Food shows keep on dishing up competitions

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32188733/ns/entertainment-reality_tv/

Food is the new fashion, at least when it comes to competitive reality television. From "Top Chef" to "Hell's Kitchen," a wide range of series have turned the kitchen into an arena.

Television has long offered programming about food, from Julia Child's first TV series, "The French Chef," in the early 1960s, to "Great Chefs" and "Yan Can Cook" in the 1980s, never mind "Iron Chef" and the entire Food Network in the 1990s.

Most cooking series, though, were about preparing food. There are still many shows that teach how to make a meal for 24 in 18 seconds or deep fry balls of dough in a healthy way, but over the past few years, prime-time TV has discovered food in a new way: the competition.
The popularity of food-related shows on cable or during the day makes sense, but the number of competitive reality shows that air during prime time, even on broadcast networks, is somewhat surprising, considering how impossible it is for viewers to judge what the contestants produce.

"American Idol," "So You Think You Can Dance" and "America's Got Talent" are all extremely popular in no small part because viewers can so easily critique what the contestants offer. That singer sucks; that talent is awesome; the group dances on "SYTYCD" are exactly eight quintillion times more impressive than any group number "American Idol" has ever fumbled through.

Any viewer can look at a dress on "Project Runway," for example, and decide if it's high fashion or fugly, but no one at home can taste what a TV chef has created.

TV full of food reality shows
So why are competitive food reality shows multiplying? TV is full of them, from Bravo's "Top Chef" to Food Network's "The Next Iron Chef," which returns in October for its second season and is a competition to find someone to compete on yet another reality food competition.

Broadcast TV offers "Hell's Kitchen" and "Kitchen Nightmares" on Fox, and NBC tried but choked with "The Chopping Block." On cable, Bobby Flay does "Throwdown!" and also serves as a judge on "The Next Food Network Star," which is looking for exactly what its title describes. Those are two shows among the many prime-time competitions Food Network has given us, such as the forthcoming "Chefs vs. City," on which two chefs challenge local foodies, or the more serious "The Chef Jeff Project," which lets at-risk kids learn to cook and earn culinary school scholarships.

On Bravo, there's so much interest in food competitions that the network is currently airing one "Top Chef" spin-off, "Top Chef Masters," and planning another, "Top Chef Junior," even while preparing to debut the show's sixth season. (Host Padma Lakshmi is even working on a food-focused sit-com for NBC, on which she'll have a recurring role.)

And let's not forget all the ways food is used in non-food-specific competitions. While it may be offered as a reward on "Survivor" or "Big Brother," eating and sometimes even preparing strange food has provided lots of drama from "The Amazing Race" to "Fear Factor" to the first season of "Survivor," as contestants try to choke down local delicacies.

That's a lot of great food TV competition, even if it is concentrated on three networks — Food Network, Fox and Bravo.

Still, why care if you can't taste?

Viewers can judge the appearance of food, of course, and that's a key component, at least according to food competition series judges, who often evaluate how a plate is composed or presented to them. Still, their decisions are usually based upon taste, and viewers never get one.