Molto Mario says arrivederci to Food Network

Food Network says they won't rerun Molto Mario anymore, Mario tells them to stuff it.

What's more intriguing is that he's also filming a PBS series with Gweneth Patrow

That's a shame, and one more nail in the Food Network coffin.
What have we got left in cooking there? Giada, RaeRay, Emeril, Paula and the Semi-Ho. I can't stand the latter two, and I don't learn anything from the first two. There's a couple of newbies that don't seem to have the chops for prime time or weekend afternoons, but I'm losing my enthusiasm for this channel.

I still watch the Food Network, but I think it has gone downhill dramatically over the years. The emphasis seems to have turned to "how many dishes can I throw together in 30 minutes" and "how can I make cooking easy enough for a 5th grader." Given the Food Network's leaning, I can see how they would not have room for serious chefs like Mario Batali -- what a shame . . . he's always been one of my favorites.

I like Alton Brown, Mario and Sara Moulton because I actually think I learn something by listening to them.

I am currently reading Bill Buford's Heat, where he apprentices in Batali's kitchen at Babbo. It is apparent that he is a great talent who is passionate about Italian food in its many regional forms. It's a damned shame that FN is getting rid of Mario. I hope they will continue to show Molto Mario in the mornings. They still do show Sara Moulton, so that gives me hope to seeing him still. Alton Brown is still my favorite, so here's hoping they keep renewing "Good Eats"

Sharona

FN's loss, not that I give a damn about FN anymore.

FWIW, Serious Eats reports that Mario says the Post article is in error... he's not leaving Iron Chef. Whether that's simply for the moment, however, isn't clear.

Old episodes of Molto have been picked up by the Fine Living Channel, which I understand is another channel under the same ownership as FN.

Here's hoping he bolts for greener pastures.

I think the big problem for Food Network and the other network genres is that they are following the path of the big networks with games and contests. I like the educational shows, but as the get flashy I get bored.

Bruce wrote:I think the big problem for Food Network and the other network genres is that they are following the path of the big networks with games and contests. I like the educational shows, but as the get flashy I get bored.

This, I could forgive if the educational shows were still educational. But I think BR has it exactly right. The "education" has been dumbed down to such a ridiculous level that the channel's become totally useless.

This is all a classic case of "Who's zoomin' who?" Mario is too big for the Food Network because they don't get his authenticity, but yet Mario is doing food shows with Gwyneth Paltrow (yes!) as if she lends any authenticity to food. What diet was she following last? The anti-microbial?

I shed no tears for Mario.

If they dumped Rosengarten and Ash, they'll dump Mario and we'll be subjected to some poorly scripted special on how Chef Boyardee Ravioli is made in its place.

Honestly, I used to be completely hooked on FN. I rarely watch it anymore.

Dmnkly wrote:This, I could forgive if the educational shows were still educational. But I think BR has it exactly right. The "education" has been dumbed down to such a ridiculous level that the channel's become totally useless.

Except for Alton Brown. Between Good Eats, Feasting on Asphalt and his commentary on Iron Chef he teaches more than the rest of the schedule combined (wait, that almost is more time than the rest of the schedule combined).

JoelF wrote:

Dmnkly wrote:This, I could forgive if the educational shows were still educational. But I think BR has it exactly right. The "education" has been dumbed down to such a ridiculous level that the channel's become totally useless.

Except for Alton Brown. Between Good Eats, Feasting on Asphalt and his commentary on Iron Chef he teaches more than the rest of the schedule combined

Wait a second. Last night I flipped to the food network to find Sandra Lee showing me how to put orange sauce on a frozen sara lee cheesecake and then how to put cool whip and vodka into a cup of coffee. Now that's education!

eatchicago wrote:

JoelF wrote:

Dmnkly wrote:This, I could forgive if the educational shows were still educational. But I think BR has it exactly right. The "education" has been dumbed down to such a ridiculous level that the channel's become totally useless.

