FoodTV as Porn

This month's Harper's magazine has an article entitled "Debbie Does Salad, The Food Network at the frontiers of pronography." The author actually watches most of the well known shows with a veteran of the porn industry and makes rather specific comparisons. Much of its rather silly, such a comparing Giada De Laurantiis squeezing yellow juice out of a lemon to water sports (Sara Moulton is quoted as calling Giada eye candy). There is, however, a fundamental point, which is that most of the shows, like porn, are showing a fantasy experience that you can never replicate. Like porn, making the food is effortless and requires no committment.

I found the article on the whole rather trivial but quite entertaining. Unfortuantely, I know of no way to link to it, so happy hunting in the newstands if you're interested.

Jonah

There is, however, a fundamental point, which is that most of the shows, like porn, are showing a fantasy experience that you can never replicate.

Except I do cook from those shows (though not as much as I used to). Where I'm fairly certain that I never delivered pizza to three excessively made-up women in lingerie who proceeded to...

It is true that the idea of many of these shows, magazines, etc. is not so much that you will actually make what Martha makes for Arbor Day, build the wooden boat in Wooden Boat, etc. as that you will take a few minutes out of your hectic day to fantasize about having the kind of life where you could do such things. But I hardly think they're impossible; the only thing that's impossible is doing everything on Martha's schedule in the same month, without Martha's staff of assistants.

Jonah wrote:There is, however, a fundamental point, which is that most of the shows, like porn, are showing a fantasy experience that you can never replicate.

Mike G wrote:Except I do cook from those shows (though not as much as I used to).

I agree that the cooking is generally quite doable and often well conceived and presented (though in some cases, surely not worth the effort!), but...

I think the "fantasy experience" isn't so much the cooking itself as the social occasion for which the cooking is being done: A difference between many or most of the new era Food TV programmes and other cooking programmes (older Food TV shows, PBS cooking shows) is the use of the conceit of the perfect social event that is employed as a frame for the cooking in the former. The Cyborg show, the Barefoot Contessa and the Chiarello show (others to lesser degrees as well) all spend considerable energy playing up the notion of "cooking as means by which you can impress people." Of course, there's nothing wrong with or unnatural about wanting to do a good job and receive recognition for the good job when one cooks, but I do find the way the Food TV shows play up this aspect of cooking to be more often than not excessive and rather tawdry.

In some real sense, the focus of the show on, for example, Jacques Pépin's series, is just on the cooking, on the process of making good food, whereas on Pseudo-Italian Cooking with Giada Testaccione the focus is on the perception of the food, the social effect of the food... food as expression of one's fantasy of appearing sophisticated and urbane, even if one is just a shallow, status-obsessed, bourgeois, yuppie Streber... oder so etwas...

Again, I don't think there's anything wrong with the idea of wanting to cook well and taking pleasure in having the effort and quality of the result appreciated by others, but at issue here is a question of focus, of priorities, and I do think the new-age cooking shows crucially want the viewers to fantasise about being the centre of attention in the social settings they use as frames for the shows; in a real sense, the fantasy takes precedence over the cooking lesson. On the other hand, with Jacques Pépin, for example, you have to conjure up your own vision of where, when, why and to whom you might want to serve up a well made meal.

I myself never cook for cyborgs...

Antonius

Now, thru the magic of DVR, I've been watching a lot of Jacques Pepin. I would say, on one hand, while he is not nearly as obvious as Gloria in the sense of sociability, he does very much emphasis the creation of meals or even events from his handiwork. On the other hand, his technique is so good, so perfect, so riveting, and of course, he makes everything seem so damn easy, that all it takes is watching one episode, and you are convinced to cook more often. Now, I am constantly on the Condiment Queen: "that's not how to peel a cucumber" or "that's not how Jacques Pepin does it..."

Real food porn, ever watch the Great Chef's series?

Vital Information wrote:Now, thru the magic of DVR, I've been watching a lot of Jacques Pepin. I would say, on one hand, while he is not nearly as obvious as Gloria in the sense of sociability, he does very much emphasis the creation of meals or even events from his handiwork...

Of course, but that's not the point. Pépin's show does not create fictional images intended to draw you into a fantasy, as is done on DeLaurentis' show and others referred to above. Pépin shows you how to make food that tastes and looks good enough for presentation to company, but there's no conceit of him in a given episode, zum Beispiel, getting a special meal ready for his 'sweetie' or putting together a special concept meal together for a night with the 'girls' or 'boys' or whatever.

Who's 'Gloria'?

Antonius

Antonius wrote:
Who's 'Gloria'?

