Food, Popular culture | leave a response

I was participating in a comment thread over at Art’s place and we got on the subject of PBS cooking shows, at least the classic ones from a few years back, versus Food Network cooking shows today. I wanted to recap a little of that discussion here.

We were pining for the days of Justin Wilson and Jeff “The Frugal Gourmet” Smith. I tried, years ago, to get an interview for the Door with Smith, who was a United Methodist minister. I could never get through his staff to get a response.

Personal allegations against Smith effectively ended his career; I won’t repeat them here, and there was never a public resolution one way or the other. In any case, Smith has since passed away.

In any case, I think a lot of us look back fondly on some of those shows. I mentioned that I bought my first garlic press because of seeing Smith use one, and another commenter chimed in and said she did the same thing.

I recalled a show called “Cucina Amore,” originally hosted by chef Nick Stellino (I couldn’t recall his name when I was over at Art’s site), which suddenly, overnight, turned into “The Chefs of Cucina Amore,” with a rotating group of chefs and the late great character actor Vincent Schiavelli as host. I see from the web that the series continued after that, reverting to its original title, with the founders of Carrabba’s Italian Grill as the hosts. I never saw any of their episodes.

Interestingly, IMDb has a listing for “The Chefs of Cucina Amore” but none for the original or later versions.

I also remember a show on bread hosted by an actual monk. (”It’s bread,” he would say, reassuringly. “It’ll forgive you.”)

The PBS cooking shows had a likable calmness to them that the current Food Network cooking shows often lack. Of course, one thing I love about the Food Network shows compared to either the past or current PBS cooking shows is that Food Network puts all of the recipes online, making it easy to look up and print out a recipe while you’re watching the program. The PBS shows usually depend on cookbook sales to help underwrite production costs, and so if there’s a web site at all, it only offers selected recipes. Of course, some of the shows we’ve mentioned predate the web altogether.

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Viewing 2 Comments

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    I didn't realise that Jeff Smith had passed. Thanks for the memories.
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    Thanks, John. That was a good discussion we had going on there. And it came out of the blue really. I hadn't thought about those old PBS cooking shows in a while but, man, I really miss them.

    You mentioned the calmness of the old shows, and I agree, but I think there's more to it. The shows on the Food Network are great but I can never get past the obviousness of the fact that these are, first and foremost, SHOWS.

    BAM! Live Music! Competition! Camera cuts! BAM! Digital effects even...

    The old PBS cooking shows looked almost like home-made videos by comparison. But that's not a bad thing necessarily. They gave me the feeling that I was watching a real person in their kitchen cooking for their family or friends and inviting me along for the experience.

    I learned so much from Jeff Smith and Justin Wilson, especially, and I remember the bread Monk too. There are a few current shows that give me that same feeling: Michael Chiarello's show(s), Rachel Ray, and Anthony Bourdain to name some off the top of my head.

    But I still miss the old guys on PBS.
 

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