If you had your own Food Network show, what would it be?
If I had my own food network show, it would be "SIMPLY OFFAL", Introducing delicious ways to serve anything from tongue to chitterlings, or head to tail of any beast! Innards were CHEAP when I was a kid, and my Grannie served them often. Alongside various greens (dandelions, kale, etc). and some other stewed veggie. Now that I'm an adult, I've found ways to make them delicious, and not just cheap (sorry, Grannie, your liver stunk!)
From Kosher deli corned beef tongue (sandwich on pretzel bread with dijon mustard, butter and muenster cheese) to fabulous venison sausage in hog casings. Calf's liver soaked in buttermilk and sauteed with mushrooms, onions and bacon in sour cream pepper gravy. Deep fried turkey tails. Chopped chicken liver and onions on rye triscuits. My Mother's spicy pepper-pot soup, with honeycomb tripe as the star. Chicken livers (or duck, turkey)poached in Reunite Lambrusco with minced green onions and garlic, seived with a little sour cream on rye toast points. Need I go on?
TOTAL FOODIE here, go for the guts!
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34 Comments:
Deep fried turkey tails, huh?
Ok, I'll go for it but don't think the advertisers will!
I'd host a Tony Bourdain kind of thing - go to different places but then cook some of the foods adapted for what we can get in the U. S.
I am always freaked when we do Thai, Korean or etc and I don't live far out of NYC where I can get ingredients.
Nonny at 7:29PM on 12/30/08
i didn't know turkeys had a tail. interesting.
dearrie at 7:29PM on 12/30/08
I think that I would have a show that didn't try to teach cooking a one recipe at a time. Instead, I would have episodes dedicated towards things that help you produce a meal everyday. I mean the Food Network is mainly targeted to people who are home cooks and not trying to recreate a five star restaurant meal.
For instance, one episode could be about how to stock a pantry. Another might be tips on your weekly shopping, or the importance or a repertoire, or trying to incorporate ethnic cuisines into the mix. These are basics that most foodies have a grapple on, but I think aren't really stressed on the network per se.
blankplate at 7:47PM on 12/30/08
Co-ed naked cooking.
izatryt at 7:59PM on 12/30/08
iz that would be a cool shirt.
dearrie at 8:22PM on 12/30/08
Can I place my order for that shirt?
dmcavanagh at 8:28PM on 12/30/08
@dearrie ~ I have the silk screeners at work as I type this!
@All ~ I will start taking orders on Monday!!
izatryt at 8:36PM on 12/30/08
I'd yell myself hoarse, wear a shirt cut down to my navel, hawk my own brand of can opener and super simple canned goodies that I'd throw together, pop in & out of the microwave and laugh all the way to the bank, just like the other richest "stars". That would insure job security and longevity. They don't want class, they prefer crass. I wouldn't like myself much, but I could do it to survive.
PerkyMac at 8:37PM on 12/30/08
I'll take one - low cut please, izatryt.
PerkyMac at 8:38PM on 12/30/08
Co-ed naked cooking would be cool except for the show about frying bacon... OUCH
Seriously, I would like to see more shows that demonstrate the basics of cooking and progress from season to season. PBS has had several successful versions of this over the years and the concept is due for an update. For example, picking the right cookware for the type of cooking that you do (without sponsor influence if possible); how to season a cast iron skillet; sharpening and storing knives; chopping and storing veggies... you get the idea. It's the kind of stuff that could bring a new audience to the network. They have far too many of the insipid shows where professional chefs take a measure of pre-chopped or pre-minced or pre-measured whatever and just start throwing it into a pan without explaining how it got to that point, what they are doing and why (thank you Alton for explaining the why).
steveTV at 8:48PM on 12/30/08
fried bacon naked one time. had little angry red spots all over.
dearrie at 8:59PM on 12/30/08
Well dearrie ~ It would appear, you need to wear the Co-ed naked T-shirt while cooking bacon!
izatryt at 9:09PM on 12/30/08
that's all i'm trying to say. low cut please.
dearrie at 9:20PM on 12/30/08
Sadly, AB already beat me to the kind of show I'd love to have. As far as I'm concerned, he and Julia Child have pretty much cornered the market.
