The Dumbing Down of Cuisine
The other day I received a call from a friend of mine who is an avid food enthusiast, with his own web cooking show, which unfortunately I do not know the name of as of yet. He asked me if I was interested in participating in the filming of a cable food segment. Apparently the Los Angeles based producers were interested in tagging onto this Whole Green Thing, as they put it. They thought it would be cool to do their part for the globe. Since I happen to be a seasoned mushroom hunter, the thought was that I would take the crew out mushroom hunting and give them the whole schpeel on wild edibles, foraging in general and the proper sustainable practices involved in walking in the wilderness with a soft foot print.
At first I was thrilled (having grown up in Hollywood I should have known better). I am very passionate about foraging in the wilderness and of course this whole green thing, is a very heartfelt part of my daily life. My only constraints revolved around the issue that the second week in April is probably one of the worst times to forage on the coastal portion of Sonoma County. Primarily because we are smack dab in the middle of seasons at the moment, the fungus from winter is drying up and the mushrooms such as morels that can be prevalent in the spring have not quite arrived, except for the few that are popping up in the backyards of newly mulched gardens around the county. Because of this I knew that there would have to be some careful scouting involved in order to assure that the film crew wouldn't get skunked during their proposed afternoon window of time to film. All of this aside, I figured we could work it out if the Gods of fungi saw fit.
Then the phone call from the producer in Los Angeles came. She wanted to meet me over the phone and go over the plans with me for the shoot. At first all seemed well, she seemed excited about the idea of shooting in Nor Cal and thought the mushroom angle to be a good one, but before long the conversation turned south. First off, she was not pleased with the possibility that mushrooms might be scarce on Sunday April 6th, because this did not jive with the production schedule, but I assured her I would do my best to have nature cooperate for Hollywood.
"We will need you do take care of a few thing for us, before we come up".
"Sure, what can I do?" I replied.
"I need you to find a judge".
"You mean a legal judge?"
"No. We need a judge for the competition". She replied.
"What competition".
"The competition between you and your friend the host, we thought it would add a nice twist to have the two of you compete with a few dishes using the mushrooms we foraged".
"But he's not a chef". I mentioned. "And besides I thought we were focusing on the fruits of the wilderness and the bounty that can be had during a pleasant romp in the ever disappearing woods?"
"No, we think it would be better for the two of you to compete".
"But that makes no sense. I'm a chef and he's a personality, those are two very different things. I've spent my entire life cooking, why would I compete against anyone else but a chef. I mean would you have a film producer compete for an academy award with a plumber?"
"No, of course not, that's different". She quipped.
And that’s the way the conversation went, back and forth, back and forth, until I eventually relinquished my shot at cable stardom in order to continue my life of obscurity.
The funny thing is, that the competition thing had very little to do with my friend and his level of skill as far as I was concerned. What pissed me off was the fact that once again a serious subject (at least in my mind) was being belittled by Hollywood in favor of sticking to this tired formula of determining who the best is.
It seems that we are obsessed in this country with the need for emotional tension and competition regardless of the cost. For me one of the major reasons why I became a chef in the first place was to learn and perfect a trade and art form that could sustain me through my life time. I have never felt particularly comfortable anywhere else in the world, except behind a stove and I love the challenge of what I do. This whole new chef as circus monkey thing does not bode well with me, not to mention the abject belittling of a profession that takes years to learn and excel in. Back in the old school, one would never even think to call him or herself a chef until they had paid the years of toil and dues that are required to hold the title.
So I guess in the long run I came off once again as a stodgy old fogie, who's not willing to play the game. But the real reality of this is that I am not the only chef on the planet who is tired of what the food channels have done and I truly wish that there was some way to pay tribute to those men and women out there in the real working world. You know, the chefs who are actually more concerned with cooking amazing food for the customers they care about, than they might be about becoming famous or competing for the meaningless titles of best this, or best that, meaningless titles at best which have no solid foundation behind them.
Personally I would love to see a sex reality show called "Next Top Bottom". Now that I think would be a hoot.
