Cooking as a Spectator Sport

Amazingly enough it would appear cooking has become a spectator sport. Yes, I mean chop it up, mix it up with tasty spices, heat it through and eat it cooking. We aren't content with chowing on a chili dog or nachos at the ball field, now we have TV shows dedicated to competitive cooking. If Momma only knew what was to come when she would yell at me, "Don't play with your food!".

Peruse the Food Network's line-up for any given day and you'll see what I mean. Peppered throughout the schedule you will find shows like; Challenge, Iron Chef America, Throw down with Bobby Flay and their most watched show The Next Food Network Star. I must confess that I have watched each of these shows and have found them to be pretty good entertainment. It wasn't until I'd watched Challenge that I knew people made such elaborate cakes! ( I just wonder if they taste good?) I'm intrigued when Chairman Kaga introduces some strange ingredient the chefs must use in every dish on Iron Chef America. I find the reality show The Next Food Network Star to be a bit boring, but it's season 5 finale had 4.7 million viewers, becoming it's most watched show in the network's history.

There are other networks that see financial viability in culinary competition. Bravo produces Top Chef, where chefs compete for money and prizes, and garners 2.9 million views per new show. Fox Network's Hell's Kitchen musters up 8 million viewers per new episode. This show's winner gets a $250,000 job as the executive chef at one of Gordon Ramsay's restaurants. To win the job Ramsay puts the contestants through "chef hell" by belittling and berating them at every given opportunity. He barrages them with f-bombs, flying pots and pans and spittle from his constant, angry outburst. I guess he's the Vince Lombardi of the competitive cooking world. I sometimes have flashbacks to Marine Corps boot camp when I watch it. Maybe it's why I like the show. Hm...

All these bouts for culinary glory got me thinking; how many people still cook? Anecdotally, it seems there is a decline in home cooked meals. I'm always surprised by the people I know who don't cook. So I did a little research. What I found is that the number of those who cook at home is somewhere around 50 percent. That and celebrities don't seem to cook at all. Imagine my surprise when I found out Katie Holmes and Sarah Palin don't cook. What wasn't surprising is that during our current economic woes there is an increase in domestic cooking habits. It's a two percent increase, which doesn't seem like much, but could represent a trend. And imagine my surprise when I found out that despite her ever growing family Angelina Jolie doesn't cook! I'm assuming between her's and Brad Pitt's income they can afford take out, so I shouldn't be too surprised, but still... I just wonder if competitive cooking inspires people to cook more, kind of like water polo or rugby inspires so many to get involved in those sports.

I can't see competitive cooking overtaking football or baseball as America's favorite sports to watch on TV, but it does do better than soccer or the WNBA. Even better than championship poker, which is also hard to see as a popular spectator sport and yet still is. We probably won't see chef's stats running along side baseball scores in our sport sections of the newspaper either. It may seem a bit peculiar to think of cooking as a spectator sport, but I kind of like it. Maybe I'll make some bruschetta and cozy up to the TV tonight for some Hell's Kitchen and check the football scores a little later.