| There was recently a spat between a cable company | | | | cooking shows, many of them started to blend |
| in a large city and the provider of some of its channels. | | | | together. Different shows would show variations of |
| Several channels were removed from the cable line | | | | the same dishes with a lot of focus on foods the |
| up, but the one that people were most up in arms | | | | viewer could make at home. There were more shows |
| about losing was the cooking channel. Even people | | | | to choose from, but each needed something to tell it |
| who do not do a lot of cooking themselves love to | | | | apart from the others. |
| watch shows where other people prepare food. | | | | Enter the celebrity chef. The increase in mass media |
| At one point in time, cooking shows were the domain | | | | meant that a review of a restaurant in New York |
| of public television. They usually would find someone | | | | might be read by someone in Los Angeles. The |
| who was a cook book author or who had taught | | | | names of the chefs in these restaurants became as |
| some cooking classes and would give them a show. In | | | | publicized as the restaurants themselves, with the |
| the days before wide spread access to cable | | | | most famous chefs often being associated with |
| television, these shows provided the first glimpse of | | | | several eateries. Most of us will never eat food |
| food from different cultures. One half hour would | | | | personally prepared by any of theses celebrities in |
| feature a guy in a bib apron making Cajun food like | | | | chef coats, but we heard about them and wanted to |
| gumbo and jambalaya. The next half hour would be a | | | | see what they were preparing. Now instead of a little |
| different guy with a heavy accent showing people | | | | known cook in a studio kitchen, shows had a famous |
| what a wok was. After that was a woman making | | | | cook preparing food in front of a studio audience. The |
| Italian dishes she learned from her grandmother. There | | | | great man might not cook for you, but you could follow |
| were not a lot of choices in cooking shows, but there | | | | his example and make his gourmet food in your own |
| was a decent variety in the types of cuisine they | | | | kitchen. |
| presented. | | | | Now cooking shows are evolving again. Sure there are |
| Later cable television became widely available and | | | | still a lot of shows focusing on the preparation of food, |
| now instead of twelve channels, you had forty then | | | | but a number of these are about making fantastical |
| eighty then hundreds of channels to choose from. All | | | | creations instead of things you can make at home. |
| these channels meant more content was needed. | | | | There is also a sharp increase in competition shows |
| Cooking shows were a good, cheap option. There are | | | | which pit chefs against each other or the host against |
| restaurants all over the country with chefs that no one | | | | some foreign food that is considered disgusting by our |
| had ever heard of who could be recruited and put on | | | | culture. It will be interesting to see what comes after |
| television. Networks would take practically anyone in | | | | this extreme cooking fad. |
| chef pants and put them on the air. With so many | | | | |