Antonius

Gloria, Giada, tomato, too-mat-o...

I think what you say is true, but Jacques has his moments too. There was a nice line in last week's episode. He made a pasta dish with mussels (one of the few things he's made on Fast Food that looked yech to me), and he puts cheese in it. He goes on to say how tradition be damned he likes it this way. Then, he relates a story about how he and his wife were at a famous Italian restaurant in NYC. His wife asks for cheese with a seafood pasta dish. The chef comes out with ignidation. Who wants cheese. Jacques's wife turns to the chef and sez, "him". The chef, of course knows who him is, and says, "enjoy." OK, I know not quite on point, but a good story!

I think the "fantasy experience" isn't so much the cooking itself as the social occasion for which the cooking is being done

Right, and I think that's the real sociological point here. What these shows and magazines are selling is nostalgia-- something clearest, perhaps, in the case of the now departed MSL imitator Victoria-- the fantasy of the Norman Rockwell or even Dickensian family gathering, talking place in the kind of family where the three siblings didn't move to three different cities and the parents didn't sell the family home and buy a smaller condo and where you have time to make an elaborate feast (time, indeed, to have acquired the skills to make such a feast) without being interrupted by cell phone or Blackberry every ten minutes or having to take Tiny Tim to his physical therapy appointment or pick up Scrooge's second wife at her Curves class.

But none of that resembles porn-- perhaps the one thing in mass media where the fantasies are even more rootless and transient than our lives actually are-- and so it doesn't lend itself to the kind of facile analysis that Harper's can hype on its cover.

Mike G wrote:

I think the "fantasy experience" isn't so much the cooking itself as the social occasion for which the cooking is being done

Right, and I think that's the real sociological point here. What these shows and magazines are selling is nostalgia...
But none of that resembles porn-- perhaps the one thing in mass media where the fantasies are even more rootless and transient than our lives actually are-- and so it doesn't lend itself to the kind of facile analysis that Harper's can hype on its cover.

That's a good point and I won't try to gainsay it at all. The analogy Harper's makes does break down badly at a certain point, as you say, but I think it does work to a limited degree. Maybe it's just at the level that both are dealing with sensual pleasures, that both try to engage their audiences with idealised images, with fantasy, and then in addition that, insofar as we're talking about a certain subset of cooking/entertainment shows, there is the prominent use of 'eye-candy'. I haven't read the Harper piece, so I don't know what they're emphasising, but while I see some justification for the analogy, I don't really think the eye-candy element in cooking shows is all that prevalent. And certainly, the Harper's angle is journalistic sensationalism to a large degree.

Antonius

Have any of you seen the food network canada show "Cook Like a Chef"? The camera movements showing the final plating of each dish are half matrix, half jenna jameson. We get these extreme closeups of individual components and sweeping spiraling shots zooming in on the food from above.

It's very much like something you'd see in porn.

Here, I'll quote from their webpage:

The chefs work 360 degrees around the table moving from cook top to grill to work top. The cameras also work in 360, leaning over the chef's shoulder, peeking into pots, swooping down from overhead. This full access 360 set gives COOK LIKE A CHEF dramatic food shots and intimate access to the chef's secret moves.

The set itself is not a kitchen. It features huge stone walls and prep chefs working the background. The whole thing is enveloped in black drape, cocooning the chef and the harvest table (you really gotta see it), and features a giant framed video projection screen to dramatically capture the extreme close up shots. The lighting is dramatic and the music is funky. In short, this ain't your mama's cookin' show!

I mean come on.

The cameras also work in 360, leaning over the chef's shoulder, peeking into pots, swooping down from overhead.

This is exactly why I stopped watching Food TV. I liked it when it had the about the same pace and production values as Bishop Sheen or John Gnagy.

Mike G wrote:

This is exactly why I stopped watching Food TV. I liked it when it had the about the same pace and production values as Bishop Sheen or John Gnagy.

Boy, there's 2 references you rarely get in conversation anymore. Let alone in the same sentence.

Actually, in college we used to have competitive bouts of pornographic wine writing. It's not much of a leap, and not a terribly sophisticated activity-- a steep and slippery slope straight into Aristocrats territory. But when you're drunk it can be amusing. And if you're drunk and 19, very amusing indeed.

I say, cut out the middleman:

http://www.nakedwithfood.com/

-- Reb

Here's A Typewritten List Of The Original Food Network Show Concepts

The Founding of the Food Network; A 20 Year Perspective

hungryrabbi wrote:I say, cut out the middleman:

http://www.nakedwithfood.com/

-- Reb

That needs a NSFW warning! (and possibly a good anti-virus software)