Too many TV cooks..
Have viewers had their fill of celebrity chefs?
WHEN the BBC this week announced new cookery show, Britain’s Best Cook, I felt like reaching for my spiralizer – to use on myself so I didn’t have to watch it.
Of course, I bought a spiralizer, below, because Mary Berry told me to the last time she had a new TV show. I attacked a courgette with it then it went back in the box.
Haven’t we all got enough gadgets we don’t use, celebrity recipe books we don’t read, and unopened jars of spices bought on a whim after Nigella seduced us?
In this latest addition to the TV menu, sorry schedule, Mary is judge and Claudia Winkleman is host. Now the BBC has lost the plum in its pudding, The GreatSpiralizer British Bake Off, it’s not so much a new idea, as a slap in the face for C4, who went off with their (largely empty) Bake Off tent. Oh, and Paul Hollywood.
It seems our appetite for food programmes is larger than ever. But, like a hit record that has been overplayed to the point of irritation, it’s now unpalatable.
We are even fighting over it. When Bake Off left the BBC, fans were practically brawling on social media.
Where years ago a handful of chefs ruled on air – Delia, Fanny, Floyd – now it is getting crowded.
There’s a TV chef to suit every personality: Jamie the campaigner chef; Nigella the saucy chef; Gordon the shouty chef; Mary “I wish she was my granny” Berry (and actually, we do love Mary and her Victoria sponge cakes a lot). So do we really need any more? A quick check of today’s schedules and on the five terrestrial channels alone you have Saturday Kitchen Live, Nadiya’s British Food Adventure, Food & Drink, The Sweet Makers, Gok’s Lunchbox, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA and Chinese Food in Minutes.
It’s more than five-and-a-half hours of viewing, before we look at the other gazillion channels.
Producers found a format that works but are ramming it down our throats until we’re stuffed. There’s MasterChef (the Pros, the Celebs, the Juniors), The Great British Menu, The Hairy Bikers, Rick Stein in (insert latest country here), Jamie Oliver’s 30-Minute Meals, 15-Minute Meals, MoneySaving Meals...
I mean, come on, we’re running out of TV titles. What’s next? James Martin’s Meals on Wheels? Go Gluten-free With Gordon?
The irony is the more hours of cookery shows we are fed, the less we cook and the fatter we get. We are a nation of cookery show addicts but we don’t cook, we sit. Has anyone ever actually stood in their kitchen and followed a recipe as they watched?
OK, sometimes people send photos to Saturday Kitchen but, really, who are these people?
We are more likely to settle down in front of Bake Off: An Extra Slice with a ready meal and a slice of (shop-bought) cake. The shows are no longer aimed at people who cook. It’s purely for entertainment.
There is no arguing it can be entertaining when someone drops a tart on the floor, gets a finger caught in a grinder or serves John Torode a sinking souffle.
But times have changed since we were served up more educational and informative offerings.
Philip Harben started the trend in 1946, with Cookery, showing Britain how to cook on rations.
In the 1950s, Fanny Cradock brought glamour, with thick make-up and bling. Shows such as Fanny’s Kitchen taught housewives how to jazz up their food.
Delia Smith appeared in the 1970s and held the apron strings for years. If she wagged a finger and told us to use Maris Pipers for our roasties, we damn well did. In the 1980s, Keith Floyd gave us a new type of show, cooking in odd locations, with wine glass in hand.
Things got competitive in the 1990s with Loyd Grossman presenting MasterChef, and Ready Steady Cook with Ainsley Harriott.
Then, in 2010, the bunting-clad Bake Off sent us all into raptures. It was the ultimate, polite British talent show and we ate it up.
But now it is all a competition. We just watch the chefs/celebs/ home cooks compete as we sit guiltily, and a bit left out, on the sofa scoffing biscuits. Well, it does all make you feel rather hungry.
Don’t get me wrong, we love a “journey” and the joy of a threetiered showstopper but maybe we can have too much of a good thing before the magic is lost. Anyone up for a cookery show detox?