Except for Alton Brown. Between Good Eats, Feasting on Asphalt and his commentary on Iron Chef he teaches more than the rest of the schedule combined

Wait a second. Last night I flipped to the food network to find Sandra Lee showing me how to put orange sauce on a frozen sara lee cheesecake and then how to put cool whip and vodka into a cup of coffee. Now that's education!

Was it instant coffee?

I just console myself with the thought that we're in the last little moment of television in which it makes financial sense to make food shows for people who can't cook, and soon it will be video on demand and those of us who can cook will have cooking shows we support directly, cutting out the useless, braindead FTV middleman.

Dmnkly wrote:This, I could forgive if the educational shows were still educational. But I think BR has it exactly right. The "education" has been dumbed down to such a ridiculous level that the channel's become totally useless.

Many people in my generation and younger do not know how to cook, and fewer than 1/3 of American households are even making meals from scratch. The shows on Food Network that you believe are "dumbed down" aren't meant for us foodies that love to cook; they are for the 2/3 of American households that buy convenience packages in at their local supermarket and want to dress them up a little so they can serve a decent meal to their family without spending a whole lot of time in the kitchen.

While I do hate Sandra Lee and Rachael Ray's shows, I recognize that I am not their target audience. Like any other station, the Food Network does not air 100% Fujisan-approved shows. When I buy my own TV station, I will air only shows that I like on it. Until then, I watch the few shows that I like on each station and ignore the rest.

Fujisan wrote:

Dmnkly wrote:This, I could forgive if the educational shows were still educational. But I think BR has it exactly right. The "education" has been dumbed down to such a ridiculous level that the channel's become totally useless.

Many people in my generation and younger do not know how to cook, and fewer than 1/3 of American households are even making meals from scratch. The shows on Food Network that you believe are "dumbed down" aren't meant for us foodies that love to cook; they are for the 2/3 of American households that buy convenience packages in at their local supermarket and want to dress them up a little so they can serve a decent meal to their family without spending a whole lot of time in the kitchen.

While I do hate Sandra Lee and Rachael Ray's shows, I recognize that I am not their target audience. Like any other station, the Food Network does not air 100% Fujisan-approved shows. When I buy my own TV station, I will air only shows that I like on it. Until then, I watch the few shows that I like on each station and ignore the rest.

I have to disagree, Fujisan.

I completely understand programming for those who don't know how to cook. But there's a HUGE difference between educating at a very basic level, and pandering to kitchen fears. FoodTV used to do the former. You could be a total idiot in the kitchen, but FN shows used to educate and sought to turn you into a better cook. The new shows do nothing of the kind. The new shows embrace the ridiculous notion that real cooking is simply too hard and too time-consuming for the average person. It has nothing to do with the skill of their audience. They've abandoned education in favor of embracing the LCD. Big difference.

Mike G wrote:I just console myself with the thought that we're in the last little moment of television in which it makes financial sense to make food shows for people who can't cook, and soon it will be video on demand and those of us who can cook will have cooking shows we support directly, cutting out the useless, braindead FTV middleman.

That sounds like the model for the ever expanding rouxbe.com

Dmnkly wrote:

Fujisan wrote:

Dmnkly wrote:This, I could forgive if the educational shows were still educational. But I think BR has it exactly right. The "education" has been dumbed down to such a ridiculous level that the channel's become totally useless.

Many people in my generation and younger do not know how to cook, and fewer than 1/3 of American households are even making meals from scratch. The shows on Food Network that you believe are "dumbed down" aren't meant for us foodies that love to cook; they are for the 2/3 of American households that buy convenience packages in at their local supermarket and want to dress them up a little so they can serve a decent meal to their family without spending a whole lot of time in the kitchen.

While I do hate Sandra Lee and Rachael Ray's shows, I recognize that I am not their target audience. Like any other station, the Food Network does not air 100% Fujisan-approved shows. When I buy my own TV station, I will air only shows that I like on it. Until then, I watch the few shows that I like on each station and ignore the rest.

I have to disagree, Fujisan.

