Ah, The Food Network...

‪Food Network Show idea: celebrity chef whose catchphrase is, “yeah? Well guess what, you don’t hafta f*cking eat it do you???!!”  - XMASTIME

Every once in a while I get super-nostalgic for memories of that old-timey television channel that was the Food Network, back when it was about cooking and not just hot chicks showing cleavage. These things also occur because we equate times with our youth; my moving to NYC etc. While the Food Network may be dead to me, from what I've slowly gathered the same chefs are cranking out obscene amounts of content on YouTube every day, which is fantastic and endless rabbit holes.

Here's an oral history of the channel from a few years ago:

Ming Tsai, chef and host: Tsai operated Blue Ginger restaurant in Boston for nearly 20 years, and has made numerous television appearances. Emeril put Food Network on the map. He did exactly what I was trying to do: He demystified food. Julia Child would make a coulibiac, which is poached salmon with bulgur wheat and mushrooms and brioche dough. Classic, and it’s delicious, but anyone watching that — which was usually my parents — was like, That looks awesome, I could never make that. Emeril made meat loaf. Emeril says, “Who’s had bad meat loaf? Let me show you how a chef makes meat loaf.” He brought in a band. There was no cooking show with a band, so now he has a band and somehow coins “Bam!” Can you imagine? Three letters almost solidify the entire Food Network. It was just crazy.

Here's a list of some of the shows I remember enjoying:

Anything Emeril was on
Sara Moulton Live (was truly live - people would call in with questions; every show, Sarah would forget something and burn shit which was awesome)
Good Eats
East Meets West
Bobby Flay
A Cook's Tour with Anthony Bourdain
Food 911 with Tyler Florence
The Naked Chef
Man vs. Food
Melting Pot (highlight: Rocco Dispirito forever teaching me that is you don't use a loaf pan when cooking a meat loaf, you get more crispy, crunchy outer coverage. Thanks Rocco!)
Molto Mario
Tyler's Ultimate

I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch; there's noting that'll ever beat the 7-9pm nightly run of Molto Mario/Sara Moulton/Emeril Live.

And those are just shows on the actual Food Network - before those there were some I loved on PBS, such as:

Cucina Amore
Home Grown with Justin Wilson
Two Fat Ladies
Julia Child
The Galloping Gourmet (who made my "Wish I was Him" list)
America's Test Kitchen

And there's all the Gordon Ramsay stuff, whom I've met, no big deal to someone like me of course, which I first found on BBC America back in the day: Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsay (UK only, NOT THE US!!) and Gordon Ramsay's The F Word.

And of course my first love: Cookin' Cheap!

I bitch and moan about the Food Network sucking now (which I'm shocked to learn I've done as far back as freaking 2008), but thankfully there's still a million great food shows out there, between PBS & YouTube & Netflix and everywhere else, the content is endless. I truly miss the Golden Age of the Food Network, but everything's still out there if you look for it.