Impact of Food Television

Appears in

Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America

Published 2004

About

TV cooking show hosts—now often synonymous with “celebrity chefs”—have a powerful platform from which to sell their cookbooks and kitchen product lines and to attract viewers to their restaurants (Lidia Bastianich, Mario Batali, and Bobby Flay are just a few of the restaurateur–TV hosts). They extend their popular reach via newspaper columns, websites, blogs, and entire magazines. While the argument against the entertainmentization of cooking shows holds some validity, it is equally valid to contend that cooking programs of all sorts have a positive impact on viewers’ creativity, health, and overall knowledge of food,

Timeline (Selected Programs 1946–2010)

Year Started	Title	Host
1946	Elsie Presents James Beard in “I Love to Eat!”	James Beard
1947	In the Kelvinator Kitchen	Alma Kitchell
1947	To the Queen’s Taste (later The Dione Lucas Show)	Dione Lucas
1949	Chef Milani Cooks	Joseph Milani
1963	The French Chef	Julia Child
1966	Joyce Chen Cooks	Joyce Chen
1969	The Galloping Gourmet	Graham Kerr
1972	Cookin’ Cajun	Justin Wilson
1975	What’s Cooking?	LaDeva Davis
1979	Chef Tell	Tell Erhardt
1982	Everyday Cooking with Jacques Pépin	Jacques Pépin
1983	The Frugal Gourmet	Jeff Smith
1985	Great Chefs of … (San Francisco, New Orleans, Chicago, etc.)	Various
1986	Holiday Entertaining with Martha Stewart	Martha Stewart
1993	Cooking with Master Chefs	Julia Child
1993	Food Network launched
1994	Food News and Views (later In Food Today)	Donna Hanover Giuliani and David Rosengarten
1995	Dinner and a Movie	Annabelle Gurwitch and Paul Gilmartin
1995	Ready, Set, Cook!	Various
1996	Cooking Live	Sarah Moulton
1997	Emeril Live	Emeril Lagasse
1997	Two Fat Ladies	Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright
1998	Pressure Cooker	Chris Durham
1999	Good Eats	Alton Brown
1999	Iron Chef	Various
2000	Trading Spaces	Paige Davis
2000	The Naked Chef	Jamie Oliver
2001	America’s Test Kitchen	Christopher Kimball et al.
2001	30 Minute Meals	Rachael Ray
2002	A Cook’s Tour	Anthony Bourdain
2003	Everyday Food	Various
2005	Top Chef	Tom Colicchio and Padma Lakshmi
2005	Hell’s Kitchen	Gordon Ramsay
2005	Next Food Network Star	Bob Tuschman and Susie Fogelson
2006	Chefography	Various
2006	Ace of Cakes	Duff Goldman
2008	Emeril Green	Emeril Lagasse
2008	Down Home with the Neelys	Patrick and Gina Neely
2009	Viva Daisy!	Daisy Martinez
2010	Cooking Channel launched

nutrition, and different cultures. One controversial program made an attempt to directly affect the health of some most at-risk citizens. In 2010 Jamie Oliver, who had been involved with trying to improve the health of school lunches in the United Kingdom, brought his pedagogical techniques to a West Virginia town that was deemed by media outlets based on 2007 data from the Centers for Disease Control as America’s least healthy and fattest city. Though Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution seemed to have had a powerful effect on many of the families involved, some felt that it was an intrusive and elitist endeavor, not to mention a cost-prohibitive and unscalable solution to the mounting obesity problem in America.