The food show reality: Chefs become more warriors than cooks

BY SHELLEY FRALIC, VANCOUVER SUN JULY 6, 2011  

Dial the television knob back a few decades and the world of cooking shows was but a tiny planet. The French Kitchen with Julia Child. The Galloping Gourmet with Graham Kerr. The Frugal Gourmet with Jeff Smith. Wok with Yan with Vancouver-based Stephen Yan. A handful of gifted, animated chefs turning out mostly exotic fare, and that was about it.

It's hard to believe, given that today there are not only entire channels, like the Food Network, devoted to roundthe-clock cooking shows, but dozens of once-unknown chefs who have become so famous that, like Cher, many have achieved rock-star status, recognized by their first names only -Emeril, Paula, Gordon, Rachael, Duff, Nigella, Guy, Giada, Alton, Jamie, Ina, Bobby.

So exalted have these cooks become that many spend more time hosting and judging other cooks, and finding new talent, than they actually do cooking. Bobby Flay, for instance, whips up German chocolate cake for his Throwdown series and is a restaurateur but is currently devoted to discovering the Next Food Network Star.

Alton Brown is as renowned for hosting Iron Chef America as he is for his popular Good Eats show. British chef Gordon Ramsay, the irascible, exacting Simon Cowell of the culinary world, has numerous international restaurants attached to his name, but also hosts half a dozen shows that range from rescuing failing restaurants to choosing master chefs from among rank amateurs. Giada De Laurentiis does a sweet turn on Giada At Home but pulls no punches as a roving Food Network judge.

Modern chefs have always been venerated, especially among foie gras snobs, though mostly in an only-James-Beardhas-access way. All those Michelin stars, Zagat nods and Grand Chef Relais and Chateaux honours mean little to the average burger lover, but to wannabe gourmands they are like Oscars.

So, when small screen cooking first hit our radar back in the 1960s, most of the shows on tap were designed to teach by example that which the great unwashed could not do when cooking with gas, whether it was demonstrating basic cooking skills for the harried postwar housewife or upping the game of the socialite trying to impress at the dinner party.

And then along came reality television, and the gloves came off, as the genre's intrusive cameras began doing for the TV chef what it has done for the Kardashians, generating far more interest in what goes on in the back of the house than in the offerings out front.

Reality television being what it is -that is, the more conflict and tension and drama, the better -has meant that Martha Stewart's cheery learn-by-rote instruction for a dainty hors d'oeuvre has given way to all-out culinary war, as challenges and contests and cookoffs pit pros against amateurs, amateurs against amateurs and Iron Chefs against Iron Chefs.

Which means it's not enough any more to show the viewer how to make a birthday cake, not when back-biting bakers and sweaty-browed breakdowns can be part of the recipe. It's not enough to barbecue baby back ribs in the backyard, not when the smoking of a brisket can be turned into a 24-hour parking lot rodeo of raging testosterone, where sauces are family secrets and braggadocio is the chief ingredient.

If it seems like conflict has redefined cooking on cable, the proof is in the schedule: Cupcake Wars. Hell's Kitchen. 24 Hour Restaurant Battle. Chefs vs. City. Chopped. Food Feuds. Food Network Challenge. Iron Chef. Ultimate Recipe Showdown.

It's an ethic, of course, that has infiltrated reality television across the dial, whether the battles are about building decks or losing weight, street krumping or decorating man caves, finding a mate or singing one's pants off in front of millions of judges.

And the stakes are high: not just industry bragging rights, but trophies and big paydays, fame and fortune, and, as with The Next Food Network Star, a show of one's own.

One of the best in the food wars is Master Chef, a British spinoff currently in its second season. Hosted and co-produced by Ramsay, it showcases the self-taught culinary skills of regular folks, like realtors and single moms, students and truck drivers. The timed challenges -individual, team and "mystery box" -are as tough as the judges, which include Ramsay, and the result is a compelling mix of ego and emotion.

In other words, perfect reality television and as unapologetically watchable as the genre gets.

And then there's Top Chef Canada, an equally addictive spinoff of its U.S. counterpart, which cast 16 of the country's best regional chefs against one other in a series of difficult challenges and was won Monday night by Vancouver's own Dale MacKay.

MacKay, who beat Connie DeSousa of Calgary and Rob Rossi of Toronto in the final, recently opened his own Vancouver restaurant, ensemble. As executive chef of the vaunted but now shuttered Lumiere, and a protege of chef superstars Ramsay and Daniel Boulud, Mac-Kay knows a thing or two about haute cuisine, and about stress and drama.

The latter were definitely on tap in Top Chef Canada, and are clearly the go-to ingredients for this new generation of cooking shows.

On Monday, MacKay held a fundraising celebration with family and friends at his restaurant - a dinner, just so you don't forget what it's all about, that included lobster salad, black cod, stuffed quail and pineapple souffle - and on Tuesday afternoon, the newly crowned top chef was already on the ground in Toronto for more press, and more celebration.

MacKay acknowledged that the series, filmed over six weeks last summer, was pressure-cooker gruelling, but that all that drama makes for great television.

"I love cooking shows, but I'm not a big fan of watching someone stand there and chop. These shows are so exciting and captivating and you get to see the personalities."

And there's also gold in them thar food fights: Not only has MacKay's win brought his talents and his restaurant more exposure, it came with a cheque for $100,000 and a $30,000 high-tech kitchen.

Just imagine Julia Child in a duck battle with Jean-Georges Vongerichten.

fralic@vancouversun.com

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