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I really do love cooking. In fact, I’m one of those people who say they find it therapeutic. It tends to really relax me and take my mind off everything else. For a long time I’ve stuck to the recipes that I grew up with, and it’s only recently that I’ve started to take more risks with my cookery.
Regardless of my own stuck-in-my-ways nature, I do think there are some truly great cookery shows on TV. I must admit that I’ve only ever really followed one of them all the way though. This was the fantastic six-part BBC series which began in August 2009, Economy Gastronomy (presented by Allegra McEvedy and Paul Merret). What I really loved about it was how it showed the cheaper way of cooking, interspersed with a load of genuinely helpful tips about everything from how to use fresh herbs to making the most of the ingredients at the back of your cupboard.
But there are some cooking shows on TV that try to firmly place themselves in the entertainment category, perhaps the most ridiculous of which is Iron Chef. This show, complete with knife-slashing scene changes, a way too dramatic host and white-chocolate-stuffed-quail (amongst other stupid dishes), hides under the guise of being a five-course cook-off between professional chefs when it’s nothing of the sort!
Thankfully, the UK version of Iron Chef, which began in April, was scraped last week due to its very poor ratings. I can only infer that this means people agree with my view that these cooking shows need to have some sort of educative angle! (Although I fail to see where it is in a show like Come Dine With Me, which is apparently popular...)
I’ve also found celebrity chefs to be a bit of a mixed bunch. When they rely too much on their personality over their cooking I’m uninterested in them. Gordon Ramsey is someone who I’m unable to watch; his rude attitude, the fact that he refers to living animals as ingredients and that I once watched a show where he cooked an Indian dish without blending the spices (particularly offending to me as I’ve had an upbringing in Indian food!) certainly don’t make him someone I’d tune in to see. But on the other hand, I find Jamie Oliver very watchable, and entertaining. He seems like a good bloke who just happens to know how to cook well. He’s also very accessible; I think that a lot of what he makes I feel I’d be able to have a go at myself.
I would hope most people agree with me when I say that turning cooking into a contest really isn’t necessary. There’s very little entertainment to be had in watching chefs rush to prepare meals... Cooking is something that is both fun and relaxing; and I prefer it when its representation on television matches how I feel about it in the kitchen.
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