34 Comments
Mar 30, 2022Liked by Adam Roberts

I’ll get some hate for this, but Good Eats. Probably because I was a kid when I watched it, and a science nerd, but it did teach me the most about cooking (for better or worse) until ATK came into my life.

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I watched a lot of The Frugal Gourmet in the 80's, and loved Jeff Smith. Not saying it's the GOAT but it was a show I loved and got me into food and cooking as a young person.

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Mar 30, 2022Liked by Adam Roberts

Instructive cooking or entertainment cooking? Good eats for the former, iron chef japan for the latter.

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Mar 30, 2022Liked by Adam Roberts

Sara Moulton used to do a cooking show live - I think on Food Network in the early days - and it was great. Sometimes she would forget to add things or get distracted and of course there were no edits, no second takes, just cooking on live TV.

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Mar 30, 2022Liked by Adam Roberts

Graham Kerr was fun back in the day. He really took the intimidation out of cooking long before YouTube and cooking shows.

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Mar 30, 2022Liked by Adam Roberts

I have to agree with folks who said Good Eats and the original Iron Chef. But Two Fat Ladies was also a treat.

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Mar 30, 2022Liked by Adam Roberts

I’m going to get hate for failing to follow the assignment, but I have a handful of favorites, and I can’t pick just one. First, there’s nothing I love more in my pandemic and post-pandemic life than PBS cooking shows on a snowy winter Saturday morning. Of the PBS array, Martha, Jaques Pepin, Lidia, and America’s Test Kitchen / Cook’s Country, Nick Stellino and (somewhat begrudgingly) Milk Street are all great. My husband Bjorn and I will not miss New Scandinavian Cooking with Andres Viestad, we are quite Norwegian in our heritage and it feels like a visit to Bjorn’s quirky cousin’s place for some outdoor fish boil and force-fed late in the day cups of black drip coffee, and I love it. Is this aired nation wide?

I have watched many of the cable channel cooking shows and I am lukewarm about a handful that aren’t worth mentioning…and I adore Ina, and am a secret fan of Rachael Ray’s “a week in a day” and her show about 30 minute meals, not her current show.

My most formative shows that have had a lasting impact on me are the original Martha Stewart show…from the ‘90s, before she had a studio audience, where Sarah Carey was standing nearby (mostly out of sight) cooking alongside Martha, who truly knows it all, her Mother, Big Martha, and an array of stellar guests. And lastly, and most obscure, a Canadian cable show from the 1990s called Savoire Faire hosted by Nik Manojlovich…there are occasionally an episode to find here and there on YouTube, and I love and totally relished that show. He says “herbs” and pronounces the H, and pasta has “ass” in it. I haven’t lived in Canada in many decades, but it take me home.

I’d maybe be hesitant to disclose the hours I’ve devoted to cooking shows over the years, but having closely observed the television watching habits of an All-American sports fans and I have concluded I have nothing to be ashamed about.

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Mar 30, 2022Liked by Adam Roberts

I loved this show. The old aga stoves, Clarissa larding meat, the cigarettes and Jennifer’s cocktails. I will have to rewatch.

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Mar 30, 2022Liked by Adam Roberts

I do love this show. But my vote would be for the original Iron Chef (from Japan) dubbed in English on PBS. My memory is that I watched it most Friday or Saturday nights (sad, I know!) in college because it was one of the only clear channels on my tiny TV. (Too poor for cable.)

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Mar 30, 2022Liked by Adam Roberts

The 2 Fat Ladies was by Far the greatest cooking show. They didn’t care what anyone thought of them, we’re not politically correct, had senses of humour and it looked like they genuinely liked each other. I have the boxed set of those programs and I still watch them. Great way to see the UK too

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Mar 30, 2022Liked by Adam Roberts

I'm also a fan of Good Eats, and I watched a lot of PBS cooking shows back in the 80s/90s (especially loved Ming Tsai). I have to say I conflate Two Fat Ladies with Absolutely Fabulous, so I may need to go back and watch both shows...But also a shoutout to the original Naked Chef, which made cooking seem so fun and casual: just bung it into a pan, mate.

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Mar 30, 2022Liked by Adam Roberts

How did everyone in America get to see Two fat ladies?? I remember when it was on in the 90s in England, I'd watch it with my mum. Fun fact, one of the two fat ladies drank only gin and tonic, to the point where she contracted quinine poisoning.

Best cooking show ever, for me, was Delia Smith's hours to cook. Very soothing.

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Mar 30, 2022Liked by Adam Roberts

I LOVED Two Fat Ladies! I really like to watch old episodes of Great Chefs of America on YouTube. The theme song gets me hype!