I completely understand programming for those who don't know how to cook. But there's a HUGE difference between educating at a very basic level, and pandering to kitchen fears. FoodTV used to do the former. You could be a total idiot in the kitchen, but FN shows used to educate and sought to turn you into a better cook. The new shows do nothing of the kind. The new shows embrace the ridiculous notion that real cooking is simply too hard and too time-consuming for the average person. It has nothing to do with the skill of their audience. They've abandoned education in favor of embracing the LCD. Big difference.

I agree with both of you, but I have to separate Sandra Lee from Rachael Ray. While I can't stand to watch Ray-Ray because I find her so grating, I do think she is attempting to both reach the target audience identified by Fujisan and assuage their fears not only about cooking but about what they eat. I watched one episode in which she re-created her grandfather's favorite pasta dish where the main ingredient consisted of lots of sardines. I thought she did an admirable job of trying to talk your average viewer who would normally blech at the idea of sardines into trying the dish. Will I get anything from her? No. But, then again, I'm not her target audience.

Sandra Lee, on the other hand, does exactly what Dmnkly says. Even her intro - which states something like - "but it takes so much work" [to entertain with homemade food], panders to your average home non-cook's fears. Her use of frozen and/or packaged foods when fresh is just as easy and tastes better is atrocious. I do note, however, that Sandra Lee is cooking and slicing and dicing more than when she first came on the network. So I think there was a response in her camp to be less dogmatic about using store-bought ingredients because they were making her show a laughingstock.

I just have to rant about Mario for a moment - I lost all respect for him ever since he's taken up the war with bloggers and started schlepping around with celebrities. There's an inherent inconsistency for Mario to, on the one hand, pick on bloggers because they dare have opinions that others are interested in, but on the other hand, do a cooking show with Gwyneth Paltrow who, not so long ago, was on a restrictive macrobiotic diet. (I think I recall reading somewhere that he was touting her wine palate as being superior, even though not too long ago, wine was verboten in Gwynnie's diet.) So let me get this right - Mario is okay with celebrities with shaky food credentials talking about food, but if you're a regular person who patronizes his restaurant and blogs about it, you can take a hike? Sounds like his ego has grown bigger than his girth.

Several points:

1) The "old style" cooking show that was the original programming of the TV Food Network has a very limited appeal to the overwhelming majority of people. Food TV, like every other network, is competing for a limited number of cable slots and has to draw viewers.

2) For the 75% of people NOT cooking from scratch, I hardly think that watching Emeril, Mario, and the like is going to draw them into the kitchen. While they are fine chefs, their recipes require a skill level that is far beyond what the average home meal preparer can handle.

3) I rarely see anything on ANY cooking show that really addresses what most people need - techniques on how to prepare a good NUTRITIOUS meal quickly.

jlawrence01 wrote:Several points:

1) The "old style" cooking show that was the original programming of the TV Food Network has a very limited appeal to the overwhelming majority of people. Food TV, like every other network, is competing for a limited number of cable slots and has to draw viewers.

Strongly disagree. The whole Emeril phenomenon was exactly this... pulling a mass audience into the world of real cooking. Watch Emeril's early shows and Rachael Ray's early shows. WORLD of difference, yet both, as marketing tools, were massive successes.

jlawrence01 wrote:2) For the 75% of people NOT cooking from scratch, I hardly think that watching Emeril, Mario, and the like is going to draw them into the kitchen. While they are fine chefs, their recipes require a skill level that is far beyond what the average home meal preparer can handle.

Eh... perhaps. But I'm not convinced. Some of their recipes, certainly, but I think it's less a matter of ability and more a matter of confidence on the part of the audience. I think your average home meal preparer is far more capable than he or she believes. But whereas the old shows would say, "look, this is easy, you can do it and this is how" the new shows say, "you know what, that's just too hard, do this instead." And attitude aside, it seems to me that most of these "easier" recipes aren't actually easier. Your average Sandra Lee concoction is actually more complicated than roasting a chicken, or baking some fish in foil, or making a simple stir-fry.

jlawrence01 wrote:3) I rarely see anything on ANY cooking show that really addresses what most people need - techniques on how to prepare a good NUTRITIOUS meal quickly.