I'd settle for being the next Shirley Corriher, though. But a photographer instead of a writer. As long as I could show up on Good Eats. ;)
jenilowrance at 9:52PM on 12/30/08
If I had the show I wanted, rather than one that would sell, it would be about cooking from scratch. Yes, I own a can opener, and I use it, but I don't think there are that many people who haven't figured out how to open a can yet. So, instead of saying, "open a can of tomato sauce," I'd say, "get your homemade sauce out of the freezer." Of course, there would be an episode where we made the sauce.
I'd probably bake a loaf of bread in every episode, just for the heck of it.
And I think, if I was doing multiple dishes per episode, it wouldn't conclude in a meal, but it would end up being several different things that are somehow related to each other.
So maybe I'd start out with a pile of chicken bones and I'd make a stock. Part of the stock, we'd freeze for later (I think this would have to be a component of every show -- freezing things for later use, and showing how to properly or efficiently freeze stuff) and then I' d use the stock to make a soup, and I'd use the stock as a base for gravy, and I'd use the stock to cook some rice. Something like that.
Or, I'd start with fresh tomatoes and make a fresh pasta sauce and a fresh salsa. Take some more tomatoes and make fresh tomato juice, tomato sauce, tomato soup, and a long-cooked spaghetti sauce.
Make a pudding, a lemon curd, a cheesecake, a baked or cooked custard, a flan, a creme brulee, and ice cream.
So basically, I'd be showing multiple things to do with the same major ingredients, and showing how certain foods are related to each other, so if you know how to do one, you're not far from doing another one.
dbcurrie at 9:52PM on 12/30/08
we've joked about this for years but it would be a comedy based show, filmed in a mobile home called white trash cookin....we have a million recipes that taste amazing but are for sure low brow...it would be a hit! think, the host would always be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen:)
sfred at 10:16PM on 12/30/08
It would be a Lizzie pork show. All things I make and enjoy...Slow smoked pork shoulder, smoked bacon, smoked BBQ ribs (slathered with Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce), carnitas, roast pork loin, smothered pork chops, chili verde, pork piccata, pulled pork, pork fried rice, sausage gravy, rubbed and roasted pork tenderloin with onion mustard jus, sausage rolls, meatballs with pork, beef and lamb...ok, I'm dying here......where..is... my... pork! Really the only reason I am not dead is that I insist on lean pork. My DH always wants more fat in the pork dishes...but I hate fat. Is that an oxymoron?? If so, I'm a moron!!
lamora at 11:58PM on 12/30/08
I would have a show a lot like dbcurrie's...with different segments on how to save money at the grocery store...it would be geared towards people m age too...the 18-25 demographic. I guess Dave Lieberman's show would be a good example.
mayoxqueen at 12:29AM on 12/31/08
@izzy so are you going to do bumperstickers and aprons as well. Actually that sounds like a great name for a band too.
pjracz10 at 2:14AM on 12/31/08
I'd like to do a show like Mario Batali and Gwenneth Paltrow are doing...a sort of road-trip type show, where they go and meet with locals of various places and eat the food and enjoy the surroundings. Only it would be me and Johnny Depp, and we'd have a luxury yacht and we'd stop at various Islands and have picinics on beaches and on the deck.
juliebugsmama at 8:56AM on 12/31/08
This is gonna be on TVFN? oh that's easy... I'm definitely gonna need some jugglers, a person who talks to animals, someone with 80's style in 2009, someone who has a raspy voice and giggles like the pillsbury doughboy, perhaps a couple who can't stop touching each other, a woman with a head that is proportionately larger than her body but not her clevage. a person with a hammed up country come to town voice.... and maybe a band that could play when nobody is watching. Honestly, I don't have to include food right?! I mean, it doesn't seem to be an issue with any of the shows on their now.....