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Mar 30, 2022·edited Mar 30, 2022Liked by Adam Roberts

Julia Child without a doubt. For the younger generation that didn't get to see her shows when they originally aired, and grew up watching taped shows on Food Network, can't appreciate what she accomplished early on. I wanted to be Sara Moulton when she joined Julia. Then Jeff Smith, The Frugal Gourmet, showed us that cooking didn't have to be complicated. His cookbooks were easy to follow and he was personable on air. I even took one of my sons to Liberties Book Store in Boca Raton to meet him and get his autograph in the cookbooks of his that I owned. Following Jeff's exit there were cooking shows, The Galloping Gourmet and Mr. Food and the many produced by the Food Network, but none rose to the top till Ina. Martha tried but I felt everything she did was too fussy and complicated. Buy her cookbooks if you want to go that route. That's my vote, Julia Child followed by Ina Garten.

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Mar 30, 2022Liked by Adam Roberts

Two Fat Ladies was a gas and so entertaining but I didn’t learn much about technique there. I loved Good Eats…the precursor of J Kenzi Alt Lopez. I was a science major so understanding technique has always intrigued me.I also loved Molto Mario before he was so deservedly,unceremoniously cancelled.

Lidia Bastianich has always been solid on Italian and very instructive on Italian recipes as well.

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Mar 30, 2022Liked by Adam Roberts

Keith Floyd!

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Mar 30, 2022Liked by Adam Roberts

I love this show. I agree. It's the best.

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Mar 30, 2022Liked by Adam Roberts

As I was growing up (here I go dateing myself) my dad watched ‘Yan can cook’ which I watched with him sometimes. Over the years I’ve watched more than my share of cooking shows and I’ve enjoyed Ina, Giada, Amy Schumer, and even Chopped. But I will always be a die hard fan of my favorite - Top Chef. I’ve watched every season of that and some of them twice!

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Mar 30, 2022Liked by Adam Roberts

Food Safari (SBS 2006-) is my all-time favorite educational food show. Chef! (BBC 1993-1996) is my all-time favorite food-related sitcom.

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Agree 100%. I even have their original cookbook and still cook from it. Much to the detriment of my arteries.

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Totally agree with you, Two Fat Ladies

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Mar 30, 2022Liked by Adam Roberts

This was a classic show! I miss these smoking, cooking, motorcycle driving broads...

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Mar 30, 2022Liked by Adam Roberts

I agree

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Ok, I am showing my age with this. I grew up watching the Galloping Gourmet. Graham Kerr was a hoot! He definitely inspired my interest in cooking!

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Julia Child's various cooking shows on PBS

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i loved two fat ladies! my sister was born in 1994, and she would watch it with me when she was little because the intro was fantastic and just the words "two fat ladies" and their accents would crack her up. very, very fond memories of the show itself and time spent with my very own real live baby doll of a sister. (who just had her first child, my precious nephew, in june. where does the time go?)

i also have fond memories of watching julia child with my gramma, she really was the best. (my gramma and julia.) we also loved to watch the frugal gourmet, and i wasn't going to bring him up, given how that all turned out but, i see several others have mentioned him so i felt safe to join in.

i used to watch sara moultin's show, remember when she took live calls? there was something comforting about the whole ordeal top to bottom. i think she's also why i hear "with your very clean hands..." every time i cook since, my hands are definitely the tools i use most in the kitchen. around the same time, david rosen...something (rosenthal?) also had a show. every time i try to look this up it doesn't seem to exist, it feels like a fever dream in which i have two specific memories - one in which he and his kids, all in white, on a white set, enjoyed a messy pomegranate or some other brightly colored fruit; and one in which he makes a tunafish sandwich, and he lovingly wraps the sandwich up, places it in a paper bag, and sets it aside as a crucial part of the recipe, so it's just like what you had in your school lunch but, you know, delicious. someone please tell me this really happened.

these days, of course i love ina - but just her, i can't stand when she has guests or worse, kid guests. it's too cringe. (remember when she went to some bougie candy shop and picked out candy for kids to decorate a sheet cake and she said every kid loves licorice and jordan almonds?) her recipes are always a winner, though. and top chef? still amazing, and the only competition show i enjoy. however, since switching away from cable to streaming tv, i've been loving the tastemade channel. actual food shows, sans competition or gimmicks, how novel! i love "make this tonight" which features a different chef every episode, including many top chef alum. i also can't get enough struggle meals with frankie celenza, about cooking on a budget. he's just fantastic. and last but not least, pati's mexican table with the one and only pati jinch. they've also started airing nigellisima, and sometimes there's so much bokeh and glimmering light you can hardly get a good look at what she's making but who cares? it's nigella. and that show makes me feel like going back to my mom's at christmastime. it'll cure what ails ya.

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If course , Ina now.

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Julia Child

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I adore Two Fat Ladies! On a similar note, does anyone remember Floyd on Food drunkenly traveling and cooking through the UK? However, and sorry to be basic, The French Chef has never been surpassed. I remember coming home from school and watching with my mom. We were both mesmerized. We are an Italian family and my mom was much better than the average white bread 60s cook, but we had never seen anything like Julia!

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Removed (Banned)Mar 30, 2022Liked by Adam Roberts
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