It's rare we see a brilliant food programme these days. When we do, we should make more noise
A couple of weeks ago I posted a piece here on a new TV programme, Michel Roux's Service. I wanted to kick off a discussion about UK service standards and was mildly scathing about the BBC's decision to make another programme in the "reality" genre - promoting it around the "personal journeys" of real people and "quest" of a celebrity. I have to admit, having been glued to the Sky+ for every episode, that I was wrong.
Of course, I completely stand by the assertion that whoever penned the deathless line "Michel Roux sets out on a personal mission to train eight young people as front-of-house superstars" on the BBC website should get 12 points on their Artistic Licence and have their typing fingers cut off, but the programme itself was brilliant from start to finish.
Roux, a man who manages to communicate a genuine love for his calling, came across with an integrity we're no longer used to seeing in food TV. Fred Sirieix played a kind of gallic Spock to his impassioned Kirk, his Cantona-style metaphors communicating profound wisdom seasoned with mild bafflement. And the trainees themselves really did change - not because of some contrived jungle "experience", choreographed conflict or public humiliation, but because, as everyone who's ever done restaurant work will have recognised, they learned to work as a team.
It was remarkable how, by halfway through the series, the trainees were making eye contact with the camera, had lost the defensive teenage mumble and attitude and were visibly growing. It concentrates the mind wonderfully to realise you're part of a team and, though you're lost and scared to death, if you don't do your job, you're going to bring your mates down with you. If an 18-year-old isn't a high level sportsperson or humping a pack across Helmand right now, a restaurant is one of the few other places they're going to get that experience. Roux and Sirieix know this in their souls and they've used it.
It's a remarkably involving, generous and, though I barf even thinking of the word, "uplifting" bit of TV and, judging by online gossip, much appreciated by quality-starved food lovers.
As is Lorraine Pascale's Baking Made Easy, a little gem of a programme that's snuck in under the radar and which, though it's received mixed reactions from the proper critics, seems to be a hit with food lovers. Sure, she's impossibly beautiful, but she's also a working cook who clearly knows her stuff and delivers it with charm and enthusiasm.
So why am I writing such nice things about programmes that are coming to an end? Because, judging by viewing figures and general critical response so far, the chances of either show being enough of a "success" to recommission are low. And that points up the awful catch-22 about UK food programming. If a show is intelligent enough not to patronise food lovers, it's unlikely to have the wide appeal that broadcasters demand.
Even Tony Bourdain, probably one of the most bankable names in food, had to walk away from the established networks and start his own production company in order to create No Reservations - a show which, much as I love it, is shot with the production values of amateur porn and needs to be cut by 50% before being viewed by humans. Quality food TV is, it seems a vanishingly small special interest.
If you have cable or satellite TV, pop over to one of the specialist food channels at around midnight tonight. Watch half an hour of dreck about tattooed cakemakers or something by a microsleb you've never heard of shot in their home kitchen on a mobile phone and you'll see how important programmes like Roux's and Pascal's are. As long as broadcasters and programme makers win by widening the appeal of their shows beyond those who "merely" love food we'll end up with more and more shows like Man versus Food and Come Dine With Me.
Let's face it, the majority of food TV in the UK is crap but, unless we make a little more noise when something good is actually aired we're facing a future when our special interest is no longer served - and that just can't be right.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/feb/02/food-tv-television
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