Lidia’s homeyness is rare. It’s the multi-everything culinary atmosphere of most food shows that gets a “Yeah—sure!” response from me. If I had all those lackeys (or production assistants) to shop for me, to chop and measure all those added ingredients and spices and lagniappes; if I had all those burners and ovens and counters, all those gadgets and tools and gorgeous cookware, and even more gorgeous serving plates and platters with garnishes at the ready—and that army to clean up after me & But for many viewers, I’ve found, it is the very overabundance presented in some of these shows that fascinates, that educates, that comforts, and furthers the have-nots’ illusion that they could do as well given the tools—and the talent.
The range of age and demographics of those millions of viewers is enormous. Many are children and teenagers who, one food expert speculates, may be making up for the lack of observing or participating in cooking in their own family life. Watching chefs in action, one woman told me, is “easier than reading a cookbook.” Older women, many of whom have given up “real” cooking with the dispersal of their families or for reasons of health, seem to be watching pour le sport. One said, “It’s a pleasure to watch chefs at work, the way armchair athletes watch professional sports.”
Whatever. The food-show mania is indeed a sign of our time, which one thoughtful observer has labeled the age of “gastropornography,” with intellectual conversation abandoned and food the topic that dominates the dinner-party or restaurant table. Not, mind you, that staff- of-life eating can’t be pleasurable in itself or, on occasion, extraordinary in its delights. About 40 years after my initial cookbook trauma, with the help of my housekeeper-cook, I did indeed “take one suckling pig…” The result was incredibly and unforgettably delicious.
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