If you’ve reached your hot dog quota for the holiday weekend, you’re in luck.
Just as you began to suspect that you didn’t have enough food-related programming in your life, the Cooking Channel premieres today.
This spawn of the Food Network will take the place of the Fine Living Channel for most cable providers in the area. It seems “fine living” is rather gauche in these times of economic turbulence. You should probably just get back in the kitchen.
Finding that there weren’t enough hours in the day to fit in all the throw-downs and cake competition shows demanded by its audience, the Food Network has created a more mellow, edgier channel for well-traveled foodies interested in things like food origins and cultures.
And it happened just in the nick of time. Fans wondered where their old Food Network had gone after how-to-cook series were replaced with fast-paced competition shows and show hosts became bona-fide celebrities focused more on their egos than on great food.
Saying that the network is “for food people, by food people,” the Cooking Channel appears to be the antidote for those Food Network faithful who grew weary of Paula Deen, Rachael Ray, Guy Fieri and other mainstream personalities.
Based on its show line-up, the Cooking Channel seems to be aimed at a younger, more sophisticated audience than the everyman’s Food Network.
These are people who would rather watch a show about Tuscan cooking with fresh, local ingredients or old standbys like “The Galloping Gourmet” and Julia Child (in a cooking classics block) than watch Sandra Lee sip rum punch, make cupcakes out of Rice Krispies and serve them on a “tablescape.”
The Cooking Channel has new(er) personalities and hopes to draw in intuitive cooks who are interested not only in making a tasty dish, but who recognize that food is part of culture and want to learn more about the science and the sociology behind the recipes.
Shows like “Spice Goddess,” “Exotic Eats,” “French Food at Home,” “Chuck’s Day Off” and “David Rocco’s Dolce Vita” take a decidedly international angle on how-to shows. “Food(ography)” explores the origins of popular dishes.
Later this summer and fall, however, the Cooking Channel threatens to premiere new shows featuring Emeril Lagasse, Rachael Ray and Bobby Flay, which makes you wonder why they would feed such names into a network that’s all about the fresh.
While the Food Network languishes over “The Next Food Network Star,” “Ace of Cakes” and the very sad “What Would Brian Boitano Make?,” the Cooking Channel serves up new shows you may not even know you needed.
For example, who knew that fear of cooking certain types of food was such an epidemic?
Rest easy, phobics. No worries now that you’ve got “Indian Food Made Easy” and “Chinese Food Made Easy.”
What other types of food can they make easy? Answer: “Caribbean Food Made Easy,” set to premiere sometime this summer.
For everyone who never realized their dream of making a taco vending machine, there’s a show called “Food Jammers” where three Canadian guys make food-related contraptions.
For those jonesing for more butter with all this earthy freshness, repeats of the UK’s “Two Fat Ladies” are featured.
And Sandra Lee is nowhere to be found.