February Blog Post

Taylor Reeves

March 2, 2017

February Blog Post

The most interesting reading this month were the two readings in week seven about food. I found it interesting how Americans have become so obsessed with cooking shows that we now have two channels to watch it on. Cooking shows have become so popular that now there are some chefs who are big celebrities too.

Americans are really into making things competitions no matter what they are, so it seems fitting that we would be really into the competition based cooking shows like Top Chef, Hell’s Kitchen, etc. even though they aren’t very realistic to what viewers at home would be trying to cook since we don’t often have to cook a meal using only three ingredients or having to use some odd ingredient that doesn’t pair well with many foods.

I also liked how the first article pointed out that most men on the cooking shows are typically white and they seem like they’re really trying to over compensate their masculinity like Guy Fieri, Anthony Bourdain, and Gordon Ramsay. Gordon Ramsay is always on shows screaming in people’s faces about what terrible chefs they are or how stupid they are. Anthony Bourdain is a travel writer, and when we watched one of his shows in class last week, I noticed that he definitely was trying to show how manly he is. His show is all about how types of food in different cultures, he seemed a bit ignorant, he kind of brushed past all of Beijing’s history by saying “I wish I could’ve recorded in there” and “it’s pretty big” (in regards to the Forbidden City) but they made sure to put his smoke break on screen. I will admit he was a good sport about eating food that I don’t think I would be able to stomach (especially while he ate the stomach of a cow), but right in front of the restaurant’s owner he was talking about ‘oh it’s places like these where you find the best food and wouldn’t expect it here’ and I just think it’s a bit of an insensitive dig that he probably wouldn’t have said if the restaurant owner spoke English.

Finally, I liked the part about Rachel Ray. She’s a household name that most people would recognize, but she’s not a particularly skilled chef, everyone likes her so much because she’s (as the article puts her) “the girl next door” that everyone can relate to.