Harry, you're a writer, are we that type?

Over to 101 Cookbooks,  there is a lively thread going about cooking for beginners. The advice is reasonable, (soups, pastas as opposed to Giacometti sculptures re-created in phyllo, with each limb stuffed with a different forcemeat), but  flabbergasting.  A  remarkable number of commenters suggest beginning by watching one or another program on Food Network, or other TV show. I am a book guy, vocationally and avocationally, but this seems like a pretty dramatic epistemic shift. Are there really people who learn to cook from TV? Not get inspired to do a dish they saw Pepin do, but learn to cook?

Comments

[dubarry]

i cleave unto the notion that the plural of soup is soup. is there really a correct usage for soups? it's so rachel ray. and what about salads? i mean, like salad, but not salads. (sigh).

to some extent i learned to cook from julia child. and believe it or not, that religious pedophile, jeff what's his name. and pierre franey who i was so hot for at like 14. (grandfather complex).

however, on can learn NOTHING on the food channe. it's merely entertainment and has degenerated into a food court rife with jesters. but pbs still delivers servicable cooking shows. let's face it, if you have to learn how to debone a chicken, it's better to watch someone do it.

[dubarry]

you know i believe you could really make a pretty good giacometti out of pate of foie gras with truffles. you know that gras/maigre thing would be really funny.

[JL]

One benefit that tv can have is the chance to actually see someone demonstrate a technique rather than just read about it. Most of the time one doesn't get that chance, as the shows are too thoughtlessly made, or in the case of a really top cook, the technique is too swiftly and flawlessly executed for a beginner to gain any real benefit from witnessing it. A good book, one that really digs deep into ingredients and methods, generally is far preferable.

[BK]

I actually learned a fair amount from TV -- 15 years ago, and when it was a PBS affair. Dubarry's right, that pederast Frugal Gourmet was actually informative. Alas. These days, it's all porn -- and less so cooking than eating porn.

[Rose's Lime]

Agree... technique...

How many people have stood in front o their kitchenaid trouseau and said, "What the fuck does she mean stiff peaks? Coat the back of a spoon? How brown is caramel colored?"

I learned to cook primarily from Julia's highly illustrated "The Way to Cook".

Likewise agree on Food Channel being porn only. We cook a half dozen things from the Naked Chef cookbook on a regular basis, but not a single one was featured on the show.

[Rose's Lime]

Agree... technique...

How many people have stood in front o their kitchenaid trouseau and said, "What the fuck does she mean stiff peaks? Coat the back of a spoon? How brown is caramel colored?"

I learned to cook primarily from Julia's highly illustrated "The Way to Cook".

Likewise agree on Food Channel being porn only. We cook a half dozen things from the Naked Chef cookbook on a regular basis, but not a single one was featured on the show.

[Fesser]

Glad to see this generated some discussion. I'd argue that the way to learn to debone a chicken is to debone a chicken. It is hard to un know what you know, but it seems to me as if stiff peaks and coating a spoon are self-explanatory. I am on the record as being confused by the concept of food porn, though in this case it seems to be the food/sex someone else is having, rather than you. If FN should back off the porn, and do more instructional stuff, does that mean less like Andrew Blake, and more like the Joy of Sex? In that case does that mean that the FN onair talent will have to become more hirsute? In re Giacometti, indeed the gras/maigre would be funny, but I don't see how the thing would stand. I could imagine Giacometti hush puppies, if you dipped a wire armature in batter.