on Aug 26th, 2007The culinary revolution
The Weekly Standard has published what I think is a top-notch article about our culture of celebuchefs, from the vaunted to the wannabe vaunted competing on shows such as Top Chef and Hell’s Kitchen. Called Bam! Making Sense of America’s Celebrity Chef Culture, this long article goes beyond criticism of superficial food-related shows and overexposed personalities to examine our perceptions of chefs and how they’ve changed, reaching all the way back to Escoffier. For instance, when culinary genius Daniel Boulud got married his wife’s upper-middle class family felt she was marrying nothing more than a domestic. As for celebrity, Julia Child, we are told, eschewed nearly every effort to promote herself and to be promotable.
How times have changed. Consider this revelation by Chef Bobby Flay, a master instructor at his alma mater, the French Culinary Institute: the question students ask most is how to get their own TV show.
And what would the article be without revisiting Anthony Bourdain’s now-infamous post on fellow chef Michael Ruhlman’s blog, in which he slammed the Food Network and many who appear on it? But The Weekly Standard also got Bourdain’s explanations of why he wrote what he did. The article does not link to that blog post, but I wrote about it and linked to it in March and you can find that here. And Ruhlman’s blog is in my blogroll.
You can follow this link to the excellent Weekly Standard article.
Related: The Network that Emeril Built
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Loved the article from The Weekly Standard - very informative. Thanks for the link. I’ve never understood the Rachael Ray cult and now I like it even less. Giada De Laurentiis was in DC this summer to tape a show and the Washington Post reported all the location errors.
“The lovely Giada De Laurentiis turned heads all over town when she came to D.C. to film a segment of her “Weekend Getaways” show for Food Network. In the final product aired Tuesday night, she:
Described Cafe Atlantico as an Adams Morgan eatery. (Giada, it’s downtown!) At least she got the video right, rolling images of Penn Quarter — while extolling the wonders of Adams Morgan.
Explained that Georgetown is “just outside of D.C.” (Oh, close enough, Giada!)
Rode the escalator out of the Dupont Circle Metro station . . . while carrying a cup of coffee! (Giada, you could get arrested for that!)”
Who does the research on this show?
OMG, thank you for that wonderful but horrible story! Where were the copy editors and fact checkers? Oh, silly me…..
Imagine the horror, though, of the G’town power elite discovering they’re just outside DC. At least they’re still inside the Beltway!
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