on Apr 12th, 2008New 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.
Related in this blog: The Network That Emeril Built    Bam! Emeril Live is Cancelled    Marry Me, Bourdain
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Yick! Craptacular line up if I ever saw one. I know it’s a redundancy to say so, but it is a damn shame that FN has gone so far off course. I will just retain my memories of FN past. *dramatic sigh*
I have a new idea for a show - ‘Cooking with Cream of Mushroom Soup’…1001 fabulous (shudder) COM soup recipes for your, and your family’s, dining pleasure.
I don’t feel so good…
Hey, chick! That ‘chefography’ about FN was kind of depressing, with their pooh-poohing the early years as just chefs teaching people how to cook. Freakin’ oy…
They’re darn close to a COM soup show with Semi-Ho!
Hehe..between S-H and the Hyena, I have no doubt. I’ve seen it play out in both arenas.
Haven’t watched the Chefography about FN yet…still waiting for me on the Tivo. Bummer! I thought it might be interesting and informative. Sounds like they went with propagandish (new word?)instead.
Not so much propaganda as spin. When you have Marc Summers talking, condescendingly, about world-class chefs teaching us their techniques and recipes, it’s pretty damn ridiculous.
LMK when you’ve watched it. If you watch closely, you’ll see a couple very fleeting stills of Amy Findlay. Poor thing, go to her show’s page at FN and it says it’s not running and there are no scheduled airings in the future. They so totally didn’t want her.
The heck of it is, one of the new shows is touted as something like an everyday gourmet and I thought, Helloooo? Amy Findlay anyone?
All they want are jerks like that annoying Guy Fiedddddi and I know you like him — sorry — but to me he’s just vapid and loud.
[…] your Seafood: Cookin’ with Coolio In a world where our most revered chef is a nattering, giggling, chainsmoking, Botox-riddled second-rate Mary Richard…, it is heartening at last to find a show featuring someone so singlemindedly dedicated to the […]
Chopped is not a “TOP SOUS CHEF” show it is allegedly a show that has chef’s that are at the turning point in there career where they almost have there own place and are at the top of there game … The casting orginally called for sous chefs but thats not the type of talent that was collected