Zagat Survey Discussions

We’ve talked about your best and worst dining experiences of all time. What are your top 5 (or however many you feel inclined to list) favorite and least favorite cooking shows of all time and why? Please entertain us with your thoughts!

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I really enjoy watching Paula Dean.

I enjoy her show a lot too. I'm enjoying this season's Top Chef a lot. It's great seeing seasoned chefs rise to the challenges.

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Life's too short to drink bad wine

I really enjoy the "Barefoot Contessa." She has elegant style and her recipes are simply delicious!!

My favorite is also the Barefoot Contessa. I've made quite a few of her dishes. Scrumptious! Especially her take on chopped liver.

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Brooklynbobby

I like the Barefoot Contessa as well, but I call her fatso. Can anyone really eat that way everyday?????????? Impossible. Besides, Pollan says we're watching tons of cooking shows, but we're NOT COOKING.

I have been watching cooking shows for some time. It is remarkable how few of the early historic shows are rerun, not only Julia Child, by also , Dionne Lucas, Maxine Kamen, Graham Kerr, and more recent ones like Pierre Frenay and David Rosengarten. Or imagine a day long holiday marathon, as is done on the Sci Fi Channel featuring The Twilight Zone, where a selection of the TV Cooking shows of 1969, for instance, the year of Woodstock, are aired. What fun. 

The Top Chef program now is one of my favorites, a very gemulich atmosphere. 

I like the new show about the biographies of chefs(The Chef's Story?).

For the How To shows - I like Ina Garten the best (Barefoot Contessa) and have made some of the dishes presented. Chef at Home (Michael Smith) is exceptional for cooking without recipes. While I enjoy watching Paula Dean, I don't try her recipes at home.

Most Detested: anything with Rachael Ray or Bobby Flay. Not fond of Semi-home Made, but it does not rise to the level of detested.

Other food related shows - I'm addicted to Top Chef and enjoyed the Masters show recently.

No one can top Julia Child, and now that movie, JULIE AND JULIA, has (most fortunately) revived considerable interest in her. In fact, her MASTERING THE ART OF FRENCH COOKING is climbing the best-seller list.

Today, I think Jamie Oliver creates the most enjoyable cooking shows. I do like Alton Brown's shows--I always learn something, which is what cooking is all about. The Barefoot Contessa has a grace and ease and style that are always appealing. Martha Stewart's prowess is unquestionable. Anne Burrell is big fun. I use Tyler Florence's recipes often, and they're pretty impeccable.

Rachael [sic] Ray's voice alone makes me change the channel immediately. Guy Fieri is trashy and greasy, but he knows what he's doing.

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Live a little!

   I still like Jacques Pepin on PBS. I'm not even sure if they run new episodes or old. But his food is always a touch above, yet doable for the average person.

My favorite show is definitely "Good Eats". The show mixes humor and entertainment with a lot of education. You not only learn WHAT to do, but WHY to do it.

My least favorite show is "Cooking With the Neelys". While some of the dishes are interesting, I can't stand their over-the-top, smarmy interaction with each other.

5.my least favorite is hell's kitchen..I think it's the most hilarious cooking show because it's not the best cooking show. Most people are not that great when they say that " they work in so and soo restaurant,country club or hotel" but it doesn't show in their professional ethnic work. But i watch it just because it really amuses me and if i needed to laugh about this is my show

4. Throwdown with bobby flay- this show i only like but no offense to bobby flay (he is not really my fave guy) i like this show because he finds the best people to have throwdowns. If his throwdowns are in NYC or NJ area of Philly i try to go there so that i can taste their foods.

3. Diner, Drives and Dives- i love Guy Fierrie- not only him and himself are such great i love all the places he tried to visit....ilike one of his shows is all about chicago.it was the perfect timing because that following week i was headed to go vacation in chiacago.

2. Unwrapped- i love show like this because not only that they tell you the history of the food on how it got started to make and how it was produced, I luv how they feature different kinds of places, foods, eateries....
1. my most fave show is TOP CHEF.. the people chefs as you call it are more profesional. some of them are well rounded but i'm not saying most of them. I just hate when there's a new culinary chef just graduated and they think they are the best of the best but they are not hardly going anywhere!!

Top Chef is always a winner for me. But Australian show Masterchef is one of my all time favourites as there are so many different components to the show. Some episodes with the cooking competition and some were I as a viewer learn more about food and cooking.

1.  Diner's Drive-ins and Dives - I enjoy this show because he features places that I have a chance to eat at. I travel around the country and will look at the web site to find those places and try out the "funky" dishes. They are more real to me than most of the restaurants featured in other shows.
2.  Chopped - I enjoy the creativity applied by the chefs when faced with the "unique" combinations of ingredients. I try to imagine what I would do with those.
3.  30 minute meals - Yeah, Rachel Ray is overly perky. Yeah, her constant giggles, yummo's, and EVOO's are sickening at times. But, the concept and the recipes are useful and good.
4.  Yan Can Cook - I miss this show. There was a stretch of humor and real cooking involved and I learned a lot from it.

in the last few years, most of the shows where they try to teach you stuff have fallen by the wayside, while it seems that game show type of scenes predominate. I do not care for that trend.