More than just cookery shows

Anoothi Vishal on the new, lifestyle-oriented breed of food shows on TV.

Till a couple of years ago, food shows on the TV essentially meant cookery shows. The format was simple; presentable chefs like Sanjeev Kapoor or Karen Anand would conduct cooking classes in studio kitchens and audiences were expected to follow each step diligently, take down recipes and, hopefully, try these out in their own kitchens later.

There were a few other shows conducted by non-professionals too but even here, the format was essentially the same "" in this case, the TV presenter would go into famous/unique/old kitchens for, what else, a culinary demonstration.

The programmes had a dedicated following, and continue to do so. But in the intervening years, the format has been turned on its head.

"No one wants to see ordinary kitchens anymore... We didn't want to do any tamatar-pyaz show," says Rajiv Bakshi, associate director, marketing and communications, Discovery Networks India. And he is being candid.

Food today has become more about a particular kind of lifestyle than slogging it out in front of a stove and Bakshi admits that such shows on Travel and Living now form the second most important category of programming as far as revenues go.

The shows are deliberately aspirational and give to the viewer much more than an unknown recipe. Instead, many are vehicles to explore exotic cultures, people and geographies.

This, in fact, is a whole new genre "" whether it is a quintessential "road" show going into highway dhabas or the likes of the new Rashmi Uday Singh programme (on Headlines Today) that takes viewers around the world; from Champagne to the Oktoberfest in Germany.

Even when it is not armchair travel but a look at real people on our own streets, the genre remains the same. You only have to watch NDTV India's Vinod Dua on Zaika India, a show that he is reluctant to call a "food show", to agree.

Dua, a foodie, says, "I am a people's person and Zaika is about all the flavours, the sights, the sounds, the people of India, in the interiors and on the streets because this is where I came from."

The programme is decidedly more earthy than anything you see on English-language television (though Times Now's Kunal Vijayakar with The Foodie comes close). The attempt is to go into the streets of cities we know (Delhi and Mumbai, for instance) and bring to fore their vibrancy.

One of the most-talked-about food shows on TV these days also fits into this vibrant travel-food-culture format: Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations on Discovery (T&L) has the best-selling author, New York chef and "culinary adventurer" travelling from Iceland to New Zealand, from Paris to Rajasthan, discovering restaurants and traditions and there is an immediate connect with the audiences.

But what takes the show a notch up is the man himself; his personality and antics. In the Rajasthan episode, for instance, one of the most regaling incidents is not the maharaja's son's party but the astrologer's prediction vis-a-vis Bourdain's marital life "" "never to be good".

Journalist Vir Sanghvi's show on the same channel, A Matter of Taste, one of the only instances of an Indian host in this kind of "aspirational" programming, is similarly personality-driven, especially since the content is already familiar.

The new channel, NDTV Good Times, is doomed to be compared (at the moment unfavourably) to Travel and Living and to my mind, a parallel to Bourdain here is the show French Connection. The format involves a French chef who goes into Indian homes and cooks meals there.

In the episode I caught, chef Alain makes a bouillabaisse, a fish stew from France, for his long-lost friend Manju Mani in Delhi. The two go shopping in Chittranjan Park and then tell us how-to-do-it. Of course, no one really learns anything. But like we said, this is not a pure cookery show. There is a story to be told "" albeit one that bores you to death here. If the chef is stiff, his guests seem even more self-conscious and it makes for terrible TV.

One essential for good television is drama. Tough for a typical food show to incorporate? Not true. The latest trend is marrying reality TV with cuisine. You may have watched this in Gordon Ramsay's Hell's Kitchen (a sort of The Apprentice, if you like), but now, a brand new programme has kicked off this month called Cooking It (on Discovery T&L).

In this, chef Jun Tanaka, who believes that anyone can cook, looks for the worst possible cooks, teaches them and gets them ready for a face-off against professional cooks.

The first episode that I watched "" Jun was coaching an advertising executive who was squeamish about touching fish"" was quite entertaining. If you want local rivalry though, there is the Great Aunty Cook-off, which can be quite hilarious what with Mrs Chadha taking on Mrs Gupta's matar paneer!

Going back to recipe shows, there is a new one that I love to hate. British-Indian chef Manju Malhi on NDTV Good Times seeks to do a Madhur Jaffrey. The problem though with her "" as with Jaffrey "" is that both are eminently unsuitable for Indian television what with their almost-known khana and alien sensibilities.

Malhi, in the episode I watched, taught us to cook chilli con carne and I suspect the rajma-chilli mishmash may have some takers. But to wave a red hot chilli in an Indian kitchen is unlikely to produce the same gasp as in London. Oh, and the accent! This one's not aspirational, just wannabe.