While so many tv genres have seen their time come and go, food shows have stayed popular and relevant since Julia Child and her TV program. Even now, as countless new forms of entertainment arise, food shows still have massive followings. This begs the question: why are these shows so popular? These shows are popular because they resonate with the culture in which they were founded. Specifically, each show has attributes that their culture values. For example, cooking shows, like Barefoot Contessa, prepare traditional, or well-known, foods of the show’s founding country in new ways. Other food shows, like Top Chef and The Great British Bake off, use competition – a reality TV of sorts – to connect with the culture that watches the show. Through
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Owing to the fact that the contestants receive 15 minutes, the chefs focus on the overall delivery and taste of their food, not so much the detail. Also, they focus on the time they have and the implications of that time. For instance, taking in the restraint of time, they shouldn’t waste their time on making things uniform and making the details ornate. Kwame makes ‘Egg Bhurgi’; while the judge comments on the delicious taste, the hurried construction of the food is immediately obvious as the camera zooms in on his final product (Breakfast, Baby!, 2016). Eggs are thrown recklessly on the plate and the sauce is messily applied. Even though the plate is a mess, the chef ignores that fact by only mentioning the taste of his creation. Continuing, they don’t have the time to experiment with new recipes, so they fall back on classics thereby dismissing the approach taken above where contestants of the Great British Bake Off play with and modify classic recipes. It’s important to note that, as Robin Fox (n.d.) attributes, “The American melting pot is almost literally that: the food preferences of dozens of nations are put side by side, and there cannot help but be overlap and mixing.” (p. 2) While the contestants fall back on classics, this is not necessarily from their specific culture, but American culture overall since the culture is a ‘melting pot’ so to speak. Because of the time constraint, the chefs pull from these classic recipes to create a quick meal, as they care mainly about the final product. Top Chef, and subsequently American culture, is only about the finished product, and the time it takes for the food to
Owing to the fact that the contestants receive 15 minutes, the chefs focus on the overall delivery and taste of their food, not so much the detail. Also, they focus on the time they have and the implications of that time. For instance, taking in the restraint of time, they shouldn’t waste their time on making things uniform and making the details ornate. Kwame makes ‘Egg Bhurgi’; while the judge comments on the delicious taste, the hurried construction of the food is immediately obvious as the camera zooms in on his final product (Breakfast, Baby!, 2016). Eggs are thrown recklessly on the plate and the sauce is messily applied. Even though the plate is a mess, the chef ignores that fact by only mentioning the taste of his creation. Continuing, they don’t have the time to experiment with new recipes, so they fall back on classics thereby dismissing the approach taken above where contestants of the Great British Bake Off play with and modify classic recipes. It’s important to note that, as Robin Fox (n.d.) attributes, “The American melting pot is almost literally that: the food preferences of dozens of nations are put side by side, and there cannot help but be overlap and mixing.” (p. 2) While the contestants fall back on classics, this is not necessarily from their specific culture, but American culture overall since the culture is a ‘melting pot’ so to speak. Because of the time constraint, the chefs pull from these classic recipes to create a quick meal, as they care mainly about the final product. Top Chef, and subsequently American culture, is only about the finished product, and the time it takes for the food to