Pavlov at 9:03AM on 12/31/08
@juliebugsmama--I agree with you. I don't care about 'cashing in,' I would just love to get paid to travel. I'd love to travel to really remote locations, hiking or on horseback, or in some strange fashion--and find cuisines and ways of cooking that might be lost in a few generations, like some Native American cookery, or the regional dishes of Switzerland, Italy, and so forth being prepared in tiny villages. Or even finding interesting vegetarian dishes around the world.
If I had kind of a cheesy show that I would still 'believe in,' I would like to do healthy, mostly vegetarian versions of classics that still tasted good. And do a short segment about nutrition, but not in a way that was like 'omg! so many calories in fast food!' Like I'd go on the road to see how certain traditional societies are very healthy, and how they eat, or examine an athlete eating for performance, or visit a school district trying to amp up the healthy component of its cafeteria offerings.
HeartofGlass at 9:18AM on 12/31/08
Yeah, well for me it would be more about being with Johnny Depp...:o)
juliebugsmama at 9:29AM on 12/31/08
I'd have fun doing a basics cooking show showing people where to start in the kitchen, for people who love food but have no idea what they are doing... I've actually been considering starting a blog about it...
annabanannas at 9:59AM on 12/31/08
Juliebugs, oh, yeah, Johnny Depp. No problem but wouldn't that be another network on late at night?
Nonny at 10:59AM on 12/31/08
Isn't it funny how when you have people over eventually everyone gathers in the Kitchen???
I'd love to have a show about this where everyone just gets super liquored-up and tries to help out the cook in the kitchen; followed by disaster after disaster (insert random jokes and examples here)--in the meantime [since it will require education along with humour] all the drunks experiment with random mixed concoctions and dare each other to drink them! I dunno...I think it would be funny!
hungrychristel at 11:12AM on 12/31/08
@Juliebugsmama
you're a genius! sign me up!!! (for the travel part, yeah, the travel part. . . )
if i had a FN show and they gave me big fat budget, i'd travel to farmers markets in different parts of country and tell people about what's in season right now in their region. it wouldn't be so much of a "how to cook show", but more of a "about what you're eating" show. a non-preachy locavore show perhaps?
redhead at 11:27AM on 12/31/08
When I lived in Ireland, my flatmate and I would joke about this all the time. The reality of it is that my show would probably be called "Watch Traveller injure herself profusely while baking something." Apparently, and I have the scars to prove it, reaching into a hot oven without an oven mit can be painful. :)
But the food is all worth it!
Traveller at 4:39PM on 12/31/08
I'd like to host a show about simple modern kosher cuisine. It would demonstrate how to take any recipe that calls for non-kosher ingredients and "kosherize" it. The show would include a segment on answering questions about what makes food kosher, the whys and wherefores.
SavtaShayna at 5:18PM on 12/31/08
I have always wanted to do a show that was about how real people cook at their own homes. No sets or people doing food prep. Just what it's like when you work all day and come home to find dishes in the kitchen, the dishwasher full of clean dishes, the trash overflowing, all the little things that you have to deal with in the course of 'making dinner'. When it's all done, you'll have a great meal, but it might not be so pretty getting there!
BostonFoodMan at 9:53AM on 01/01/09
I agree with blankplate and dbcurrie that a basics show could be great.
Another show idea: how to get each part of the meal to the table at the same time. That was the toughest when I was learning to cook. While teaching my granddaughters I realized I make a mental list of which chores to do first. It's kind of like Michael Symon checking his whiteboard. One of those basic and boring concepts but working it sure helps.
Blue Iris at 11:27AM on 01/01/09
i'd love to buck the current trend and show people how easy it is to cook great meals without resorting to processed food!
cybercita at 12:12PM on 01/01/09
My show would be called four dollars a day. I'd take the people around my fair city and show them how the homeless eat on a budget.
chardonnay at 11:00PM on 01/14/09
I would start a real-food revival.
www.americanfoodways.com
real food revivalist at 4:50PM on 02/23/09