Food Porn

It helps that I live with a foodie, but even as a teenager, I’d tune into PBS on Saturday afternoon to see if Julia Child was making dessert. I recall coming home from grade school in Quebec to be greeted at the door by my wee sister proclaiming I’d “just missed the funny man” on TV: Graham Kerr, so dubbed because he made my mother laugh out loud with his stories and kitchen antics as The Galloping Gourmet.

I remember most recently when Food TV was about cooking rather than competing—lately the schedule is jammed with killer cooks and wannabe chefs duking it out over who can create the frilliest cupcake. It’s the only time culinary programming has made me sick. It’s no longer about the food or teaching technique; it’s the fall of the Roman Empire, gladiators in aprons wielding machetes and trying to emerge victorious by cutting down the competition. I didn’t bother to check the schedule for holiday programming after catching an ad for Christmas Dinner Wars or some such nonsense—no hope there of a heartwarming ode to the communal Yuletide feast.

It’s taken 30-odd years, but now I’m back with PBS on Saturday afternoon. Ter and I do the laundry and drink tea while watching Cooks’ Country, Lidia’s Italy and Cooking with Nick Stellino. Ah, the bliss of comfort food and how to prepare it. The joy of taste tests and small appliance appraisals. Programs hosted by personalities who don’t outshine the ingredients (though Stellino is hilarious). Better yet, there are no cutthroat cookie queens or desperate donut decorators out to sabotage their neighbours at all costs. It’s all about food and helpful hints—what food TV should be and actually was when it started.