New Food Network shows

It’s going from bad to worse, from dumb to so dumbed-down that culinary illiterates are likely to remain that way. It’s show biz, baby.

The Food Network announced a new slate of shows on Tuesday. The stated goal is to attract more young viewers and as many men as women. As long as they’re young, perhaps 18-to-24. On tap are low-content but, probably most important for FN, high-concept shows, the sort that can be summed up in one line. Some of them read like satire. Try this one on for size:

An aspirational series in which a drug-dealer-turned-chef works with kids who want to be cooks.

Does that have Frank Capra written all over it or what? Are we feeling the love? And how far do you have to look to find a drug dealer who decided cheffery was his true path? The show, by the way, is called The Chef Jeff Project.

You know Alton Brown’s travelogue called Feasting on Asphalt? Upcoming is — I swear — Feasting on Waves. Yep, a nautical version. And we must mark our calendars for a show with the working title of Food Sleuths. It will answer such burning questions as whether chewing gum will adhere to your intestines if you swallow it. I guess that’s more comforting to the target demographic in this election year than Why are prices for food Doritos and Mountain Dew skyrocketing, and what effect is this having on people around the world?

But I’ve saved the best for last. If you saw Season 1 of Bravo’s Top Chef — cable’s most successful food show — you might recall Chef Tom Colicchio asking contestant Miguel “Chunk LeFunk” Morales, who had all but phoned in his part in an elimination challenge, “What does it say on your jacket?”

And Chunk didn’t even have to glance at the embroidered logo. “Top Chef.”
“Not Top Sous Chef,” Colicchio said.
“No, Chef.”

The sell-out, increasingly irrelevant Food Network will offer us Chopped, a show in which people compete to become the nation’s top sous chef.

I’d say wake me when this abomination is over, but I can’t sleep as long as Rip Van Winkle.

For more on the new shows, click on over to Broadcasting & Cable. For a reminder of what food on television used to be like, go here.

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