Author, critic and food writer John Mariani, (Esquire magazine, Diversion magazine, Bloomberg News, Bloomberg Radio and The Italian-American Cookbook among other books) published an article in the August 2008 Esquire magazine, The Worst (and Best) Cooking Shows on Television.

Mr. Mariani writes,

As someone who writes about food and restaurants for a living, I have near-zero interest in watching most of the food shows on TV, where hijinks, hair, and cleavage have replaced the authoritative, careful instructiveness of Julia Child, David Rosengarten, and Sara Moulton — most of whom are either off the air, dead, toiling in obscurity, or relegated to reruns.

The Food Network, which once had all those people on, is now home to a bunch of screaming, loutish characters who read from cue cards with about as much as contrivance as Jerry Springer sympathizing with a 400-pound transsexual. Still, there are some good shows out there that teach you as much about how to cook something as about the culture or reasons behind it.

Here, here! Let me expound on his insight and give you my opinion of the Bad, the Ugly and the Good.

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The view is put forth that chefs, at least when they are at home or at play, are indeed much like everyone else: They have husbands and wives (or not), kids and dogs (or none), chores and hobbies, good times and bad times and even death and taxes and cable TV.

So far, I don’t disagree. I’ll even go further: Most chefs of my acquaintance are certifiable members of Homo Sapiens, though I have met some who would give Professor Darwin pause. And most chefs put on their white tunics one arm at a time: the fact that those tunics bear more than a passing resemblance to straitjackets is probably not worth mentioning. Without the tunics and the silly hats, most chefs look quite normal.

But they aren’t. They’re different. They’re a breed apart. And they’re mysterious.

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