I agree that there is a gap that needs to be filled here. I think the problem is that if you categorized these shows as "more complicated for capable cooks", "real, simple, nutritious cooking that anybody can do" and "dumbed-down premade pseudo recipes", you used to have plenty of the first two, but the third has now almost completely crowded out the other two.

This isn't a matter of some great societal wrong. These people aren't evil. They can program however they damn well please. It's just that it's both unfortunate and, I believe, unnecessary.

Your average Sandra Lee concoction is actually more complicated than roasting a chicken, or baking some fish in foil, or making a simple stir-fry.

You know the old saying: teach a woman to bake a fish, and you've fed her family forever. Show her how to make a fish casserole out of frozen vegetables, fish sticks and pop-up crescent rolls, and you've fed her family once, because they'll sure never eat that shit a second time.

A bit off-topic - Paula Deen has replaced both Sandra Dee and Ray-Ray as my MHFNP (TM) ["Most Hated Food Network Personality"]. Is she trying to make a brand of Southern White Trash? Everytime I watch Paula's Party, I'm appalled by the night-stalker makeup job and the talking while her mouth is stuffed with cake.

What's more, she appears to be supplanting Sandra Lee in the semi-ho department (in more ways than one). Everytime I turn around, she's using store-bought pie crust or boxed gelatin to make a pie. It's like she peeked into Sandra's studio, and decided that she should adopt what the competition is doing. So, yes, the FN has become a circus of non-cooks with "personalities."

Strangely, I've taken to feeling a tad (just a tad) sorry for Sandra Dee. Everytime she dresses in costume on her show or shows off her clearly non-existent knife skills, the whole schtick seems a bit desperate. She clearly has the least slickly produced show of them all.

And then there's Ina Garten, off to the side, doing her Jewish Hamptons thang, proudly alienating the FN red-state base by throwing parties for every gay florist in Sagapanack. I love that her show is still regularly aired, yet she seems to have zero involvement in any FN activities. She's like the person at work who is promoted to vice president even though she refuses to attend the company Christmas party.

I agree whole heartedly about Paula Deen -- I swear her accent has gotten thicker (or perhaps she's shouting because she has hearing problems? don't want to start rumors, but it might explain) to the point where I can't bear having the show on.

The show that FN desperately needs to return to is Sara Moulton's one where she cooked, live, and took callers at the same time! If you can show a meal being made in 30 (or was it 60) minutes, while talking on the phone that should be exactly what should bring in the ad revenue.

There's still a decent amount of cooking on Saturday mornings, that appears to be the try-out slot. I don't need to watch any more competition shows with random chef wanna-be's, but I'll watch reruns of Michael Chiarello, Mario, even Essence of Emeril.

JoelF wrote:I don't need to watch any more competition shows with random chef wanna-be's, but I'll watch reruns of Michael Chiarello, Mario, even Essence of Emeril.

You can't tell me that you're not the least bit excited about The Next Iron Chef America? The marketing sass of The Next Food Network Star combined with actual talent like in Top Chef. And then throw Ruhlman into the mix? Come on. No brainer.

I saw the new Latina Semi-Ho during a "Feasting on Asphalt" commercial break. She had this great recipe that I can't wait to try:

- dredge chicken strips in flour
- dunk chicken strips in melted butter. hey ! there goes the flour !
- cover chicken strips in coarsly broken potato chips. I guess you'll be getting your RDA of salt along w/ that chicken.
- bake until 'golden brown' and 'crunchtastic'

barftastic, more like.

And then there's Ina Garten, off to the side, doing her Jewish Hamptons thang, proudly alienating the FN red-state base by throwing parties for every gay florist in Sagapanack. I love that her show is still regularly aired, yet she seems to have zero involvement in any FN activities. She's like the person at work who is promoted to vice president even though she refuses to attend the company Christmas party.

