Yesterday’s cooking shows, today’s porn

Something disturbing is happening in TV land, and it’s happening in the world of cooking… Something disturbing is happening in TV land, and it’s happening in the world of cooking shows, once the staid domain of chefs like Julia Child and Jacques Pepin. Julia brought French cooking (and a lot of French wine drinking while on the air) to the masses while Jaques was terrifyingly handy with a big sharp knife and a whole raw chicken, but that’s as racy as things got. No crazy, MTV-style camera angles, and definitely no cleavage, just good, old-fashioned instructions about the mother sauces and home butchering.

Turn on the Food Network these days, and you’ll find that there’s very little cooking going on. Instead, there are shows like Rachael Ray’s “Inside Dish,” “Tasty Travels” and “$40 a Day.” There are shows like “Iron Chef,” food turned into an arena sport and a bevy of specials about cooking contests like the Pillsbury Bake-off.

These travel shows and sports-like competitions that now take up more airtime than actual cooking shows on the Food Network tell me that the channel isn’t about teaching people to cook anymore. It’s more about food-based entertainment.

Look at the actual cooking shows that are still on the air. Most of them, like “Everyday Italian” with Giada De Laurentis and Rachael Ray’s “30-Minute Meals” focus more on putting a meal on the table in as short a time as possible. This means that there is more emphasis on the ingredients than actual cooking techniques.

When there is cooking going on, watch the camera angles and the way the sound is done. The clink and slurp of eggs as they’re beaten is very, well, loud. And almost sensual, or at least as sensual as eggs can be. There are long, lingering shots of a soup being slowly stirred, or raspberry puree being poured over ice cream. Never mind that the host of the show recommends you buy the ice cream at the grocery store and the raspberries were frozen. It’s the visual that counts.

You’re probably beginning to see where I’m going with this. That’s right, food is the new porn.

Now, you’re probably thinking, wait a minute, if food was the new porn, then wouldn’t we be seeing a slew of cooking show hosts with overinflated chests and too-dark lipliner? If food is the new porn, how do cooks like Mario Batali and Ina Gartner, both a bit on the plump side (as good cooks often are), still have jobs? True, Rachael Ray and Giada aren’t too hard on the eyes – Ray even did a photo shoot for the men’s magazine FHM a couple of years back. In general, though, Food Network hosts aren’t a bunch of underwear models with spatulas.

So while there may be a slight trend toward more camera-friendly cooking show hosts, they are not the porn stars in this analogy. Remember, I said food is the new porn, not food show hosts.

We are, more overtly than ever, fetishizing both food and lifestyle. George Costanza, in one of my favorite “Seinfeld” episodes, was a man ahead of his time. His desire to consume a pastrami sandwich on rye while spending quality time with his lady friend and watching television is not far from what many of us find ourselves doing these days: watching the Food Network while eating.

So, what does all this mean?

Well, most of us will never have sex like porn stars, just like most of us won’t ever be able to cook like Julia Child. The Food Network, in its noble attempt to create an educational array of programming, quickly realized this and started giving people what they want. More than instructions on how to make your own chicken broth – because, let’s face it, most of us don’t have time for that – people want a fantasy. People want to look at pretty pictures and daydream about the day that they’ll actually cook every day instead of relying on takeout or have sex in an office supply room with a blonde in 5-inch stilettos or throw a football like a pro.

What’s next, you ask? Well, the Home and Garden channel is pretty popular. Drapes, maybe?

E-mail Diane at ms.guided@gmail.com.