I literally almost s*hit my pants when I read this quote...

Though I always liked Mario on Iron Chef, I never felt his show was very informative or entertaining. Can't say I'm crying over its cancellation, though Mario would be 4th or 5th in line at worst on my cancellation list...Paula Dean is horrible.

Bster

I think one of the great challenges with cooking shows is striking the balance between teaching people how to cook, and teaching people how to make one elaborate meal. This is where Sandra Lee comes in, and disgracefully propagates the notion that cooking is jsut far too difficult for anyone except June Cleaver and gosh darnit, who has that kind of time?

This is where I think Alton Brown is pure genius (ok, there are more areas where I consider him genius, actually, but anyway)- he not only teaches you how to make one recipe, he REALLY explains the ingredients, why they work the way they do, and gives people enough knowledge to take the main ingredient in any given episode and work with it beyond a given recipe.

sweetsalty wrote:I think one of the great challenges with cooking shows is striking the balance between teaching people how to cook, and teaching people how to make one elaborate meal. This is where Sandra Lee comes in, and disgracefully propagates the notion that cooking is jsut far too difficult for anyone except June Cleaver and gosh darnit, who has that kind of time?

And as long as it looks pretty and there's plenty of booze around, who cares?

This isn't a matter of some great societal wrong. These people aren't evil.

Hey, if we're going to regard the fast food companies as evil for selling what people want, then why not FoodTV for peddling the notion that real cooking is too hard and crap-assembly is as good as cooking?

Mike G wrote:

This isn't a matter of some great societal wrong. These people aren't evil.

Hey, if we're going to regard the fast food companies as evil for selling what people want, then why not FoodTV for peddling the notion that real cooking is too hard and crap-assembly is as good as cooking?

I don't

(But that's another subject)

For me, all of these folks had potential at one point or at least entertainment value. But I think there's an evil marketing machine at work at the Food Network that takes someone who is a unique person with an interesting and real point of view and then they push some sort of button on them which transforms them into UBER TV CHEF!!!! The "nth" degree of themselves, so to speak. Look at Rachael Ray (yeah..it's hard, i know). Her early shows weren't so darn bad. Seriously. She was herself and that was entertaining ... but then the marketing force made her into RACHAEL RAY!!!! and she is so hard to watch now that I simply can't stand it. I mean...i used to watch her because she did have some interesting meals, made from real food, that weren't bad. But now....it's just horrific. The last time she was on Letterman she literally did not look at Dave the entire time she was on the show -- she played completely to the audience and camera and didn't even acknowledge his presence other than spewing her shtick to his questions. It was appalling.

And Paula Dean...oh, man. That's a travesty. I think she was actually charming in her first year. But now...she's this horrible plasticized version of herself -- the exaggerated accent, the constant appearance of her drugged husband, the two boys who wait on her like princes in waiting. It's icky.

Emeril is a shadow of his former self. His earliest show where he cooked in the white kitchen? That was a fine little show. You learned something, you enjoyed it, you wanted to cook more creole and cajun. But now...the cult of Emeril literally turns my stomach. Which is the opposite effect that the Food TV folks want.

Alton Brown has escaped their clutches -- probably because he's too smart. Plus he gets to do what he likes, like riding a motorcycle around the country eating yummy things. How's that for a job? Mario's shows were always amusing and he has "star quality" which doesn't really repeat itself. And how many times has he lost on Iron Chef? Hardly ever! He's got the cheffy chops plus the ultimate entertainment twofer -- humor and intelligence. It's why I like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert too.

I used to watch this channel religiously but honestly....I'm just bored now. And if anyone of you are Buffy fans...you'll know how bad that can be.

And what's with all the stunt shows? The guy who tries to learn to be a barista in 36 hours so he can compete against the best baristas in the world? And why must we endure 27 contest shows every month?
The Food Network Challenge of Mac and Cheese??????

Who thinks UP this stuff?

And it's appalling because they're obviously doing well. PT Barnum's theorem lives, I guess.